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Michael Parkinson: The deaf are discriminated against - Telegraph
Michael Parkinson is still haunted by the isolation experienced by his grandparents, who were both profoundly deaf. The chat-show host says we must all do more to help the hard of hearing.
As a boy growing up in a South Yorkshire pit village, Michael Parkinson would sit and play dominoes with his redoubtable grandparents after school. There was very little else he could share with them – no family anecdotes, no wartime memories, no tales from school – because they were profoundly deaf.
"They had no connection with the outside world," he says. "The sadness was that my grandfather was a fascinating character but you couldn't get to him. They were so cut off by their affliction that my grandmother used to talk to herself. My grandfather would cheat terribly, putting threes against fives, twos against sixes, because she was too busy nattering to herself to notice.
"She'd cry: 'I don't know how he keeps on winning.' And that was about all she said. They had little communication one to the other. Deafness imprisoned them in a silent and solitary world. It was very odd because you were with them but not included in that silent world. My father was always slightly deaf, and became more and more so as time went on. It was a cruel thought, but I remember hoping he would never look like that because I did not want him to be embarrassed. I had a fear that he would be compromised when I wasn't there to help out."
Sir Michael Parkinson's closeness to his father, Jack, a miner, sharpened his sensibility to the stigma of deafness. "It is a very excluding condition, no matter how much you try to integrate. A blind or a disabled person walking into a room commands instant sympathy but a deaf person is at a huge disadvantage. The conspicuous old hearing aids were a kind of declaration that a person was not only deaf but dim as well. Something of that lingers on. The deaf are discriminated against in all sorts of ways. We need to reduce the difficulties they face in their daily lives."
Though he has not inherited the genetic deafness on his paternal side, Parkinson has been brought face to face with the consequences of deafness at intervals all his life. Several of his father's 12 siblings were deaf. In Australia in the Eighties, he wrote a series of children's books called The Woofits for the NSW Institute for Deaf and Blind Children, and has remained a hands-on ambassador for their work with deaf and disturbed children. More recently, when someone close to him was born deaf, he became involved with the Royal National Institute for the Deaf and is promoting their Deaf Awareness Week, which begins today.
One in seven people in Britain suffers from the "invisible disability". Almost nine million are deaf or hard of hearing, and another 2.3 million have mild or moderate deafness. Nearly 42 per cent of the over-50s have some kind of hearing loss. Two million people wear hearing aids and another four million would probably benefit from one. About 840 babies are born deaf each year in the UK, and one in 1,000 is deaf at three years old. Extreme deafness is associated with old age, but most people develop it during their working lives – with all the encroaching limitation that implies.
It is a desperately isolating condition, made worse by society's lack of understanding and the slowness of businesses to adapt. "People with glasses are accepted but there is a stigma attached to hearing aids," says David Runcorn, whose genetic deafness, exacerbated by clay-pigeon shooting when he was young, became a serious disability when he was 54. "People think if you struggle to understand what's being said you are stupid – hence the slogan 'deaf not daft'. On occasions, I have asked someone a question and they have given the answer to my wife. This is annoying and hurtful.
"I've found that when you tell people you are hard of hearing – it's better to say 'deaf' – it just doesn't register. You say: 'Look at me and speak slowly.' They don't. Even those who should know better. In hospital recently, a doctor looked at my notes and turned away as she spoke. I couldn't hear a word. There is a long way to go in educating people."
Just how far is highlighted by the RNID in its multi-pronged campaign to normalise life for the deaf, at work and at play. It is an affront to basic courtesy, and woeful customer relations, that banks, building societies, post offices and other public places advertise induction loop systems that either don't work or aren't switched on. A common experience is that if the loops are turned off, the person behind the glass screen has no idea – much less interest in – how to turn them on.
The blizzard of incomprehensible announcements at airports and train stations is literally painful for deaf people. Without visual information, they are lost. Few cinemas bother with subtitles. The National Theatre is exceptional in its dedication to caption performances and sign-language interpreters, but only a handful of other theatres makes regular provision for the hard of hearing.
"Every business can and should do simple but vital things to make the lives of people who are deaf or hard of hearing easier," says Chris White of the RNID.
The charity is leading a campaign to save and extend lip-reading classes. In some areas, there are no classes at all. In others, fees are rising and classes closing because people cannot afford them. Some that were either free or a token £10 a term have increased to £200 for a 30-week course. If ever there was a case for a countrywide free service, funded by local authorities, it must be this.
"These classes mean more to people than simply lip-reading," says Runcorn. "They also function as a support group. We can joke about our shortcomings and difficulties and so feel less isolated. In my lip-reading class, I have seen people in tears of frustration."
This year, the RNID is launching new research into the effect of hearing loss on relationships. The strain of becoming chief interpreter for a deaf partner, of not being able to enjoy the cinema, theatre or lectures together, and of watching your once vibrant social life shrink to suppers with two understanding friends, can be acute.
It cost Jeanette Wright, who became deaf after a sinus infection when she was only 33, her marriage and most of her friends. After two years locked away in self-pity, she went on to train as a sign-language teacher and start a new life as a deaf awareness instructor with her own company. This year she is delivering deaf awareness training at Buckingham Palace; last year it was Windsor Castle.
"Sometimes the dark makes the world a lonely place," she admits, "because it's only in the light that I can communicate. But the only things I really miss, 24 years on, are music and the sound of my grandsons laughing. They are both trying to learn sign language with me.
"The other week, we went to see Dreamboats and Petticoats with stage text. It was great. I could laugh along with the hearing people without feeling stupid, because I knew what everyone else was laughing at."
Like many deaf people, Wright, who lives in Colchester, developed a pride in her condition. She was told that a cochlear implant might help, but she didn't want one. "The only real problem," she says, "is people who aren't deaf-aware who tend to ignore you out of fear or embarrassment. And happily, it's my job to train them to communicate with me."
Michael Parkinson is supporting Deaf Awareness Week (RNID.org.uk), which runs until July 4.
Michael Parkinson is still haunted by the isolation experienced by his grandparents, who were both profoundly deaf. The chat-show host says we must all do more to help the hard of hearing.
As a boy growing up in a South Yorkshire pit village, Michael Parkinson would sit and play dominoes with his redoubtable grandparents after school. There was very little else he could share with them – no family anecdotes, no wartime memories, no tales from school – because they were profoundly deaf.
"They had no connection with the outside world," he says. "The sadness was that my grandfather was a fascinating character but you couldn't get to him. They were so cut off by their affliction that my grandmother used to talk to herself. My grandfather would cheat terribly, putting threes against fives, twos against sixes, because she was too busy nattering to herself to notice.
"She'd cry: 'I don't know how he keeps on winning.' And that was about all she said. They had little communication one to the other. Deafness imprisoned them in a silent and solitary world. It was very odd because you were with them but not included in that silent world. My father was always slightly deaf, and became more and more so as time went on. It was a cruel thought, but I remember hoping he would never look like that because I did not want him to be embarrassed. I had a fear that he would be compromised when I wasn't there to help out."
Sir Michael Parkinson's closeness to his father, Jack, a miner, sharpened his sensibility to the stigma of deafness. "It is a very excluding condition, no matter how much you try to integrate. A blind or a disabled person walking into a room commands instant sympathy but a deaf person is at a huge disadvantage. The conspicuous old hearing aids were a kind of declaration that a person was not only deaf but dim as well. Something of that lingers on. The deaf are discriminated against in all sorts of ways. We need to reduce the difficulties they face in their daily lives."
Though he has not inherited the genetic deafness on his paternal side, Parkinson has been brought face to face with the consequences of deafness at intervals all his life. Several of his father's 12 siblings were deaf. In Australia in the Eighties, he wrote a series of children's books called The Woofits for the NSW Institute for Deaf and Blind Children, and has remained a hands-on ambassador for their work with deaf and disturbed children. More recently, when someone close to him was born deaf, he became involved with the Royal National Institute for the Deaf and is promoting their Deaf Awareness Week, which begins today.
One in seven people in Britain suffers from the "invisible disability". Almost nine million are deaf or hard of hearing, and another 2.3 million have mild or moderate deafness. Nearly 42 per cent of the over-50s have some kind of hearing loss. Two million people wear hearing aids and another four million would probably benefit from one. About 840 babies are born deaf each year in the UK, and one in 1,000 is deaf at three years old. Extreme deafness is associated with old age, but most people develop it during their working lives – with all the encroaching limitation that implies.
It is a desperately isolating condition, made worse by society's lack of understanding and the slowness of businesses to adapt. "People with glasses are accepted but there is a stigma attached to hearing aids," says David Runcorn, whose genetic deafness, exacerbated by clay-pigeon shooting when he was young, became a serious disability when he was 54. "People think if you struggle to understand what's being said you are stupid – hence the slogan 'deaf not daft'. On occasions, I have asked someone a question and they have given the answer to my wife. This is annoying and hurtful.
"I've found that when you tell people you are hard of hearing – it's better to say 'deaf' – it just doesn't register. You say: 'Look at me and speak slowly.' They don't. Even those who should know better. In hospital recently, a doctor looked at my notes and turned away as she spoke. I couldn't hear a word. There is a long way to go in educating people."
Just how far is highlighted by the RNID in its multi-pronged campaign to normalise life for the deaf, at work and at play. It is an affront to basic courtesy, and woeful customer relations, that banks, building societies, post offices and other public places advertise induction loop systems that either don't work or aren't switched on. A common experience is that if the loops are turned off, the person behind the glass screen has no idea – much less interest in – how to turn them on.
The blizzard of incomprehensible announcements at airports and train stations is literally painful for deaf people. Without visual information, they are lost. Few cinemas bother with subtitles. The National Theatre is exceptional in its dedication to caption performances and sign-language interpreters, but only a handful of other theatres makes regular provision for the hard of hearing.
"Every business can and should do simple but vital things to make the lives of people who are deaf or hard of hearing easier," says Chris White of the RNID.
The charity is leading a campaign to save and extend lip-reading classes. In some areas, there are no classes at all. In others, fees are rising and classes closing because people cannot afford them. Some that were either free or a token £10 a term have increased to £200 for a 30-week course. If ever there was a case for a countrywide free service, funded by local authorities, it must be this.
"These classes mean more to people than simply lip-reading," says Runcorn. "They also function as a support group. We can joke about our shortcomings and difficulties and so feel less isolated. In my lip-reading class, I have seen people in tears of frustration."
This year, the RNID is launching new research into the effect of hearing loss on relationships. The strain of becoming chief interpreter for a deaf partner, of not being able to enjoy the cinema, theatre or lectures together, and of watching your once vibrant social life shrink to suppers with two understanding friends, can be acute.
It cost Jeanette Wright, who became deaf after a sinus infection when she was only 33, her marriage and most of her friends. After two years locked away in self-pity, she went on to train as a sign-language teacher and start a new life as a deaf awareness instructor with her own company. This year she is delivering deaf awareness training at Buckingham Palace; last year it was Windsor Castle.
"Sometimes the dark makes the world a lonely place," she admits, "because it's only in the light that I can communicate. But the only things I really miss, 24 years on, are music and the sound of my grandsons laughing. They are both trying to learn sign language with me.
"The other week, we went to see Dreamboats and Petticoats with stage text. It was great. I could laugh along with the hearing people without feeling stupid, because I knew what everyone else was laughing at."
Like many deaf people, Wright, who lives in Colchester, developed a pride in her condition. She was told that a cochlear implant might help, but she didn't want one. "The only real problem," she says, "is people who aren't deaf-aware who tend to ignore you out of fear or embarrassment. And happily, it's my job to train them to communicate with me."
Michael Parkinson is supporting Deaf Awareness Week (RNID.org.uk), which runs until July 4.
