Wordless
Subtitles on TV, Olympic Opening Ceremony, Dame Evelyn Glennie
We aren’t sports fans, but Sue wanted to catch the opening Olympic ceremonies and so switched over to Sky News for the midnight report on Friday to find no subtitles – not out of sync or misspelt, nothing! I can only imagine that Sky News (whose subs are way behind those provided by BBC News) decided that deaf people aren’t night owls.
Anyway, after five minutes of watching a small picture-in-picture of the highlights – the main picture just showed the outside of the arena – we switched back to BBC1 for words with pictures.
The irony wasn’t clear until I spoke with Kim, who’d watched the whole spectacle, the next morning. The national anthem had been signed by a children’s choir, which, considering that Dame Evelyn Glennie was performing, I would expect. But it’s still pleasing to see inclusion rather than exclusion.
Not to name drop or be a sycophant, but I once interviewed Dame Evelyn for an article I wrote about her and her motorcycle and we conducted the interview by ordinary audio telephone. I mean this wholeheartedly – she is a charming person, very generous with her time and a pleasure to speak with. When I emailed asking if she’d be interested in doing the interview (naturally I explained my interest in hearing issues) Dame E’s PA phoned straight back with the go ahead.
When I asked what was the best day to ride up to meet with them I was told there’d be no need, we’d do it all by phone – I’d speak with her PA who’d lip speak for Dame E to lipread then respond. Dame E and her PA were great and I thoroughly enjoyed talking with them I must mention that Dame Evelyn’s laugh was great and considering what we were experiencing at home, the last thing I’d ever expected was to have a deaf person laugh at something I said on the phone.
All that stuff about silver lined clouds, darkest before dawn and drawing strength from adversity etc. doesn’t help when your life is unravelling at the seams. And I’m not including the above mention of Dame E as that wasn’t why I mentioned her, but inspirational examples of people who’ve overcome life-altering experiences can be a tad annoying when you’re struggling just to get through today.
I did, however, finish that phone call feeling cheerful, less scared of the future and – if I’m honest – a bit choked, because if someone else could adapt their life to their situation then there had to be hope for us. I’m anxious about making this next comment as I don’t want to appear some new age guru type, tree hugging, love child emotion expert (which I’m none of, just not a pessimist); being unable to hear doesn’t change the person you wanted to be with, we just have to be more helpful than we may have expected.