She's a socialite, fantastically rich, and has Bear Grylls on speed-dial. No, wait - that's the parallel universe Sophie Woolley...
Name:
Sophie Woolley
Age:
36
Disability:
I have sensory neural progressive deafness. I am now profoundly deaf and wear hearing aids.
Since:
Very slowly losing hearing since the age of around 18.
Explain:
My deafness is hereditary. My mum and sister are profoundly deaf as was my grandfather and our ancestors. My dad is hearing. My speech is not affected because I was not born deaf and because with hearing aids I can hear my voice well. I have to lipread people to understand them, but find speech hard to follow, especially when there is background noise.
I use interpreters and stenographers when at work in theatre, radio and TV. I receive a grant from Access to Work to pay for this. With hearing aids in I can hear your voice quite well if you are close by, but most of the consonants are still missing and so I still need to lipread you.
You truly felt like a disabled person when...
When I had to ask people to repeat themselves and still I couldn't understand. When I realised I had to start using interpreters for work, it was a sink or swim situation. I had to start depending on other people more.
The most embarrassing thing to happen because of your disability/impairment is:
Before I adapted to my deafness, I had a couple of incidents where I burst into tears in public places. Once in a restaurant on a date, and once on tour when the other writers were talking and laughing and I couldn't follow them. Then everyone picked up their bags and started walking out of the building. I had no idea what was going on. Now I'm much more in control of situations. I don't think I've done any embarrassing public crying recently!
Common misapprehensions about your disability/impairment (i):
That because I can speak, I can hear well enough to use voice phone, or listen to radio.
Common misapprehensions about your disability/impairment (ii):
That I should have a deaf voice.
What's the worst thing anyone's ever done to you as a result of your disability/impairment?
An audiologist told me if I didn't press the button when I heard the audiogram test bleep, we'd 'be here all day'. I couldn't press the button because I couldn't hear the test bleep. So I lost my temper and left the hospital without finishing the test. I now go to see a private audiologist. Private hearing aids are expensive but they've made my quality of life a whole lot better and the service is less stressful and impatient.
What's the best?
Being cast in Cast Offs!
Extraordinary fact:
I can do different accents and voices. Mostly using auditory memory and my residual hearing.
Superhero skill:
If I'm on a plane or train and there is a screaming baby I switch off my hearing aids and blissful silence (or near enough) is restored.
What's the most common thing people assume you can do because of your disability that you can't?
Lipread them perfectly. You can lipread 30% of what is said, the rest is guesswork. I can get things horribly wrong. That's why I usually work with sign language interpreters, like I did on Cast Offs.
If I go for a long time just lipreading my brain gets extremely tired, not normal tired, a very hard to cope with sort of tired that can temporarily affect my mental health if I don't escape the situation soon enough. Any deaf person will tell you the same. Yes, I am quite a good lipreader but lipreading is TIRING.
What's the most common thing people assume you can't do because of your disability that you can?
Some are surprised I can speak normally. Another thing is that some people assume I would only be playing deaf roles, but I write my own roles for theatre and they are all hearing characters. I can pick up audio cues and if I can't there are little things we can do instead.
What has your disability given you?
I socialise less, exercise more, which helps me creatively. It has given me more time to create.
Most annoying things you miss:
Radio, and easy conversation. But I still get to do those, sort of, because I write for and perform on radio and theatre. I write and play hearing characters.
I don't do this because I am deaf and want to fill in a gap in my life, I started doing all these creative things long before I went deaf, but it is kind of a perk and a consolation to be on radio and to pretend to be able to have hearing conversations. But it's not by any means the main point or meaning of what I do. I am not driven by my disability. It is just one facet of me that I am integrating - with increasing success - into the rest of my personality.
The things you can't live without:
Hearing aids, interpreters and stenographers.
The person you'd most like to be marooned on a desert island with is:
Bear Grylls
The three things you'd take to a desert island (nothing useful allowed) are:
Makeup, paper and pen.
The first thing you'd do when you arrived on a desert island is:
Find where they keep the food.
You live:
In east London with my husband.
You fund your lifestyle...
By writing plays in which I cast myself. In my first play, When to Run, I played all four characters. In Fight Face I played half the characters. I'm writing a Radio 4 afternoon play at the moment which airs in January.
The things you'd miss about your home are:
Husband, telly, comfort.
The thing that most annoys you about other disabled people is:
The moaning.
The thing that annoys you most about non-disabled people is:
This question I read as non–deaf people. It annoys me when they leave me out of conversations, and tell me I wouldn't want to know what they are talking about anyway. Sometimes they're right, and that's even more annoying after I've insisted on being let in on the joke and it indeed turns out to be rubbish. Why bother speaking if it's just drivel? People should try harder to be witty and try harder to communicate that wit to me. But now I'm moaning.
You don't feel disabled when...
I watch TV with subtitles. I love subtitles. I have sci-fi fantasies that one day I will be able to subtitle anything I want with a portable speech recognition device. It will happen one day, the technology is improving. I use a loop system when I watch TV as well, that improves the sound for me.
What makes you most angry?
I'm really happy at the moment so I can't remember. I guess it would be when people treat me or others like sub-humans. I hate greed too.
What makes you most depressed?
If I work without an interpreter in a noisy environment it can make me depressed. The same applies for social gatherings, although I can't have interpreters for those, so I limit my social life these days and stay happy.
What was the happiest moment of your life?
This year has been the happiest so far, one of the reasons for this being Cast Offs. Cast Offs has been a hugely happy thing for me. If I wasn't deaf I wouldn't have got a role in it, and I would never have discovered how much I enjoy screen acting. I don't have an agent and I wasn't trying to get TV roles, so I count my lucky stars I went deaf.
The thing you love most about your friends is:
Some of them have learnt to fingerspell or sign.
The thing you hate most about your friends is:
When they don't learn to fingerspell and sign.
How would your life be different without your disability?
I sometimes wonder if there is a parallel universe with a 'hearing me' doing similar things. The writing, the acting. Probably going out more. I bet she's fantastically rich. I'm quite envious.
Visit Sophie's official site: www.sophiewoolley.com
