Musings of a Village Idiot

An excerpt from "The Village Idiot Diaries" (MM)
Chapter IV (Family influences on communication).


The family is critical on the communication front. Mine were of the old ways, they were ashamed at having a deaf child, there was pro-active and deliberate drives from them to ensure I never learnt sign language, which would have stuck a 'label' on me for all their friends and neighbors to see, social life for them would be a subject of Chinese whispers about them, and their 'burden', it would be life Jim, but probably not as they knew it. My siblings just write things down, although I can lip-read them a lot easier than others obviously. I in turn rejected sign too, I never saw a deaf person, there was no place to learn it, and there was nowhere I could use it, but primarily, because friends would have made my life impossible, I would certainly have been excluded from most things young people did, and suffered ridicule to boot.

I used the hearing aid (The old box type), with an ear-piece you could spot from space, they would cut the wires, whistled behind my back, and laugh as I struggled to find the cause, all sorts, in one job I did, they would fill up a plastic bag with gas, and then ignite it behind my back to see how deaf I really was....so I took that off too, and got a name as the village idiot really, which perversely seemed more acceptable, "What's the time... I feel fine.." had them in stitches, me too when some didn't see the joke.

Only a virtual and depressive breakdown left me with any sense of where to go from there... I had time out after being sacked for not hearing instruction, I was unable to work for a year.... AND I'd become a 'fire hazard' as business was concerned, I did think to wear asbestos clothing, they weren't convinced !

I decided to try and learn some skill to get by, there were no sign classes to be had at all, so that wasn't an option anyway, deaf learnt these things presumably at school, and I was hearing to a degree at school age, although the final 3 years I was winging it.. the fact the hearing loss affected my education, wasn't even noticed when I plummeted from 1st position in my class to last in less than 6 months, I got birched for 'not paying attention'.

I waited in fact 3 years after being declared clinically deaf in both ears, and before a lip-reading class was started up about 5 miles away, a lady had moved to Wales from Nottingham, she had the only class in South Wales as I was aware so I was lucky I suppose. That didn't really work out as a communication option at the time, a few hours with old women mostly, I've nothing against older women lol, but I was still a young man then, and "The Graduate" hadn't been released....lol it was all very 'middle class' in its approach, and no street skills were involved at all. Half time, I was in the corner while they talked amongst themselves.

The second half of the 'lesson' the tutor would be trying to sell me amplified telephones, she had a percentage of sales with, teaching us stupids lip-reading wasn't making her enough money. I didn't manage to convince her, being deaf usually means an amplified telephone is as much use as a chocolate tea pot really.

"Look ! it has LARGE buttons on it too..." I said if it played the moonlight sonata it still wouldn't be a lot of use to me... "Perhaps I can use it as a door - stop ?" She wasn't amused much.

I'd learnt the 'ABC' of sign from a book I read and tried a bit of that at the class, it was stopped straight away, they didn't like it used. It dawned on me such classes couldn't teach already deaf people, it depended a great deal on residual hearing, I had none by then. A conundrum really, to learn lip-reading you had to be hearing first.... but why would hearing people want to lip-read ? Oh well.....

What I have learnt, is what I have picked up myself really, with all it's shortcomings. Any lip-reading learnt, I learnt at the 'coal face' I either got it right, or looked a complete clown really, so a thick skin had to be developed too. There was no point insisting others accommodate me, I had to accommodate them.

I never took the hearing aid off, because 'occasional noise' I picked up avoided me getting run over by buses and cars. Somehow the brain managed to differentiate. THAT worked against too, because as I was deaf, they saw the aid and shouted at me to turn it up a bit, rather pointless, but then they got angry with me thinking I wasn't listening or trying to, there was no point explaining. I was 'hearing only when I wanted to..." which annoyed them no end.

As I am older now it is less, but that seems to be because assumptions are if you are older, then being a little scatty or eccentric and not hearing well, is part of the aging process, well my 'aging' process started at 13 ! The only thing I learnt basically is you are on your own about it, so my life is designed around that, some I win, some I don't. I don't really keep score now. I've some degree of Independence I note a lot of deaf don't, so that seems a fair trade off to me, but 35 years of hard slog isn't for everyone.

I'm going to form a deaf 'Village idiots' society... PLEASE do not offer jokes up to the other aggregate, I'd only get it in the neck... Here, have you heard the one about........ ?