Like most people, I’d had a preconceived notion of who or what a “deaf” person was. So, when I was 15 and a mysterious woman came into my school, pulled me from a lesson and told me I’d been mishearing things my entire life, I was confused to say the least. She was an assigned “teacher of the deaf” from South Tyneside council – the seaside area where I grew up just outside Newcastle – and my GP had informed her that I had substantial hearing loss.
I have deaf people in my family – my grandmother’s brother and his children are deaf – but, like many people, I had just thought you were either deaf or you weren’t. It was a very ignorant mindset.
