Living in the Hearing World

I joined Robinson’s Sports and Social Club and one of my works colleagues asked me to join in with her group of friends. They turned out to be a great crowd and made me very welcome. We went dancing, played hockey, table-tennis and I joined the Music Club that was run by my friend. I did not hide the fact that I was hearing impaired and that I suffered from night blindness, subsequently I was well looked after when out at night but eventually I stopped going dancing because I found it difficult to cope with the low and flashing lights.


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Jean 

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 Jean with hiking friends



On free days which was usually on a Sunday, I went hiking with friends in the lovely Derbyshire Peak District, sometimes there would be just four of us or as many as ten.  We went camping as well; one holiday that we went on was to Pendeen near St Ives in Cornwall. There were four of us. Enid, Yvonne, Mavis and me. People in the village made us very welcome and one very kind lady made us an enormous Cornish pastie which was delicious.  When we went to the local the first night, we sat outside talking to an elderly man who really enjoyed telling us stories about the old days.  The elderly man was very entertaining; he may have been making the stories up as he went along but he was happy and we enjoyed talking to him.  The next night, we called at the pub again and had a chat with our elderly friend and ordered our glasses of local cider. We stayed outside as it was a lovely evening and there seemed to be a large crowd inside.  There were two groups of young men singing songs and attracting a lot of attention, one group was from Wales and we know that the Welsh have a good reputation for singing, and the other was a group of local young men. During the evening the bartender came out with a round of drinks for us, supplied by the group from Wales, the other group not wanting to be outdone did the same.  Three glasses of local cider each was a bit too much but I was not completely blotto and we did find our tent which was about a mile away! The next day, we went to Penzance and sailed off to the Isles of Scilly, we thought that some fresh sea air would do us good!

We went to the local every night and had a fabulous time but we always had time with the elderly gentleman first who looked forward to seeing us and telling us some more tales of the old days. On our last night there, we were invited to the village dance; they would not listen to us when we explained that we had no suitable attire to wear; they would not take no for an answer. At their request, we took our hiking boots off and danced in our thick yellow socks, needless to say we were not short of dancing partners. At the end of the evening, we could not find our boots and were told to sit in the middle of the dance floor, after a few minutes they gave us our boots; four pair of red boots and all size six and all tied together with numerous knots. The crowd of people there cheered and clapped while we tried to sort them out; it was a wonderful holiday and we had a fabulous time.

I decided to carry on playing hockey for as long as I could and at the time I was playing for Staveley Ladies that played in the Sheffield and District League and Chesterfield Frolics, a mixed team that played friendlies and participated in hockey tournaments.  Having retinitis pigmentosa where night-blindness is one of the main symptoms did place limitations on my social life though I still had my circle of close friends and I will always be grateful to my hockey friends.  Admittedly, there have been times when I found it difficult to follow conversations around me when with a group of friends because of the noise in the background. This made it difficult for me to get involved so I would try and start a one to one conversation with someone nearby.  The hockey crowd would often meet socially for a drink or arrange a party and at Easter would travel to Southend on Sea to take part in a hockey tournament; there was always lots of laughter and fun and I always felt at ease in their company.



I am deaf!

When I was five, I attended Scarcliffe Primary School, I did not make good progress with my school work and was considered to be backward, what to-day would mean that I had learning difficulties. One day a new headmistress arrived and after observing me in class must have noticed that I did not respond to any loud noises made in the classroom and that I did not seem to know when the teacher was talking to the class; she was certain that I was deaf.

I was eight when it was confirmed that I was partially deaf and thus became a pupil at the Maud Maxfield School for the Deaf in Sheffield, Yorkshire. At this school, I was taught to lip-read and was given some speech training as it was called in those days. I can remember standing in front of a large mirror learning how to say individual letter sounds, syllables and eventually to pronounce complete words. Lip-reading, a communication skill where you watch the lips of the person you are talking to, a method that I used along with the bulky and uncomfortable hearing aid that I had to wear, so much different to the digital hearing aids that I wear to-day. The teachers spoke slowly and clearly which enabled me to hear and understand what they were saying. There was no cheating like there was when I was at Scarcliffe Primary School where I would copy off my friends because I did not know what I had to do and because of my deafness I could not follow the lessons but I enjoyed the lessons at my new school.

There has always been a certain stigma surrounding people who are deaf, not so much today but  more so in the old days. If someone is deaf, people tended to think that they were slow or backward but this was not the case as the only problem that the deaf person had was that they could not hear so could not always understand speech. I have heard people when in the presence of a deaf person start to speak louder or even shout because they believed that if they did this, the deaf person would be able to hear them better, this can be so humiliating and could cause anguish. This has happened to me many times especially when I was a little girl. There was one lady who lived in the village who would come very near to me and practically shout down my ear! Why she did not burst my eardrums, I will never know.  When I turn the volume down on my hearing aid the person talking to me would presume that I have turned my hearing aid up because I could not hear them so they would start again, talking much louder!

What is Usher's Syndrome?

Usher's Syndrome is a genetic condition and the main symptons are deafness and sight loss. In my case, it is believed that I have been hearing impaired since birth and the sight loss that is due to retinitis pigmentosa developed during my teens. It is hereditary which means that it can be passed down through the family and for someone to have Usher's Syndrome both parents must be carriers of the affected gene or have the same type of Usher's Syndrome: there are three types. It is a rare disease and very little is known about it. 

Snow, snow, snow,snow!

I cannot remember when we last had snow in November. Some people are comparing this snowfall with 1947 but I keep telling them that there is no comparison. I was only a little girl but I can remember getting up early one morning and seeing the snow nearly half way up the window.

There is a small tree near our window where the birds have been sheltering from the bad weather, I have taken some photographs but I have only seen sparrows whilst my neighbour has seen blue-tits and blackbirds  as well.