I didn’t really know what I wanted to do when I left school. The teacher, Miss Faye, asked me what I would like to do for work and I told her that I would like to be a catwalk and fashion model. ‘Really?’ she said, ‘I don’t think it’s a very good idea, as you would have to go naked to pose for photographs.’ I decided straight away that was a no. I thought no man was supposed to see your body until your wedding night!
After the summer holidays had finished, I would look forward to returning to school to see my best friend Joan and a few others too. That was my life at school and during my teenage years.
Eventually, the time came for all of us to leave school. It was sad and I knew I would miss Joan. We asked Sister Catherine for permission to spend the day together in York and she said yes. We walked around the town and had lunch and got our photo taken at the photo booth. I knew I was going to miss my friends and especially Joan, and we promised to write to each other and visit each other’s home towns for the weekend.
I was glad and sad at the same time to be leaving the school with some good memories. I left school with seven CSEs. My grades were: English – B, Biology – B, Maths – C, Art – B, Cooking – B, History – C, and Typing – C. I did very well and I felt that doing work experience really helped too. I knew exactly what I wanted to do.
It wasn’t long after I left school, at 17 years old, only a couple of months later, that my dear friend Joan wrote me a letter and told me some devastating news. Her mother had died in an explosion in a house. I felt so sorry for her and wanted to be there to comfort her, but we were living so far away from each other and I did not have any money. We continued to write to each other and I promised to visit her.
Growing up in my family was wonderful. I have so many fond and good memories of schooling and holidays. We all were such a close family. My brothers always looked after me and protected me. My parents did their utmost to get me well educated. They didn’t have plenty of money, but I always felt that we were all well off. Our home was quite big and always clean. That was because my mother decorated the house herself and kept it clean. She always did a lot of dressmaking for me and my sister and she knitted jumpers for my brothers. We were always smart.
Leaving school, moving onto the next chapter of my life and growing up and facing this huge hearing world was daunting. Basically I was alone, and trying to figure out what I was going to do about work, money, love and children. It was now I realised that it was up to me to make the best of this, and this changed me forever. I had many obstacles to overcome and barriers I would have to break down.
I was an educated young woman who really wanted to work - so where was the help I needed to find this work? This is something I have battled with all my life. I was starting to lose faith in the world. I stopped wearing hearing aids because I hated them. I put them in a drawer in 1978 and have never worn them since.
We moved to another house, this time very newly built. We did not like it very much and I think my parents realised that they had made a mistake. We only lived there for a year and then we moved again to a bigger, older house, in a much nicer area.
All I wanted to do was to work in an office. I did not think about having to use the telephone. I assumed that not being able to use a telephone would have been an issue. Would I have to go to meetings, and how would I cope if I was supposed to take notes? These were things I would not be able to do. I hadn’t thought about it really. I did want to work in an office, typing on a typewriter, and I thought it couldn’t be that difficult as I had learned to type at school and had some work experience.
Then I discovered the Deaf Club, which used to be a nursery. It was a club for deaf people where we could meet and socialise. It was only one floor and a few toilets. I realised that most of the people I saw there were from Beverley School. I did feel a bit out of place, but I made some friends, and that’s where I met Michael, who was also deaf. I didn’t like him very much at first, but later he became my boyfriend.
I also made friends with a deaf lady called Enid Thompson. Enid said she could offer me some help in getting me a job using sewing machines in a factory. I wasn’t keen about working in a factory but I thought it would be nice to earn some money. My parents were not very keen on me taking on that job, but they did say that if it made me happy then to try it.
After twelve weeks, I hated it! The quicker you worked the more money you earned. It was basically bras and underwear I was working on. I had to attach the hooks onto the backs of the bras - all day, against the clock. You had to write down how many you had done on a ticket to prove how many you had made for the day, so I would try my hardest to work faster.
Sometimes Enid would give me a lift home. Other times, she would invite me to her parents’ house, which was only five minutes away from the factory. When I met her parents for the first time, they made me very welcome and took me into the living room. I was so surprised to see her brother and sisters, who were also deaf, on the floor having their tea! It was chips, baked beans and fish fingers and they had their plates on their knees, AND they were watching the television. I never ever did that at home! It was very strange to see that. I realised that working in the factory was not what I wanted to do. I still dreamed of going to work in an office.
I decided to go to the careers office, where I was very surprised to see the lady using sign language. She was excellent. I soon learned that her fiancé was a qualified British Sign Language interpreter and his parents and sister were all deaf. She had had to learn how to communicate with them all. She told me that she sometimes went to the deaf club and she told me her fiancé’s sister’s name, which I recognised from Beverley School. I asked her for help with getting me an office job, even though I was still working at the factory!
It’s not surprising that she was excellent in giving me advice about how to go about getting an office job. She said that I should go to college and recommended Finchale Training College in Durham. She explained that it was a six-month course and I would be able to improve my typing skills, which would help me to get a job in an office. I had just started having a relationship and didn’t want to be away from my boyfriend, but I decided to go, and thought six months would soon pass quickly and I would come home every weekend.
I was still working at the factory for about another three weeks, and then I saw my parents in the manager’s office.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘Nothing’ said my mother, ‘you have got a place at Durham College, starting Monday.’
The manager said it was fine to go and I worked my last shift on the Friday. I was not sorry to be leaving that factory, but I was sorry to say goodbye to Enid. I thanked her very much for her help.
I had to get the bus from the bus station and I arrived at Durham bus station on a Sunday evening, the day before starting my training at Finchale Training College. I was expecting someone from the college to pick me up, but after waiting for half an hour I was starting to get worried as it was getting dark and I couldn’t use a phone to call the college. What was I going to do?
I remember I kept on walking and thinking I might have to knock on someone’s door and ask for help. I was only seventeen and a half and a bit scared. I remember walking up a path which was very steep, and I had to carry my case up it. I knocked on a door and a young girl opened it. I gave her a piece of paper which had the college’s name, phone number and address. She read the note and kindly let me into the house (I remember thinking my parents always warned me not to speak to strangers, never mind going in someone’s house!)
There were three other young girls in the house. She introduced them to me and said that they were all studying at Durham University and that this house was student accommodation. She then said she was from London and her next-door neighbours were deaf and that she knew a bit of sign language. What a small world, I thought! Immediately, I felt a bit safer. She kindly called the college and let me wait at their house until someone came for me. It’s such a shame tha
t I cannot remember their names. people with disabilities) but it wasn’t really for deaf people, and we didn’t have any interpreter for British Sign Language at the college (at the time there was no equity act for interpreters) and I was not the only deaf person there. However, I did well and made some friends. I did socialise a lot by going to the nearby pubs, although I didn’t drink.
After I had been at college for a few weeks I had made some friends, both deaf and hearing. One early evening while I was in my bedroom, I was reading a magazine when all of sudden I looked up to see a girl waving at me from the window trying to get my attention. My room was on about the third floor! I jumped up and shouted, ‘What are you doing?’
‘Open the door!’ she said. I remember her name was Sylvia and she had managed to climb down from the window using the pipe and run around and up the stairs to my room, where she had waited for me to let her into the bedroom. I did find a piece of paper on the floor near the door which she had written on, but my bed was nowhere near the door and I didn’t see it because the room was L-shaped. I was amazed!
She said that she had been knocking on the door and kept waiting for me to answer, and then she had realised that I couldn’t hear, so she’d had to think of another way to get my attention. ‘Crazy woman you are!’ I said.
She wanted to ask if I would like to come out for a last drink with them, as they were all going home the next day and had finished their last course. It was very dangerous, yet she had climbed that far just to ask me if I wanted to go for a drink!
Sylvia was a right tomboy at the time, but she was a fabulous friend and we got on well. I did make some other deaf friends during my six months at college. I went home every weekend to see Michael and then return to college but I was very glad to go home after six months’ training. I had learned really well how to type and could type at a speed of 65 words per minute. I passed my course.
After I finished college, I went back to the careers office over a four-week period. I saw the same lady who had used sign language when I went originally and she found me employment at the town hall, working on a computer. She made sure that I could work in an office without having to use the telephone and spoke to the employer over a long period of time. She knew exactly what to say to the employer and helped me with the filling in of application forms and speaking to the person in charge of the interview. When I went to the town hall for the interview, I did not have an interpreter and I asked the man and woman who were interviewing me to speak to me slowly and to face me. I felt it went really well and when the interview was about to finish the lady said that 100 people were after this job, but they would send me a letter if they thought I was suitable. Then she took me to the room where all the people were working in the office. I looked around and thought ‘no way will I be able to do this job’. It was not typewriters at all but computers instead! What had I learned at college? Typing! But despite my doubts, I did hope to get the job.
One week later and I received a letter… I got the job! My first ever interview! And it was at Middlesbrough Town Hall!
You have no idea how extremely lucky I was to be able to have someone like this lady at the careers office. She treated me with a deaf person, it made the process a lot easier. But we deaf people cannot live on luck.
On my first day at work I was very nervous and wondered how I was going to learn how to use a computer, but if I wanted to do the job, then I would have to. How was I going to do that? The lady next to me showed me how to use the computer, but she had never met a deaf person before. I believe the supervisors must have told her what to do and she showed me how to use the keyboard. I would literally copy numbers and words from a piece of paper onto the computer. It was difficult at first, but I soon got in the swing of things and I started enjoying my new job at last. I was now working in an office!
One of the supervisors showed me a photograph of a deaf lady who used to work at the same office as me and I recognised her. That was probably why they did not see me as any different.
My relationship with Michael had now been going on for about two and a half years. Michael was living with his Uncle Russ at that time, after Uncle Russ’s divorce, and I would sometimes go up there and stay at his uncle’s house for a few hours, just the two of us. The house was quite nice and was very much like a cottage with an oak ceiling and a huge fire. I would go up sometimes in the evening. I remember one time going up to the house after a long wait for the bus when it was snowing and icy.
Uncle Russ would welcome me into the house and take me into the living room, asking if I was all right, helping me to take off my boots and rubbing my feet by the fire to keep them warm. I was extremely uncomfortable at his approaches while Michael looked on and was not too happy about it! I was warm enough and if there was anything else he could do for me. I would also be invited to stay for dinner there, and sometimes we got on reasonably well.
One evening when his Uncle Russ was out and we had the house to ourselves, Michael took me upstairs to his uncle’s bedroom. He said he wanted to show me something. He said he was suspicious that his uncle was bringing women back to the house, and I thought, well it is his house!
Michael then threw back the bed sheets and I was shocked to see condoms on the bed. I had never seen condoms before and didn’t know what to say. Why hadn’t they been removed, and why was he doing this at his age?
Michael’s auntie too would insist I go to her house for Christmas dinners.
Michael was born deaf because his mother had contracted German measles while she was pregnant with him. She had died when was he was about six years old and his father had never been in his life at all. My parents did not really like Michael very much. They never really had a proper conversation with him, as they could not use British Sign Language, but they felt sorry for him and wanted to welcome him to our family, and we wanted to get married. To help arrange this, Uncle Russ came to my parents’ house one evening and said Michael’s mother had left him £700, which he suggested should be spent on a deposit for a house and solicitors’ fees. We all agreed, but then Uncle Russ put his hand over his mouth and said a few words to my parents while Michael and I looked on, obviously not knowing what he was saying. I still don’t know what he said, but I do remember my parents looking astonished and disgusted. My father then said, ‘I’m sorry, but please do not put your hands over your mouth when you speak to us’. Uncle Russ did not know what the fuss was about and did not like being told that.
Was I deeply in love with Michael? I don’t think I was. I felt sorry for him because he did not have a mother or father and his uncle and aunt had brought him up. I got on fairly well with him and his uncle at first, and he did say I was good for Michael.
CHAPTER THREE
Married Life
We got married at The Holy Name of Mary Catholic Church in Middlesbrough in 1978, and it was a low-key affair. My wedding dress was made by my mother and she also provided the flowers and the wedding cake. Michael’s side of the family attended the church with his aunts and uncles. On my way to the church with my father, I remember him saying to me ‘I hope he will look after you’. I really wanted to tell him that I had changed my mind because I just felt that I wasn’t ready, but I didn’t. There had been a lot of effort and work put into the wedding day, so I didn’t feel that I could now say I had changed my mind!
We bought our own house with the deposit money that Michael’s mother had saved for him. Uncle Russ made sure that Michael used the money wisely.The house was very old; an old lady had moved out of it to live in a nursing home. When we bought it a lot of work needed to be done to it, as all the windows had wooden frames and you had to use ropes between the windows to open them. The two living rooms had different antique fireplaces and one had built-in cupboards, and in the kitchen, which was very basic, there was just a sink and two cupboards. Upstairs in the bathroom there was a Victorian bath, which was not very clean, and the toilet seat was black! There was a square sink and red and cream lino on
the floor, and in the back bedroom the wallpaper was green, and so were the dirty curtains. On the stairs there was a long narrow carpet held down at the edges by fluted brass stair-rods. In the front bedroom there was an antique fireplace and a worn brown carpet, and the hall was decorated with ugly flowered wallpaper.
My father painted all the outside windows of the house and I scraped the wallpaper off. Michael wallpapered the hall, though he made a mess of it, and my mother papered the living room. To make the living room bigger my brother David knocked down the wall himself and Stephen’s friend, who was a joiner, came round to put in a lintel to secure the wall. We paid for someone to fit the bathroom with a new bath, toilet and sink. The very old Victorian bath had black rings all around it and no matter how hard I tried to get rid of it I could not.
We put the bath out in the alley and someone knocked on the door to ask if they could have the taps! We did not understand what the man was trying to say at first. I said ‘I don’t understand you, please say again slowly’.’ Sorry’, said the man, and when he repeated it we understood. We said he could have the taps. We did wonder why he wanted them, because we thought they were ugly.
About a week later the bath was still in the alley, without the taps, and then two men rang the bell and asked if they could take the bath! I understood straight away because he was pointing to the alley. We were more than happy to get rid of it, so the men took it.
While we were busy in the house we did not really get to know any of the neighbours, but then one day an elderly woman from the house on our right opened our front door (I think she must have knocked and waited for a bit before deciding to open it) and brought us a tray of sandwiches and a pot of tea and cups! She even lent us a knife and fork and spoons!
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