After writing about the ex-marine I worked with I realised he wasn’t the first deafened person I had close contact with, or even the first ex-serviceman I met who’d lost hearing during active service.
The first was my primary school teacher, Mr Pritchard. Mr P had the internals of one ear removed whilst a WWII POW - watch ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’ for background. He had understandable prejudices, but I never once witnessed Mr Pritchard complain about his lost hearing and, to be fair, he didn’t try to put his thoughts about what happened to him into our impressionable minds. We knew how to avoid lessons though, ask him about the war.