大象传媒

“This is 5 Live Sport. Listen on 大象传媒 Sounds.”

Steve Crossman: Do not adjust your radios. That was quite deliberate. All will be revealed. Bear with us. So we're having quite the sporting summer, right?

Commentary: It's going to be gold for Keely Hodgkinson. She is the Olympic champion. Silver has turned into gold here in Paris tonight.

Commentary: Trent Alexander-Arnold puts the ball on the spot. [Unclear name 0:00:29.1] waits. Up he comes and drives it in, and England are through.

Steve Crossman: But to thousands of people in the UK, Keely Hodgkinson's glorious gold in the 800m at the Olympics in Paris sounded different.

[Cochlear implant audio: It's going to be gold for Keely Hodgkinson. She is the Olympic Champion. Silver has turned into gold here in Paris tonight.]

Steve Crossman: To many more, Trent Alexander-Arnold's winning penalty sounded like this. [Silence]. In radio, we call that dead air. It's the absence of all sound. I know it's uncomfortable. It feels instinctively wrong, like something has gone wrong. For the next hour, we're going to meet people who live in a world where sound is either totally absent or mostly absent as we explore the lives of elite athletes who are part of the non-hearing world. They're not uncomfortable. They don't want fixing; they don't need fixing. They just live in a different place. So from 大象传媒 Radio 5 Live, this is The Quiet Place. I'm Steve Crossman. [Music plays]. We'll tell the inspirational stories of many great deaf athletes.

Dr Gerry Hughes: It's important to understand how the sea behaves. If you hit a wave at the wrong angle, it's essentially could be a goodbye.

Derrick Coleman: Hi guys. My name is Derrick Coleman. I'm the first deaf, hard of hearing, Super Bowl champ. World champion, world champion.

Steve Crossman: We'll address fears and frustrations.

Lisa Young: If Nathan goes and breaks the record, who would know? They didn't get an MBE or an OBE for it? To watch your child to fear for their life, that is not acceptable.

Nathan Young: The way I look at things now is I won't be at the next Deaflympics if we don't get support from the government.
Steve Crossman: We will show you what deaf people who can hear actually hear.

Professor Ángel de la Torre: It is the first time. I have never been asked before. Not newspaper or radio or TV. I feel really happy and proud about this.

Steve Crossman: And we'll discover why not one of the people that we have spoken to would change their world.

Ian Holloway: I'm just thinking about you not being able to hear the sea lapping on the shore, and she went, 'Ah, but can you see the diamonds dancing on the water?'

Steve Crossman: Hello from West Yorkshire, from a muddy track, from a big farmhouse, some big gates in front of us with two of the county's famous white roses just looking back at us. I will explain why we're here in just a moment. First, though, I feel like it's important to say we've never really tried to explore a subject like deafness on radio, on this scale certainly, for obvious reasons, I guess: it's radio. We would not have dreamt of attempting to do anything like this without making sure that deaf people can experience it. So The Quiet Place is accessible in a number of ways. We've got social media videos, all of which are signed. You can find them on Twitter. We're at 5 Live Sport. On our website, bbc.co.uk/sport. We've written an article there about some of the key contributors that we've spoken to. If you search 大象传媒 Sport, The Quiet Place, the whole programme is signed and transcribed there as well, so you can read it start to finish like a short story. It's a story that starts like all good stories here at a luxury cat hotel in Dewsbury. Hi, is that Phil? It's Steve from 5 Live.

Phil Ounsley: Hi Steve, gate is open for you.

Steve Crossman: Thanks, fella.

Jodie Ounsley: To us, it's the norm, but to everyone else, it's a bit crazy coming here.

Steve Crossman: This is the Ings, home to a lot of pampered cats and to Jodie Ounsley, probably Britain's most famous deaf athlete, although you might know her by a different name.

Commentary: [Gladiator theme Music plays} , another thumper that came in from Fury. [Music plays]. Brooks is out to try and score again, but this is Fury's game. There is no better tackler out there.

Steve Crossman: You do just love smashing people, don't you?

Jodie Ounsley: I do, I do. I don't know what it is. I love rugby. Even being a little kid, I've just always been aggressive and getting stuck into contact stuff. So in terms of gladiators, I were just in my element. I absolutely loved it.

Phil Ounsley: Like lambs to the slaughter. A professional rugby player who's probably known for being quite a physical player at elite level.

Steve Crossman: That's Jodie's dad, Phil. Her mum Jo is with us too.

Jo Ounsley: Hi.

Phil Ounsley: Hello. Welcome.

Steve Crossman: The four of us, a big kitchen table, and as is custom in this part of the world, a borderline intravenous drip of locally sourced hot drinks.

Jo Ounsley: We're proper Yorkshire people here. You're welcome anytime for a cup of Yorkshire tea.

Jodie Ounsley: Yes, we've got plenty. Never run out of stock.

Steve Crossman: Jodie's played professional rugby union for England Sevens, for Sale, for Exeter Chiefs too, all at the top level, and all of that despite being born profoundly deaf.

Jodie Ounsley: It were definitely things like rugby that helped me. It almost threw me in the deep end. Even doing my first rugby session, I nearly backed out because I'd obviously been trying to persuade my parents to try rugby for months and months, and then it came to the moment where my dad let me do it. We got my scrum cap, got some new boots, found a club, went to the club and then in the car park, I was just that nervous to get out, I just said, 'Can we go home and just forget about it?' Obviously I pushed myself to do it. I saw some girls and they took me down to the field and we started the session. That in itself did a lot. It forced me to speak to people. So I think that's where the confidence gradually built from there.

Steve Crossman: until Jodie pulled on an England shirt for the first time and felt ready to do this.

Jodie Ounsley: Well, it's funny because when I turned up, everyone were amazing, everyone were so welcoming, everyone was so lovely, but it was a massive elephant in the room. Not a single person mentioned anything about being deaf, my cochlear implant, anything like that. I think it were just because they were too nervous of saying something wrong or offending me, but funny enough, the coach set us this team bonding thing where we had to come up with a presentation and talk about our rugby journey to where we've got now. So I thought that were perfect time to be like, well, I'll obviously talk a bit about my deafness whilst I talk about my rugby stuff. Straight afterwards, people were just asking about it, and then from that moment on, they were so amazing in terms of wanting to understand and raise their own awareness and help me within the rugby set-up and England set-up to make things a bit easier for me. Yes, just by bringing up the topic and talking about it did wonders, so I think that's the biggest thing these days, just talking about it and normalising it and raising that awareness, and people feel comfortable to not say the wrong thing.

Steve Crossman: Those words again, profoundly deaf.

Phil Ounsley: We didn't really know what that meant. So we arranged for a meeting with a medical staff, and we took three things from this meeting about having hearing loss: that she probably wouldn't be able to speak, she'd struggle in education and her job prospects would be bleak. We still remember that now, don't we?

Jo Ounsley: Yes.

Phil Ounsley: Twenty-three years later, we were absolutely gutted about it.

Jo Ounsley: I always get emotional about it, too, speaking. 'We're so sorry. Jodie's profoundly deaf. Here's a leaflet.' That moment in time, you're just sat there, and you just think, what do we do? Who do we speak to? What advice? It was so bizarre. I remember that night we were just laid in bed and little Jodie were just laid there with us, and we were just looking at you and just thinking, she can't hear anything, she can't hear the soothing voice of her mum and dad. It's just like you're thinking, this is just a new world that we need to start understanding.

Phil Ounsley: Those three things we were told: education, speech and job prospects, we know none of those things are true. She's even developed a Yorkshire accent.

Jo Ounsley: People just don't get how come you're profoundly deaf and you've got a Yorkshire accent?

Jodie Ounsley: That's biggest thing..

Jo Ounsley: Yes, that is what you were - people ask you all the time, isn't it?

Phil Ounsley: Who wouldn't want one? It were a difficult time, but it's sometimes good to go back to those dark times to see how far she's come.

Steve Crossman: Yes, we should probably explain the accent and the fact that we're having a conversation here. Jodie is deaf. She can also hear. She has a cochlear implant. It's an electronic device. Looks like a normal hearing aid, but it's got a wire that connects to a round detachable processor on the side of her head. Then that is connected to a surgical implant under her skin. Simply put, it allows people with severe or total hearing loss to hear better. Nowhere near perfectly, and we'll show you exactly how it sounds shortly, but it brings a window into the hearing world and for us, into the non-hearing world.

I think you're probably going to blow all of our minds now because you very kindly offered to help us understand a little bit about what it's like for you when the sound processor, which is part of your cochlear implant, is turned off.

Jodie Ounsley: It's not even like it's quiet because you can be in a quiet room and it's a quiet and you're at peace. It's just empty. It's quite peaceful at times, especially when you just want to be in your own little world. Everything's happening around you, but you're just with yourself and your own thoughts, which is it's comforting. I find a lot of comfort in it, and especially when I'm scared as well, I take it straight off. [Jodie takes off her cochlear implant] So I've got it off now. I can't hear myself talk, but I can feel my voice in my throat. My throat's vibrating, but at the same time I don't know how high or low I'm speaking. So I'm a bit like, am I speaking really low? Am I speaking loud? I don't know how I'm talking. When I'm thinking stuff, I'm thinking it, but then sometimes I feel like I miss what I'm saying because I don't know if I've said it out loud, or if I've thought it, but apart from that, I'm just in my own little world.

Steve Crossman: Thank you. That's amazing. It's like your silent world, isn't it?

[Jodie put her cochlear implant back on]

Jodie Ounsley: Yes. I don't know if I was shouting then or not.

Steve Crossman: No. You were normal, normal. What happens when it gets a whack?

Jodie Ounsley: It's all right. That's why I have to wear my head guard. That's number one rule. I don't play rugby if I don't wear my head guard. Obviously, that's always going to be a risk, but that was my responsibility, and I knew that from the start. I'd rather have the experiences that I did, knowing that.

Phil Ounsley: The number of times I've seen Jodie play rugby, pick a ball up and run the length of the field to score a try, only to turn around and see that everybody's stood down the other side of the pitch, and he'd blown his whistle, and she hadn't picked up on it and she'd carried on running.

Jodie Ounsley: It's an awkward walk back.

Phil Ounsley: Forrest Gump all the way down. Scores a try and then the long, lonely walk back again.

Jo Ounsley: Got a couple of cards for that, haven't you? Ref thinking you were just ignoring him.

Phil Ounsley: At Twickenham…

Jodie Ounsley: Biggest one were at Twickenham. So it were the first time I played a game with a lot of people, background noise in the crowd and stuff. So in this particular moment, I just did not hear the whistle being blown and he were blowing his whistle, so I carried on, carried on, and he just thought I were being rude and arrogant and ignoring him. Next minute sent off. I learned my lesson to make people aware. So every time I do a game, I just mention it. The referee was mortified afterwards when he realised. He felt so bad, but it wasn't his fault because he obviously wasn't aware. So it's not like he was aware. Yes, we laugh about it now, but at the time it were like, what have I been sent off for?

Phil Ounsley: Minor things make big differences to you, don't they?

Jodie Ounsley: The smallest little adjustments do go a long way. I really noticed that when I was in Gladiators and stuff, and even before I'd even stepped foot into the arena or training, all the producers and crew had deaf awareness training workshops. I noticed straight away when I went in, just people were just very open and aware and just not awkward about it. It was just a normal conversation. The three, two, one countdown was a visual cue and different lights for when it's going to stop and start. It were a bright white light, so I knew that visual one was like, right, the game stopping. Then obviously for games that are more up in the air, I can't hear the people who were down on the floor with a microphone, and they were great. They said, 'Right, let's come up with an idea. Let's get these big sheets of paper, write big text on it and then hold it up next to the camera.' So literally stuff like, 'Fury, pause now.'

Jo Ounsley: Although I did notice and it showed up more on TV on closeups, you'd come down, take your helmet off and your processor's just shot off in your helmet, quickly scurrying it back on. Processor back on your ear before you start getting interviewed.

Jode Ounsley: Yes, I think there were one where I'd come off Duel and it shot off in the helmet and then referee was helping me put it back on. Just sometimes it easily dislodges, especially when you're jumping down from stuff. I were putting it on as I were walking past the presenter already having a conversation, and then he came straight to me and asked me the question, and I think I probably missed half of the question but just answered. No, they're all great though. You have loads of those moments. We've been at times at swimming parks or whatever, and obviously it's really loud in there, but I don't have my implant on, and I'd love to have one day just to experience what it's like and just see what the difference would be. It would be really interesting.

Steve Crossman: We're actually heading to the pool in a moment. Before we do, a mention for San Cecilio University Hospital in Granada, Spain, and their amazing project, which has made it possible for us to play sound to you in a way that mirrors the way that deaf people with cochlear implants experience it.

Professor Ángel de la Torre: That's right. It is the first time. I have never been asked before, not newspaper, radio or TV. I feel really happy and proud about this.

Steve Crossman: Professor Ángel de la Torre led the project. We spoke for an hour about spectral channels, noise reduction electrodes and neural ends. He loves this topic. He can't stop himself talking about it.

Professor Ángel de la Torre: It is like Spanish football. I have always the ball.

Steve Crossman: But as the professor says himself…

Professor Ángel de la Torre: The work of the teacher is making difficult things easier. Teachers who make difficult, easy things are usually bad teachers.

Steve Crossman: Amen. He travelled Europe. He worked with Microsoft. He and his team, these four scientists, created a simple piece of software that can take any sound file, like this one.

Commentary: That chunky European Championship trophy and Spain are about to hold it aloft.

Steve Crossman: and convert it to let you experience what it's like to have the implant.

Commentary: [Cochlear implant audio: That chunky European Championship trophy and Spain are about to hold it aloft.]

Steve Crossman: So we're taking this chance to hear, as some deaf people hear, and every so often will dip back into it to remind us. You can use the software, too. Professor de la Torre wants the world to use it. You can find it and more of his work in the field at the San Cecilio University Hospital. If you just search cochlear implant simulation ugr, it should be the top link.

Professor Ángel de la Torre: I'm very grateful to 大象传媒 to pay attention to it. This is a way to reach a lot of people.

Steve Crossman: Welcome poolside. We are at the British Deaf Swimming Championships held in a beautiful pool here at Loughborough University. There are huge posters of some British swimming greats. These guys are tantalisingly out of reach for all of the athletes here today, and actually, I mean that in a literal sense, because organisers can only actually afford to hire half the pool. The other half is a public swimming session, so floats, armbands, parents, toddlers, kids to the right, the best deaf swimmers in the UK off to the left.

Nathan Young: So you know how you get medals and stuff?

Steve Crossman: Yes, yes, yes.

Nathan Young: So you get a medal and then you get a trophy for the 100s and the 200s.

Steve Crossman: Nathan Young is Britain's fastest deaf swimmer. He's a national champion more than 20 times over. He doesn't even know the actual number because he's lost count.

Nathan Young: Such a pain, isn't it, trying to carry all these plaques.

Competitor: So you had that one four years in a row.

Nathan Young: Have I?

Steve Crossman: When he opens his boot, they practically fall out.

Competitor: So you've got to go and pay for the plaque.

Steve Crossman: So how many plaques have you got with you?

Nathan Young: Four.

Competitor: I've got the other one. The hundred breast.

Nathan Young: Oh, yes, yes so I've got all the four and you've got the last one.

Competitor: Yes.

Nathan Young: No offence, but I'm probably going to get two of them again.

Competitor: Yes.

Steve Crossman: He's not short of confidence and he's not short of admirers. He's not even in the building, and one of his fellow competitors appears to compare medals. Yes, it's not a close competition, but then for anybody in the pool with Nathan, you are up against the tide, and he is the tide. He belongs in the water.

Nathan Young: It's like a second home to me. Obviously, I've grown up around there. It saved me in a sense, too. I definitely feel at home when I'm in the pool and obviously I can't hear, and I've got my implants out. Yes, I love it.

Steve Crossman: You know when you said it feels like it saved you?

Nathan Young: I was diagnosed at quite a young age, at the age of four. I was very embarrassed about being deaf, and I was in a bad place. It's not like living a normal life and trying to navigate being a deaf person in a hearing world. Coming to this GB swimming club, I realised that I wasn't the only deaf person. I used to have long hair, just to cover my hearing aids. When I got the inplant at 15 I saw everyone around me not hiding their implants. So basically they weren't hiding who they are. It gave me that sense of pride. I'm not changing anytime soon, and this is what I've got to live with the rest of my life, and I should be proud to be deaf, and I definitely wouldn't change it. Obviously, with the swimming side of things, I would never have been able to do all this and travel the whole world side to the other side without being deaf. So looking back now, I would definitely never change anything and not want to change anything in the future.

Steve Crossman: Nathan's the big attraction here. He's a Deaflympic bronze medal winner. Did you know there is a Deaflympics? Did you know it's older than the Paralympics?

Nathan Young: An amazing experience, and I've got the medal up on my wall, and I'll go into schools and talk about my experience, and I always bring that medal with me. I think it can inspire lots of other people.

Steve Crossman: Okay, so racing block here. So we're in lane three.

Nathan Young: I think this is a big issue, the lack of awareness at what it's like to be a deaf swimmer when entering the water. When I was younger, I used to get tapped on the shoulder and I'd be left on the block and hundreds of people in the crowd and the embarrassment of having to do that race on your own. Apparently, my mum was crying in the stands because everyone was just clapping for me. I think she wasn't crying because she was proud of me. She was crying because of the embarrassment that she felt for me having to do that race and go through that experience. Took me a long time to get over that. After the race, I could go and meet you round there.

Steve Crossman: I don't mind, mate. If you need to crack on, crack on. Yes, I forgot he was here to defend those British titles. So whilst he nipped off to get ready for his race, I sat down with his mum, Lisa.

Lisa Young: We remember his first time watching the deaf team receive their kits as they were just about to head to Russia to compete. That literally opened Nathan's world to the world of swimming. It came at a really good time because Nathan had been withdrawn from school. He had nothing. We came to Loughborough to compete at the GB Championships. Even before they raced, watching Nathan socialise with other deaf swimmers and we were at one side of the pool, he's the other with all the competitors, and he didn't look isolated. He wasn't alone and they were all the same, and that, for parents of a deaf child that really thought he had no future, gave him a future. To watch your child, to fear for their life, to be bullied because they're different from other people, that is not acceptable. He wanted to one day go to the Deaflympics himself, he wanted to wear a GB kit, and he wanted to stand on that block to represent GB.

Steve Crossman: So Nathan is just on the block now.

Starter: On your marks.

Steve Crossman: Okay, Nathan's swim gives me time to explain something. Olympic and Paralympic athletes get hundreds of millions of pounds worth of government funding. Deaf athletes get nothing to train, nothing to travel, nothing to compete. They get nothing at all. That's why they're racing in half a pool. That's why Nathan pays to get his name printed on his trophies and plaques year after year. Like the other major competitions, the Deaflympics takes place once every four years, and this year it turns 100 years old. That means the next games in Tokyo will be this special commemorative and historic event. Athletes from Japan and a number of other nations, including Ukraine, they are fully funded, so they'll arrive with all of the kit, but we don't fund our deaf athletes.
Lisa Young: He's done it alone, and knowing he comes from a country that doesn't even acknowledge a deaf swimmer, he's still asking that simple question, 'Give me fairness. Give me equality.' It has got to change. An entire disability from a young baby and being born deaf to the oldest athletes who were once Deaflympians that never received acknowledgement and still don't to this day, but it's those athletes that saved my son. I believe that that's what Nathan will do for future Deaflympians, and Nathan will say it to you he loves being deaf, he's so proud to be deaf. We just need the government and national governing bodies to acknowledge that too.

Steve Crossman: That is the sound of Nathan Young winning yet another British championship, but doesn't it deserve to sound like this?

Commentary: Now coming clear to win the title. Calum Gilmore set the standard in the first heat, but here, Nathan Young, look at him go. Fantastic swim. Wins the event in some style.

Lisa Young: If Nathan goes and breaks a record, who would know? We had swimmers that went to Deaflympics and won gold medals. They didn't get an MBE or an OBE for it. They didn't even get a well done.

Steve Crossman: Every day for the last 1200 days, Nathan has tweeted various bodies who play a part in funding, like the government, specifically the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Sport England who do fund grassroots deaf sport but not elite deaf sport, UK Sport who dish out the funding, and the National Lottery. Twelve hundred days. He's barely had any replies. The National Lottery account actually blocked him once. Seriously. Then they apologised.

Nathan Young: The point in this whole campaign where I went right, this needs to change is when I went to World Championships in Sao Paulo, Brazil. There was only one athlete, which was myself, that ended up going just because of the financial strain. So for a lot of swimmers, that was the end of their swimming careers because a lot of them finished uni and had to go on to get jobs and they couldn't continue the sport they love.

Steve Crossman: How do you find the motivation, one to keep going and to keep putting that pressure on?

Nathan Young: Because the sport's done so much for me, I'm trying to give back for all these other deaf children that may come into the sport. I look at them from across the water right now, and I can see that I was once them. I don't want them to go through the same journey that I've had, having to raise £20,000 so they can feel proud to represent their country. Right now, even though we're at a deaf competition, I've not worn any single piece of Great Britain kit. Right now, I don't feel like I'm representing my country. I feel like I'm really representing myself.

Steve Crossman: Just in case you're thinking, what about the Paralympics, well, they don't actually have specific deaf categories, so you'd have to be deaf and have an additional qualifying disability to take part. So that is not viable for the vast majority of deaf athletes, and actually a lot of them don't want to be in the Paralympics. They're totally happy with their own competition. It's, we have our own thing. Help us out.

Nick Brookes: They are competing with fellow athletes who are fully funded by their own country. The playing field is already uneven before they've even got to the starting block. We've got to change that.

Steve Crossman: Nick Brookes is the chairman of UK Deaf Sport. Their campaign, Fair Play for Deaf Athletes, is asking for £3 million to fund a competitive team for the Tokyo Deaflympics next year.

Nick Brookes: I keep hoping that the Labour government will actually listen to us, address our plight. Last week there were two documentaries, one on Linford Christie, and it was very similar to the documentary on Daley Thompson. You see these guys, and the current batch of Olympians, fantastic role models. We don't have that, the deaf community. We do need to give opportunity to deaf athletes, to go to the Deaflympics, and get medals and come back and say, 'Look. I can do it.'

Steve Crossman: What better way to create new role models than a Deaflympics in the UK? It's not been here since 1935. Think of what London did for para-sport in this country back in 2012. Well, that's not going to happen anytime soon. We discovered the idea of doing so was dismissed pretty quickly by UK Sport eight years ago. When we asked them about doing so in future they told us we're looking ten years ahead. It's not in our plans. New role models are a challenge, but they are emerging. We've heard from two of them already. Jodie Ounsley has another string to her bow. She's a former competitor in the World Coal Carrying Championships held every year in, yes, Yorkshire. After Gladiators, the organisers reached out.

Jodie Ounsle y: They literally put this post on Facebook, didn't they, just saying, 'Jodie, also known as Fury, is going to be presenting the awards,' and whatnot, and I turned up and…

Jo Ounsley: You weren't expecting what happened, were you?

Jodie Ounsley: Oh, it was absolute chocker. People had come from all over just to come and see me, not even running a race. They had little girls in the race with Fury blue braids in. It was mental, and it was hours and hours. It was all day, weren't it?
Jo Ounsley: Yes, and the funny thing were at one point she said, 'Mum, I need to go to the loo.' There were people knocking on the toilet door. 'Sorry, Fury, it won't take a minute. Can we have your autograph?'

Jodie Ounsley: It literally threw me off guard.

Jo Ounsley: I heard your little voice: 'Just a minute. I won't be long.' [laughter].

Steve Crossman: It must be wild as well because you see kids with different coloured cochlear implants, and they almost in a really cool way treat me a bit like a fun…Fashion accessory?

Jodie Ounsley: Yes, even for myself in school, I always had a dark one that I could hide under my hair or not draw attention to people, whereas now it's almost like kids see it as a cool thing to have. I think it were a recent school I went to, it was this young girl, she had two cochlear implants, but they were multi-coloured, like rainbows and sparkly. All her friends were so supportive of it in the class, and it was so refreshing for me to see that obviously being older and seeing a young girl already feeling confident in herself. So I think that shows that we're getting to the right place now and hopefully it continues with that.

Phil Ounsley: This is why I think it's so important that Jodie has this platform to give hope to parents and young kids who have been diagnosed as deaf or hard of hearing. Even just a few years ago, she were really, really lacking in confidence. Even at the point that you were going down to college at 16-year-old, if I pulled up outside a shop and said, 'Just pop in for a pint of milk,' she wouldn't go in and speak to somebody that she didn't know to ask for a pint of milk. That's not that many years ago. A couple of week ago, she were speaking at Buckingham Palace, week before you're handing out a BAFTA, reading off an article on TV.

Jodie Ounsley: I were nervous, let me tell you.

Phil Ounsley: Well, you might be nervous, but if I'd have said a few years ago to Jodie, 'You're going to be handing out a BAFTA or speaking at Buckingham Palace,' she'd have laughed in my face.

Jo Ounsley: She'd have even said, 'You're not getting me in that red dress.'

Jodie Ounsley: Yes.

Jo Ounsley: But there you are in a little red dress, giving out a BAFTA. Could you imagine Jodie would have done that a few years ago?

Jodie Ounsley: Well, even I'd be like, no.

Jo Ounsley: Yes, we'd believed you could do it but to believe in yourself.

Steve Crossman: I wanted to ask you about the Deaflympics as well because you've competed in the Deaflympics. Was it in Turkey?

Jodie Ounsley: Turkey. Were it 2017?

Phil Ounsley: Yes. You were 16 at the time.

Jodie Ounsley: Yes, so I was 16. So that, again, were a whole new experience for me because I'd gone through school pretty much being the only deaf person, and I didn't know anyone who was deaf. I didn't have any deaf friends, so going to the Deaflympics opened my eyes to a completely new world, but obviously a lot of people don't know about the Deaflympics and the lack of exposure and lack of funding. It's just not where it's meant to be at the minute. So that's something we're trying to do, raise that awareness for starters, and then obviously any opportunity to get funding, it will just be amazing. For other people to have that opportunity would be pretty special as well.

Nick Brookes: We don't want to be waiting 30, 40 years for deaf athletes to catch up with their Olympic and Paralympic counterparts. We need to accelerate that and bring it forward to one or two years by having an open dialogue with the government, national and governing body and UK Sport and Sport England.

Steve Crossman: Okay, so government via the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, UK Sport and Sport England, we reached out to all of them. A UK Sport spokesperson told us: 'We understand the frustration of athletes targeting the Deaflympics, but our remit is specifically focused on investing in sports and athletes who are eligible to compete at the Olympic and Paralympic Games. As the Deaflympics falls outside of Olympic and Paralympic sport, we are therefore unable to fund athletes targeting this event. However, it is important to note that where there are deaf athletes who meet other eligibility criteria that enables them to compete in Olympic and Paralympic sports, then we can and do support them.' Neither DCMS nor Sport England provided us with a statement, but they were helpful and through our own reporting, we've uncovered new information around funding for deaf athletes, which may offer hope for the first time. We'll bring that to you later. I just feel like we've chucked enough info at you for now, so let's take a breath and settle back with the great story of another amazing athlete.

Derrick Coleman: I'm a humble person I hope. So it's a great accomplishment, but it's not about the destination, it's about the journey.

Steve Crossman: Derrick Coleman is modest. He's also the only deaf person to win the Super Bowl. We spoke to him as he sat in the locker room of the Green Bay Packers NFL team. I speak to him via his tablet which is hooked up to his hearing aids. He's had a heck of a journey. It starts with a haircut.

Derrick Coleman: We went to the barbershop and normally when you talk to the barbers, your barber's talking to you, and you interact with them. He end up telling my dad that, 'Hey, something's going on with his head. He's not really responding. My left ear was going. Then within a year later, my right ear was out. That's when I started learning how to lip read, but in terms of interacting with other people outside of my family, I wasn't very good at that because kids don't understand it. It's just a lot of verbal bullying. Somebody's making fun of me, and I want to punch him in the face. Takes a lot to be able to just walk away. As much as I hate being the underdog, the journey of having to prove everybody wrong. Hey, you don't believe I can do it? Great. Good for you. I'm going to go do it.

Steve Crossman: Can you tell us how what we would call a pair of tights, and you would call pantyhose allowed you to play this game?

Derrick Coleman: Yes, yes, yes. Having hearing aids, they actually are a piece of technology. Back then, they weren't that waterproof. They weren't water resistant. I sweat like Shaquille O'Neal at the free-throw line. If I get hit will my hearing aids stay in my ear or they're going to come flying out? Now I'm having to find my hearing aid on a 100 by 52-yard field. Originally, my mum didn't want me to play football because her biggest fear was if I get hit again am I going to lose the rest of the hearing that I had. When you really, really want something, you're going to find a way to get it done. It might not look pretty, might not be beautiful, but you're still going to find a way to get it done. I don't know how she came to thought of it, but she took some pantyhose, tied up the top of it, on your head. It keeps the sweat out and it's the best way to keep the hearing aid from popping out when you get hit. It was also, yes, it was definitely a battle, but won the Super Bowl and this is the journey I'm thinking about.

Steve Crossman: Were there things that you could do that the other guys couldn't do?

Derrick Coleman: When there're 100,000 people screaming while you're on offence, I lip read very well. From the first day I meet any quarterback, 'Hey, I'm Derrick Coleman. I'm hard of hearing. I wear hearing aids in both ears. If I don't have them in, I can't hear you. If I have them in, we'll go there.' So because there's 100,000 people screaming, the quarterbacks off the plate, get ready, play. The wide receiver looks at me and said, 'Oh, what are you saying? This to that.' It took me a second to realise, 'Why are you asking me?' Now, he probably cannot hear because it's a lot of people and my brain is trained to navigate that. Not many people can do this. One of the ways that I deal with stress is I turn my hearing aid off. Let me just turn the world off. Most people have to go into a meditation room or peace and quiet, and I'm able to do it right now. People think of it as a negative. I think that's a great positive because as we talk about now, we realise how impactful mental health is. It will be, well, your goal, your career, your life. Hearing impaired was a disadvantage that I made into an advantage.

Steve Crossman: I'm guessing there aren't too many Super Bowl winners who've gone undrafted, and you went undrafted. Do you think at that time, coming out of college that coaches looked at you and thought, yes, he looks good. Oh, but there's that hearing thing. Maybe let's not take a chance?

Derrick Coleman: I think there were people that doubted me. Yes, no to go undrafted, it's like somebody said, 'Tag, you're it,' and you're it for the rest of your life. I'm used to having to adapt and overcome, and also to be able to go out there to play the game of football at its highest level, we couldn't ask for anything better. You go to it for the opportunity to be in that destination hoping that nobody shows it. So going undrafted, to Super Bowl champ, all I can say is flat out, regardless of what other people say, 'Oh, you can't do that. You can't do that.' Watch me.

Steve Crossman: Derrick Coleman speaking to us from Wisconsin. Derrick has hearing aids rather than a cochlear implant. Two of the athletes you'll hear from before we finish have neither, preferring to hear no sound at all. There are so many different types and degrees of hearing loss and so many different approaches and decisions to take for deaf and hard-of-hearing people. There's a house in a village near Bath which paints that picture perfectly.

Ian Holloway: All right, mate?

Kim Holloway: Hello.

Steve Crossman: Hello.

Ian Holloway: [Dog barking]. Shut up, this is Steve.

Kim Holloway: Hi Steve.

Steve Crossman: Hi, nice to meet you. Do you want me to take my shoes off?

Kim Holloway: Of course not, no.

Ian Holloway: Oh, don't be stupid. You'll ruin your socks. How dare you.

Steve Crossman: Paintings are actually one of the only constants in this house full of colour and fun and chaos of building work and planning permission. There's no little irony here that the first piece of artwork we see is The Joker.

Ian Holloway: Well, yes, I did that, I did that.

Steve Crossman: That's amazing.

Ian Holloway: Yes. Black and white you just push harder, or you get a softer pen. With colour, it's just frightening.
Steve Crossman: Sorry, introductions. You've just met Kim. That's her husband, Ian, Ian Holloway. Actually wouldn't surprise me if there's a James Bond painting somewhere in here as well.

Ian Holloway: My job was to sometimes tell people what they needed to hear, not what they want to hear. I realised how powerful words are, and that's why you're here today. My daughters can't hear.

Steve Crossman: Ian has spent 40 years in football. He played in the Premier League for four years, and as a manager, he took Blackpool and Crystal Palace up to the top flight. His first love isn't football and it's not art either. It's his family.

Ian Holloway: I'm sat here with my daughters in the room. Can you sign your name? This is Chloe.

Kim Holloway: Chloe.

Ian Holloway: the oldest of my twins by four minutes, Chloe was an identical twin. Her sister is Eve. Anybody who's out there who's got a deaf child or a young one, please don't worry, right? The world is changing for a much better place, and it's been a joy.
Steve Crossman: So we sit down in their busy and beautiful living room. There's nine of us, kind of, me, Ian, Kim, two of their three deaf daughters, Chloe and Eve, Jurgen Klopp and Pele are here too - well, unfinished paintings of Jurgen Klopp and Pele - and a couple of dogs.

Ian Holloway: That's his old tummy there.

Steve Crossman: The family dog is snoring.

Ian Holloway: Yes.

Kim Holloway: Is he snoring?

Steve Crossman: Which I hope isn't a review of the interviews.

Ian Holloway: It possibly is. He's heard it all before [laughter]. In our experience, if every hearing child was taught sign language the world would be a better place.

Steve Crossman: The whole family is thrilled that BSL, British Sign Language, is soon going to be introduced into mainstream schools in the UK. The GCSE syllabus for it should be approved by this time next year. Kim translates as Chloe and Eve get involved in the conversation.

Kim Holloway: All hearing parents when they have a baby that's deaf, 'Oh my God, my baby's deaf. What are we going to do? What are we going to do?' People even say to Chloe sometimes, 'Oh wow, you can drive? But you're deaf.' I said, 'Of course she can drive.'

Chloe: When I was young, I had a bad feeling. I didn't really like being deaf. No, because there's lots of people that weren't really deaf aware, and they took pity on me, 'Ah, you poor thing,' and it was very patronising, but now that it's a lot better. I'm really proud to be deaf.

Kim Holloway: Chloe's saying, 'It's a gift really, yes. Even when I'm dreaming, I just see things visually, and you can just make up your own daydreaming really because everything's in pictures.'

Ian Holloway: Wow. That just hit me.

Steve Crossman: There's a few moments like that for Ian as we chat. He too looks at his daughters' deafness as not something that the family has had to cope with but something magical. Even in his job, it made him careful and creative.

Ian Holloway: We had a goalkeeper who couldn't speak English, kept himself to himself and to try and learn English, he was listening to the radio. Do you understand? So I realised how difficult that must be because I understood language. I understood how difficult it is for my daughters, and I understood how difficult it is for him. You understand what you're saying so much more. Many people use words that they don't really mean. They don't want to say that. Well, I'm sorry. You should understand. You should own every word you say because my daughters can't hear them all. So that's what changed me. It was the understanding of how important being able to get what you want across to everyone else because as a leader, as a manager, I'm trying to pass over things to them, for them to put together in a group. If I don't get it right, how can I expect them to play well and win?

Kim Holloway: I think it was easier to compartmentalise the football instead of letting it overtake your whole life really.

Ian Holloway: It gave me another branch, whereas some managers get so engrossed in their job it almost kills them. It was a good focus. It's a very positive thing.

Steve Crossman: As a manager, he's also looking for a moment when something clicks with his players. He had one of those moments with his daughters too.

Ian Holloway: We went to the Maldives, Chloe and Eve either side of me, and I got a bit emotional because the waves sounded so beautiful hitting the shore. So Chloe looked at me and said, 'Why are you sad, dad? This is beautiful place,' and I went, 'Well, I'm just thinking about you not being able to hear the sea lapping on the shore,' and she went, 'Ah, but can you see the diamonds dancing on the water?' When I looked at it, that's exactly what it looked like.

Kim Holloway: That wasn't in the Maldives.

Ian Holloway: Where was it?

Kim Holloway: It was in Devon.

Ian Holloway: Oh, Devon then. [Laughter].

Steve Crossman: The Holloway's then get into a really interesting discussion about deaf football.

Ian Holloway: My girls have said, 'Do you think a deaf boy could play football one day?' Yes, I do, right? It should be an easier pathway, and if we all learned sign language from a kid, we could communicate with that player a lot easier.

Kim Holloway: Eve would just like to say something.

Eve Holloway. One day.

Kim Holloway: Yes, she agrees, 'One day, but the problem is there's so much pressure. If a deaf man came to play with you at QPR, he'd still feel isolated. Yes. It's not just about being good enough.' Do you want to talk about when you took some deaf people training football and everything and how difficult that was for you?

Ian Holloway: I brought two bags of footballs with me from Queen's Park Rangers, and in the warm-up, I realised that I had to change what I do because it's going to be different. Show them visually about football and controlling it, and 'Aare you ready? Are you ready? Two of you there,' and in the end, I gave them a match and I think it was about eight a side, and then I got the biggest shock of my life. Normally there's no contact. They can't hear the contact. They can't hear the crash. I thought people were going to break their legs with the tackles and I'm like, 'Ah,' and I go, 'Oh, don't worry, he's all right. Are you all right? Yes. Fine, fine.' 'Sorry, I can't hear it.' Boom. So I didn't realise how much our hearing helps us not go too far in the tackle. Do you know what I mean?

Steve Crossman: Yes.

Ian Holloway: Because it was brutal.

Steve Crossman: We really felt at this point we needed to go and see some elite deaf football. So we did. To Doncaster. So that is the sound of a silent rondo.

Player: Come on.

Steve Crossman: Well, nearly silent rondo. Beautiful pitch here. We're at the Doncaster School for the Deaf where Great Britain's Deaf Women's Football Team are playing a friendly in the beautiful August sunshine. They have a massive game coming up though in October. A Deaflympics qualifier against Poland, which if they win, they will qualify to go to the tournament in Japan next year if, as you can imagine, they can afford to get themselves there. Claire Stancliffe is one of the longest-serving players, if not the longest-serving player. She's been with the Great Britain team for 17 years. She's an England international as well and she just happens to be sitting next to me. Hi, Claire.

Claire Stancliffe: Hi.

Steve Crossman: How are we?

Claire Stancliffe: I'm all right. Thank you.

Steve Crossman: Tell us what today has been like.

Claire Stancliffe: Today has been quite manic. We can't book hotels for two nights. We can only afford to pay for one night, which means everyone has to arrive on Saturday morning. So at the moment, obviously I was trying to get here because our train from London had been cancelled and changed so many times. We've had to ask the referees if we can delay the match, but we just try and get on with things. We don't have a home pitch. If we don't get a ground, then we will have to go back to the European Deaf Sports Organisation to say, 'Look, we can't find it,' but it might be that they turn around and say, 'Well, you don't qualify.'

Steve Crossman: That would be sickening.

Claire Stancliffe: That'd be soul-destroying. We've been in a similar situation where we got told we couldn't go to a World Cup, and that was in 2012, and we didn't go and just sitting watching the games at home, it was just heartbreaking. Power of social media has meant that our story as such has got out, and people have been willing to help, people like Gary Neville, Jack Butland, Steven Gerrard, even Frankie Boyle. People that aren't involved in football have been willing to help. It's so nice to feel that people believe in us and what we do. Last year, I only asked Gary Neville if he could share our story again and he was like, 'Oh yes, I'll share it, but I'll also give you £5,000. It's not a nice feeling having to ask people again. It's embarrassing having to beg and ask people to give money. If we had funding, we could be one of the best teams in the world.

Steve Crossman: And they are a very talented team. Ryan Lewis, their head coach, is keeping a really close eye on the rondo training drill. It's the one where two players chase the ball inside a circle. The others are on the outside trying to keep it away from them. Every so often he just pulls a player out for a quick chat. He signs, some players sign back, some don't know sign language, so he has help.

Lauren Roti: Remember your ball. That's your area. That's yours, okay? You make the decision.

Steve Crossman: Two interpreters are with them, and they are brilliant. That's Lauren. She helps us as we chat to three players. Ciara can speak so you'll hear from her, Victoria and Lucinda can't, but on the pitch they are all switched off. It's a rule of competition. Ciara, tell us about playing football with no hearing, nothing. What is the experience like?

Ciara: At the beginning it was quite difficult because I play for a hearing team, so it took a little bit of time to get used to not playing with my hearing aid, but I actually quite like it now. I feel like it's quite liberating. All you've got to concentrate is football. You don't have to worry about what people are saying on the sideline. When I play with my hearing team, I play with my hearing aids in, and I don't necessarily know exactly what they're saying, but I can get an atmosphere from how they're saying it, and sometimes if they're been quite critical that can obviously get in your head a little bit. It's a much more positive experience playing with these girls because we're all in the same boat. We all can't hear, and even if we are saying negative things about each other, we can't hear that. So actually concentrate on our football and try and play the best football that we can. Lucinda, congratulations on your two excellent goals today.

Lucinda: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Blushing. Thank you very much for the feedback. Appreciate it.

Steve Crossman: What does it mean to you to play for GB Deaf Women's Football?

Lucinda: We're like a family here at Great Britain Deaf Women's Football, and we're all equal when we're on the pitch, when we're off the pitch. There's a lot of deaf people out there, but for me to be picked to represent the country, I feel really special.

Steve Crossman: Victoria, where does your journey with these girls begin?

Victoria: I couldn't tell you exactly how many years. I've lost count, to be honest. Obviously looking forward to the match against Poland, and I'm very hopeful that we could go to Deaflympics. That'll be my third time representing Great Britain at a Deaflympic tournament. So that would really be my dream come true. Get the hat trick. We're hoping for the gold medal. Of course, we will accept a silver or bronze medal. As long as we bring a medal home, that's what matters to us.

Ciara: You're going to be probably my first and my last Deaflympic. I've got a three-year-old, so I put my football on hold a little bit, and so it's quite a big deal for me to try and get to this Deaflympics. I'm going to be too old for the next tournament.

Victoria: Victoria would just like to add that age is just a number. [Laughter].

Steve Crossman: It's hard to put into words just how wonderful this environment is. Everybody's chipping in, they're helping. They are hoping for what might come on and off the pitch.

Ciara: I don't know whether there is any hope. If they're not going to listen to us, which is quite ironic, then we just continue doing what we're doing.

Steve Crossman: Well, we did say we'd learned some new information, which isn't yet in the public domain. So here it is:
Sport England are going to do a trial programme where they will include individual elite deaf athletes within existing talent programmes. So, for example, an organisation like British Cycling might take on an elite deaf athlete.

Claire Stancliffe: Really exciting. I think it's a good step forward for football. It didn't really help our situation, and we're still going to be stuck in that, but it's great for individual sports and I'm really excited to see what comes of that. It's a stepping stone, and hopefully it will continue to grow from there.

Steve Crossman: Are you getting any positive noises at all.

Claire Stancliffe: Unfortunately, no, but I'm hoping with the game on the 5th of October - it's a home game. It's our first ever international deaf women's football game on home soil. I'm hoping that we can get a good crowd down there, invite some really important people down just to see what we can do and open those conversations back up because if we qualify, we're going to need all the help we can get.

Steve Crossman: I can tell you who will be there. [Music plays]. Ukraine, they will be there. Despite the war with Russia, the Ukrainian government fully funds their deaf athletes. They even topped the medal table at the Winter Deaflympics in March, and afterwards the medal winners were given a special reception back home.

Presenter: President Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky.

President Zelensky: Slava, Ukraine.

Audience reply.

Steve Crossman: 'Glory to Ukraine,' President Zelensky says. 'Glory to our heroes,' they reply. Then he tells them why they are heroes too. He gives a speech. He shakes the hand of every athlete. There must be 40 of them. Some smile, some are bold enough to go in for a hug, some cry. He tells them their achievements help soldiers on the front line to endure because they bring glory to Ukraine. The government paid for them to leave home to train for the games. They went, won and came home. Leonid Kasitskyi was in the room. He's the president of the Ukrainian Deaf Sports Federation. He spoke to us via an interpreter sitting in his office in Kyiv, with the national flag standing proudly behind him like it did above so many podiums earlier this year.

Leonid Kasitskyi: I was so shocked that he could even see us. I saw President Volodymyr Zelensky, we spoke, and we shook hands. He has so much to cope with the war, but he found the time to see me and our whole team. It was wonderful.

Steve Crossman: So what did you tell him, Leonid, and what did he tell you?

Leonid Kasitskyi: The president told us that we showed the whole world that Ukraine is strong and brave. Our flag was flying many times at the Deaflympics. It shows Ukraine is here now and we will continue to be here. We helped him and he helped us because he paid for us to leave Ukraine to go and train in the west of Europe. President Zelensky told me he's very happy that Ukraine's deaf sports people didn't stay in Europe afterwards. He's so happy we came back to our homes in Ukraine, and we are happy too, even though we don't hear the rockets and the bombs coming. We only have an app for our phones and a vibrating watch which tells us what is happening and where we should go. This is just something that we have to get through, but we are strong. We hope that the world helps Ukraine to finish this war and have peace for all of the people. We just have to say thank you so much to our soldiers and to our president.

Steve Crossman: At the end, Zelensky is offered a Ukrainian Deaflympic fleece hoodie. He laughs and pulls it over his head. One last wonderful photo opportunity. We have time to squeeze in one more great story.

Announcer: We are now approaching King's Park. Please mind the gap when alighting from this train.

Steve Crossman: It takes place on a frankly miserable day in Glasgow, but it's full of energy, regardless. It's about a man whose spirit and passion would give Ian Holloway a run for his money.

Hi.

Eddie Foley: Hello, Steve.

Steve Crossman: Hi, how are you?

Eddie Foley: My name's Eddie. Nice to meet you, Steve.

Steve Crossman: Oh, sorry. Not that man. That's Eddie, another brilliant interpreter. He's going to provide the voiceover for us. We've taken you as far west as Wisconsin, as far east as Kyiv, but we're here to see somebody who's seen the whole world.

Eddie Foley: That's the crossing from the UK to America. That's Holy Island.

Steve Crossman: Oh, of course. Yes, yes, yes. Dr Gerry Hughes jabs excitedly at the map of the globe in his kitchen, which doubles as his tablecloth.

Dr Gerry Hughes: When I have friends coming around and some members of the deaf community, I've just got no education in terms of the geography of the world, so I use this as a reference to help educate individuals. So when people ask me about my story, for instance, 'Where did you capsize?' I'm able to point to the table instantly and say, 'It's this region here.'

Steve Crossman: Three hundred and fifty sailors have circumnavigated the globe. Less than thirty of them are British and only one is deaf.

Dr Gerry Hughes: If it's easy, why do it? So for me, achieving to read, achieving to write, maths degree, becoming a teacher, then single-handedly sailing around the world, each one of those are achievements that I've managed to single-handedly work towards. I feel enormously satisfied now, so when I talk to young deaf children who I see are maybe not confident or lacking in self-esteem, I will say to them, 'How you are feeling is exactly how I felt when I was your age,' and I'll explain to them that, 'You can achieve whatever you set your mind to do.'

Steve Crossman: You know, listening to him, you could be with him at sea. A stray bottle of window cleaner on the side becomes a lamp in his hand. The pouring rain just makes it easier to imagine it all happening and yet harder to believe because this is staggering stuff. Jerry presses his finger down again, this time somewhere in the Antarctic Ocean, somewhere you don't want to run into trouble, but he did.

Dr Gerry Hughes: So the boat capsized. That's it. We're finished. I actually was convinced the boat was going to sink. I was outside, sitting in the cockpit. I decided to make myself a coffee. I went inside, and I closed the hatch and that made a massive difference, just that one act of closing the hatch. I opened the coffee jar. I then land on the ceiling. I'm standing on the ceiling and I'm looking at the hatch which is now below me. I'm getting all these thoughts flashing through my mind. I'm thinking of Kay, my wife, and I thought at that moment, is this it? Am I going down? Then all of a sudden the boat continues and rolls back, and at that moment, my first concern was what's happened to the mast because if I lose the mast that's it, it's all over. I would regard the sea as a friend. So when they sea's angry, I know when the sea's angry. When the sea's calm and you're watching the sunset above the water and you're just admiring the views, feeling of the air on your face is just beautiful. Sailing around the world there were times when the sea was very angry, so it's important to understand how the sea behaves. If you hit a wave at the wrong angle, it's essentially could be a goodbye.

Steve Crossman: But it's not the near goodbye that gets him. When Gerry's amazing journey reached the finish line at Troon Harbour in his beloved Scotland, he had no idea what was waiting for him. Hundreds of deaf people had come to see him reach land.

Dr Gerry Hughes: When I sailed around the world, I didn't expect, in all honesty, anybody to be there to greet me. Just before I was arriving at the harbour, a lifeboat came out. There was also a Typhoon from the RAF flew overhead, and I thought to myself, what's going on? Then I could see Scotland flags, I could see saltires, and yes, I very much did not expect that. It was probably one of the most emotional parts of the journey. The greeting that I got from everybody, I actually feel like I'm welling up just now thinking about it. There were so many deaf people there. Cameras there and whatnot. The 大象传媒 were also there. It was very unexpected and very, very emotional. We went to the Troon Harbour. There's a pub there, and I know some of the locals who live there and who drink there, and some of them were sat at the bar. Then the deaf community descends en masse, and even the locals were like, 'Okay, it looks like we've been commandeered here.' They left. The pub is full of members of the deaf community. The manager was really happy because he probably hadn't made as much money in ages. I think it was just a nice ending after the whole journey.

Steve Crossman: You know what? I feel the same for him and for us. We set out from our own metaphorical harbour with one plan in mind: make a programme which is not about what deaf people can't do, but about what they can. As Gerry says, they can do anything, whether it's sailing around the world, having an elite rugby career, bringing glory to your nation or your family, or passionately standing up for yourself and others like you. We've been so lucky to hear so many amazing stories, and we hope you enjoyed them all. The Quiet Place was written and presented by me, Steve Crossman, and produced by Chris Hedley. A quick thank you to all of our contributors, to the amazing work at the San Cecilio University Hospital, the technology they created and let us use and to all our amazing interpreters: Eddie Foley, Ian and Kim Holloway, Lauren Rotin, Anastasia Zueva, Red Bee Media and McGowan Transcription.

If you joined halfway through, the whole programme is available right now on 大象传媒 Sounds. Just search for The Quiet Place, and the whole programme is available with sign language on the 大象传媒 Sport website. It's also there as a full written transcript. Just search the internet for 大象传媒, The Quiet Place and thank you so much for listening.