We may not want to talk about the impact that the sweeping hands of time are having on our senses but, as anyone who spent too much of their youth getting their ears buzzed by Radiohead (substitute your over-amplified rock band of choice) can testify, hearing ain’t what it used to be. So why not get ahead of the game and learn British Sign Language? In Rose Ayling-Ellis: Old Hands, New Tricks (BBC One), the deaf actor/Strictly champion/trailblazer tested out her belief that BSL should be taught beyond the hardcore deaf community.
The idea is simple enough. At a retirement village where the residents are all 70 plus and some the other side of 100, failing hearing is a fact of time. So teaching them sign language would be an invaluable communication tool. The first of a two-part report injected a slither of fake jeopardy as Ayling-Ellis’s initial efforts to whip up interest fell at first (sorry) on deaf ears. But this was at heart a touching and feelgood look at how any project that brings people together can foster wellbeing and prompt slumbering grey cells back into action.
The fact that it was BSL at the heart of it became almost secondary as a growing group of students at Hughenden Retirement Village forged new friendships and explored feelings that had been bottled up. As resident Sue discovered, the fact that BSL relies on using facial expressions to emphasise emotions meant that the carefully created social mask we use to protect ourselves began to fade away.
As much as it was an entertaining promo for the benefits of having a working knowledge of sign language, the bigger takeaway was its look at how best we should be tackling our senior years. Care homes and retirement villages that have a working knowledge of BSL are as rare as hen’s teeth, yet here the social benefits rang out loud and clear. At the deaf karaoke night that brought the curtain down on the first half of this inspiring experiment, it was clear that the impact of learning sign language was as emotional as it was educational. As Eric signed Perry Como’s And I Love You So to wife June, who has Alzheimer’s, it wasn’t only the packed room at Hughenden that was tearing up.