Leisure

This is an area of life that may be very adversely affected by the onset of deafness. It depends on how you spend your leisure time and what your hobbies and interests are. Some may be unaffected. If you are a keen outdoor person many pursuits, like rambling and gardening, will not really change much. If you enjoy sports many activities can be continued with some adjustments. For example a deafened person who was a keen potholer and caver simply stopped being the lead person - it was more sensible to be in the middle so that the person in front and behind could readily get his attention if communication was needed.

There are other ways of spending leisure time that will be badly affected by deafness. If you spend a lot of time listening to music you will be faced with a keen sense of loss. You can look for new pursuits and ways to engage your time and interest, or you can find ways and means of enjoying old pursuits, even music - some deafened people continue to play or even take up playing musical instruments. Although they cannot hear them well they can feel the vibrations. The charity, Music and the Deaf (see Factsheet 1, Section a) exists to develop musical appreciation for people of all ages. You may think painting and drawing is not for you but have you ever tried your hand at this? You may have hidden artistic talents.

Theatres

Many theatres make their performances accessible to deaf audiences by providing captions on or beside the stage. A highly skilled operator ensures that words appear on the caption box at precisely the same moment as they are spoken or sung by the actor on the stage. This service was originally, and continues to be, provided by STAGETEXT, a registered charity, but many theatres have now installed their own equipment. The Royal Shakespeare Company, for example, provides captions for a selection of their shows in Stratford-upon-Avon, in London, and on tour. A programme of forthcoming captioned performances is published on the Internet.

See Factsheet 1, Section a, for details.

Theatres also may provide loops for use with a hearing aid or a wireless infra red system using headphones, headset or stethoset. These need to be booked when booking tickets.

Films

The number of subtitled films shown in cinemas used to be disappointingly small, apart from foreign language films, meaning that deafened people missed out on most major blockbusters. However, the development of a digital subtitling system has gone some way to solving the problem. Previously, only captions which had been burnt on to the film could be shown. This required a special print of the film, but it could be shown on standard projection equipment, in any cinema. Now, however, it is possible to record subtitles on a disk, and project them over the top of a normal film. No special print of the film is needed, but the cinema does have to be equipped with the necessary equipment. A growing number of cinemas in the UK have installed these systems. Details of subtitled films can be found at: http://www.yourlocalcinema.com.

Libraries

Many libraries now lend out subtitled DVDs. The services available will vary with different Local Authorities but in some case subtitled DVDs may be even be free to people who have a hearing loss, so it is worth asking what DVD services are available.

Visiting Places of Interest

Many places of interest, such as English Heritage properties and some museums and galleries, now provide printed scripts to supplement audio cassettes and spoken guided tours. It’s worth asking if these are available.

These leisure facilities are all service providers and therefore come under the DDA, so they should gradually all become more accessible to deafened people and provide reasonable facilities.

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