Facebooking – at last

Access to lipreading and signing classes

“Oh my God Tony Long is on Facebook. Brilliant” and two kisses as well. The writer, Nicky, was right to be surprised as the last time we’d spoken about FB I’d been less than enthusiastic. A group of us were sat around the tents at the end of a busy day wandering around a bike show.

Some of us had even sipped alcoholic beverages and the conversation had reached that silly stage – not for the first, and certainly not the last, time. What was new was a slurred voice informing us that he had to update his FB page to tell his friends he was going to bed. After discussing the whats and whys I said “but why, I’m a friend and I can look out my tent and see you’re in bed?” Or I can just have listen to the snores.

I finally joined FB to access the Hearing Link page and I‘m pleased I did as I’ve learnt a lot from friends (or are they followers?) comments. I was also surprised to read some of the comments about lipreading.

My hearing is fine, so I wouldn’t dare respond to any of the comments, but I hope I’ll be forgiven for saying that Sue’s self-developed lipreading benefited from tuition and that I think signing is marvellous, but it’s hard to find a BSL’r in everyday life. I won’t ask forbearance when I make this statement – I think all who are either born Deaf or become deafened should be given free access to lipreading and BSL automatically. Are those who can’t see given a white stick and turned out onto the street? Feel free to criticize me for that question. Although I mean no offence to folk with sight loss, I expect some will be taken.