On going deaf

At 80 years old I had not considered the possibility of going deaf but now I am struck deaf. Deafness is a disability, a handicap; many of life’s pleasures - conversation, listening to music, birdsong - are largely snatched away. Life closes in round you and, without help, goes quiet. This quiet is unwonted and unwanted. Not a peaceful retreat from the world in old age, it is a nagging loss. A loss which is not immediately obvious to those around you. If you walk into a shop, tapping your way with a white stick, it is at least likely that someone will help you - certainly everyone will know you are blind. The first hint that anyone has that you are deaf is when you say “I am sorry. Would you say that again? I am deaf” The reaction is not always sympathetic.
Deafness, to other people, is a nuisance. How difficult it is to communicate with a deaf person; constant repetition, raised voices. Irritation; give up. People may be saying “Awkward old man; he’s not as deaf as he makes out; hears well enough when he wants to.” Hearing aids? Oh yes, and very clever they are. One in each ear, supplied by the NHS at considerable cost to the taxpayer - £1,500 each ear they say. They fit behind each ear, have a specially cast ear plug to exclude other sounds; they are digital and tuned to match the deficiencies of each ear. Moderate loss, perhaps, at lower frequencies, increasing as they climb higher. Sound is recovered; but a great part of the time it is not meaningful. My sound world now is brittle, shrill and, paradoxically, noisy. To walk along a road in even moderate traffic is to experience noise, constant, unrecognisable noise. The kitchen has become a harsh, clangourous place, where if someone puts a saucepan down on the stove, the sound rings in my head. A boiling kettle excludes conversation
OK, lets go out to lunch. A restaurant is a painful place where other people’s voices swamp those of your companions. So much so that I give up trying. The strain of trying to hear the speech you want through the noise become too much. Hearing aids do have advantages; in a quiet place, a living room say, with no more than two other people present, I can disentangle words, but if the other two turn to speak to each other I shall not understand more than one word in four. There are two people, their faces alive with meaning and I may have no idea what they are saying. I go up to my study and write or look for emails. For me, emails are a good way to communicate. Quick and in writing. Siegfried Sassoon wrote a book called Laughter in the next Room. Sometimes I can tell that it is laughter, but the reason for it is always lost to me. Ordinary casual conversation about the house has become unattainable.
I am not a musician, but for most of my life, say 70 out the 80 years, listening to music has been a source of pleasure. Perhaps more than 70 years - I still have the gramophone record, worn almost smooth, of nursery songs which which we listened to at home. The night before I reported in 1947 to Britannia barracks Norwich to begin National Service I listed to a recording of Beethoven's’ Pathetique sonata; it is still one of the pieces of music, now in memory only, which speak to me of the great European musical tradition which has helped my understanding of the world, helped me towards an understanding of who I am. No longer: all gone. My hearing aids have a special setting for music but it makes little difference. A symphony orchestra, for example, has become a painful cacophony. Birdsong, too, the unbelievable song of a blackbird on a summer’s evening or at dawn - unrecognisable.
As these losses are borne in on me and I realise there is no escape, I turn to experiment; different settings of the hearing aids, asking the skilful people at the hospital to try again to match the curve mapped out on the graph; experimenting with gadgets supplied by the RNID. I have not yet tried an old fashioned ear trumpet but if I find one, I will look and hope. It could just work!
What is to be done? I am only one of millions, some of whom have been waiting for a consultation for a year or more. The consultant calls the condition severe sensorineural deficiency - about ten syllables to say ‘deaf’. Little is known about causes; loss is permanent. For me, many of the signals reaching the brain are so incomplete that they cannot be put back together again. There are systems using induction loops which can help, for example by connection to TV; they are used in railway ticket offices in some taxis and in some concert halls and theatres. They can be helpful by excluding unwanted sounds. But the question remains, can anything be done? Much research is carried out; NHS digital aids are presumably state-of-the-art but they have the shortcomings I have described.
And yet, perhaps there is something.
Searches of the Internet suggest that a limited number of firms is engaged in providing hearing aids. I have built up a picture in my mind, I hope I am wrong, of a hearing aid world which exists within limits determined by its past history and the development cost for what may be seen to be a small market (RNID say there are 9 million people who are deaf or hard of hearing; 50% of people over 60. These are not small numbers.) Improvement within this limited world is seen as linear, progressing from one tweak to the next in an environment where those who commission and those who supply are well known to each other. In such surroundings intuitive leaps seem unlikely and would be inhibited by the perceived capital costs of development.
One of the stumbling blocks could be the miniaturisation required in the belief that people are so embarrassed to be known to be deaf that tiny, in the ear or behind the ear devices are necessary. And yet more people wear spectacles than wear contact lenses. Half the population seems to walk about wearing headphones in order to listen to music. Making things very small costs money; may be they need not be so small.
There are other areas where electronic devices are in everyday use; they are small and very clever. they are to be found in everyday things such as washing machines. Mobile phones are a better example. That small box you hold in your hand can be a phone, a texter, an internet browser, satellite navigation device; it can be used to download music tracks, or as a camera. Tiny devices return pictures from inside our bodies and track the movements of small creatures such as the birds and the bees.
If this larger world of electronics is sought out and enlisted is it not probable that the ingenuity of electronics engineers the world over would produce not merely linear thinking but intuitive leaps? This would mean that the requirements of the deaf need to be more widely known, publicised and understood, seeking out those bright young scientists and engineers working away in garages, small groups excited by possibilities they have glimpsed. Not inhibited by problems of development costs, or the static career structure of a developed industry. Surely to goodness we can do better? We certainly ought to try; then people lke me would no longer sit in the corner of the room like a toothless old dog hoping someone will notice and pat his head.
I accept that knowledge about how the ear works, about the components of complex sounds and how they normally reach the brain, is advanced far beyond my understanding. My appeal may come from ignorance but even so, even so. Many discoveries come when others in the field think they have reached a brick wall. Someone, perhaps from an unlikely direction, sees a way through the wall or of jumping over it, or walking round the ends. The secret is in telling as many people as possible about the problem and how the hearing aid world seems stuck. Those commissioning new work may place advertisements for tenders in techncal magazines round the world. Then perhaps someone will say “Why not try it this way?” And then, after a period of scornful dismissal by those deep in the industry, some may begin to say “Of course, we thought all along that would work.” This wished for new solution might be cheaper too; save the NHS a lot of money.
Then I shall be able to stop growling, come out of my corner and actually talk with my friends again.

Leo Abse - a personal note - Leo Abse died last month

How to convey, let alone explain, the excitement of knowing Leo Abse? I first met him when, in the late 1950’s, I applied for a job as an assistant solicitor in hi office. I was interviewed, not in his office, or at The Law Society, but in his study in the house in Cardiff where he lived with his wife Marjorie and their two small children. The house itself was extraordinary, decorated by his first wife in a manner which seemed to me exotic and romantic in its dark colours and bold patterns. Leo’s study, and the man himself, were all of a piece with the setting. We talked about a suite of Chagall prints and about a Picasso pot he had brought back from France. We may have spoken about my suitability for the job, I cannot remember; but when offered me the job, I accepted without stopping to think.

Other events soon took me back to Cambridge but the short time I was in Cardiff made a lifelong tie between us. We kept in touch erratically; for tea on the Members’ terrace at the House of Commons, or in committee rooms when one or other of us was arguing a cause. Leo came to Cambridge occasionally when renewing academic contacts or speaking at the Union Society.

Visits to his London house, again bearing his wife’s changing tastes were never less than absorbing, not least the wide range of interests of the people he gathered round him. His energy seemed limitless, to the point that he once complained that people at a party would wait in subdued tones for him to arrive and set the room ‘on a roar’


One of the many contradictions about Leo was that although you might think that underneath the sponsor, and co-sponsor (he was never possessive) of a prolific range of social legislation, there lay an idealist. In Leo’s case, that is perhaps not quite the right word. His early upbringing and then the wartime career in the RAF had made him a tough, pragmatic, lawyer/reformer- one of the greatest. His objectives were fairness and justice; he pursued them with skill, using his knowledge of human beings to make the most of the internal politics of committees. Much has been written, rightly, about his legislative achievements; we should remember his command of the relationships within committees where most of the hard work was done.

He was contentious, spirited and courageous; I never saw him flinch or balk at an obstacle. He made enemies, of course he did, he cut through beaurocracy, entrenched interest, special pleading and people do not like being found out. But he made many, many more friends. He was a man of such varied talents and interest and the extent of his circle of friends reflected this. Until the very end his memory seldom failed him.

After his first wife’s death he mourned and seemed to shrink, Even so, I remember tours of art exhibitions in London where, twelve years his junior, I had difficulty keeping up. His comments on everything from Renaissance Italian art, to Rembrandt or Monet showed a depth of understanding which few could equal. When he met and married his second wife his vitality returned; the sadness and loneliness which had clouded so many years gradually lifted and he entered a creative period of writing and he an she travelled extensively in Europe, returning with glowing descriptions of the pictures in the galleries they visited.

He showed me the true meaning of friendship as something to be cherished. If you were successful at something, he welcomed the achievement without reservation where some lesser souls might have shown a little envy. When your world was coming apart, he tirelessly helped to put it back together, albeit in different form. He was still the pragmatist, never letting you think that ‘everything would be all right.’ Each of his friends will have a different picture of him, but we all knew, at once, on hearing of his death, just what it is that we have each of us lost, the tenderness and understanding which underlay and reformer.

The death of legal aid

Legal aid will begin to die at the end of this year if the governments proposals cannot be stopped.

History
Legal aid began in its present form with an act passed by the post-war labour government. It began small and grew slowly until by the 1970's it was a comprehensive and worthwhile part of the system of justice.

Is legal aid important?
Legal aid helps ordinary people to defend themselves against unjust or repressive actions by other people, institutions or the state. A judge, Lord Denning, said that rights are no use without the means to enforce them. Only the very wealthy (there are more of them now than there have ever been) can afford to go to court of to defend themselves without financial help. Most people need help and that is what legal aid is designed to do - 'To open the doors of the Queen's Courts to the man in the street'.

How it works now
There are three kinds of legal aid; family, criminal and advice (mostly handled by advice centres). If you bring an action in the courts to recover damages (for instance if you have been injured) you have to find a solicitor who will take the case on a 'no win-no fee' basis. This has removed such cases from legal aid; the system is not comprehensive and it is uncertain in its application. The cost of legal aid has grown, largely because life is more complicated and therefore cases last longer. Word got about that legal aid lawyers were lining their pockets at the expense of the taxpayer and driving up the cost of legal aid. There are rascals and rogues in every walk of life ad the legal profession has a few. When discovered they are suspended from practice and, if fraudulent, prosecuted. A few go to prison. Generally, legal aid lawyers are hard working, well motivated and competent. They work long hours in stressful circumstances. In family work the clients are often traumatised; in criminal work matters have to be handled on a twenty four hour basis and much time is spent in police stations, magistrates courts and prisons. It is not an easy life and the rewards are small. Lawyers go bankrupt too, but that is not newsworthy so you don't hear about it.

What did the government do?
It took fright and capped the legal aid budget; not, as a rational government would have done, after consideration of what a reasonable service should cost, but arbitrarily. Just like that.

What happened?
The three kinds of legal aid began to compete with each other. One kind is growing faster than the rest and taking more than its fair share of the budget. Very large, complicated, criminal cases have become very costly to defend. The cases themselves are complicated and the prosecution serve more and more evidence on the defedant which the defence lawyers have to study. These very large cases number only one or two percent of the total number of cases but they take up fifty percent of the cost. Other kinds of legal aid, family work and the smaller but much more frequent criminal cases are short of funds. An unjust situation which puts ordinary people at risk through no fault of their own.

What did the government do?
It set up a Review under Lord Carter of Coles who had built up and then sold a chain of healthcare centres. To help him he had, first, three advisers from the business world, one of them a venture capitalist and one the senior partner of one of the largest international property firms of solicitors in the City of London. Perhaps not the people who would come first to mind to advise about legal aid in high street solicitors' offices. Second, he had a team of seven in-house civil servants from the Department of Constitutional Affairs, the Legal Services Commission (the body which runs legal aid) and the Crown Prosecution Service. Another unlikely choice if, as the governemtn claimed, the Review was independent. People and institutions working in legal aid and the justice system, and consumers of it, were 'widely consulted'.

The Review proposals
The proposals have been accepted by the government and will be coming into force this year unless the government can be pursuaded to see sense. The ideas for criminal matters fall into two groups
1 Payment
2 Control of solicitors
1 For most of their work at present solicitors are paid an agreed fee per hour for which which they actually do and which the Legal Services Commission (LSC) accepts as reasonable. From this year they will be paid a fixed fee depending on the type of case but irrespective of the amount of work done on the case. Do it for less and they will still be paid the fee; spend more time on it and they will lose. The psychological effect of this is damaging to solcitors' professional standing and injurious to the public.
2 There will be a system of competitive bidding for contracts to do a set number of cases. LSC will decide which firms to invite to bid and will award a small number of contracts in areas drawn round police stations. The Review sees police stations as 'generators of market share' You, the client, have become a unit of market share and if your own solicitor is not within your area you will have to accept one of those who is. There is a contract system at present; the difference is that new contracts will be awarded in limited numbers to the lowest bidder. Solicitors who wish to do legal aid must sign a contract - they are 300 pages long setting out what kind of work may be done, how much of it, how the office is to be organised, what records are to be kept - but if a solicitors' firm under the new scheme does not get a contract it will not be allowed to do legal aid work at all. Clients, you and me, are called 'matter starts' and solicitors who get a contract must carry out a numder set by the LSC.

What will be the result?
1 Payment by fixed fee might or might not be fair depending on the amount fixed for each type of case but the system is open to objection because of the tempatation to do as little work as possible or to avoid taking on cases which look as though they are going to be lng and complicated.
2 The contract system is wholly bad. The Review thinks that there should be many fewer solicitors and that those that are left will be bigger and therefore more efficient. It is goverment policy therefore that there should be fewer solicitors in legal aid. In big cities the smaller firms will lose out, particularly those who specialise in certain kinds of work and are experts in it and those who cater for the needs of minorities. In small towns there may very well be no legal aid solicitors because the exisiting firms will be too small to undertake the considerable expense of bidding and the cost of re-organising themselves to meet the new requirements. The goverment thinks the big firms will be better and more efficient. How much bigger? Lord Cart said in evidence to the Parliamentary Commitee that a firm whith a legal aid turnover of £100,000,000 would not be surprising. Is that any kind of solicitor you recognise?

Criticism
Solicitors firms in the high street have no place in big business; they are made up of people who have chosen to work in small firms with congenial partners in a place of their own choosing. They like to build up relationships with clients which last over the years. I was a legal aid solicitor (I retired in 1997) and it was a pleasure to find that I would be seen as a family lawyer for more than one generation; that there were people in my town who would say "My solicitor is Peter Soar" and would be very fed up to be forced to go to someone of the government's choosing, not theirs.
Those firms which do not get a contract in the first round will not be allowed to do legal aid. Contracts last for two or three years and in that time they will have had to find something else to do. They have mortgage payments to meet, families to feed and their careers to consider. Many already do other kinds of work and they will simly turn to that work and lose their skills in criminal work. When the next bidding round comes they will not be in the running. Of those who did get a contract some will not wish to continue and others will not be considered by LSC.
The Review spends a lot of time (it runs to 120,000 words talking about efficiency and the advantages of large size. It spends virtually no time discussing the lawyerly qualities of knowldege, skill, experience, loyalty to clients, observation of the rule of law and duty to the Courts. It is a superficial document which skates over the real needs and mposes a pre-determined dogma of big business.

The result
Quite clearly there will be fewer solicitors first time round and fewer still next time. It will be a diminishing spiral. The goverment thinks that solicitors in firms which do not get contracts will join the firms which did and so create the larger firms which will be more efficient. We are asked by the Review to take this on trust; these wise business men, they know what they are talking about. But the Review has failed to understand the mechanics of exisiting solicitors firms and is prepared to ride roughshod over people's freedom of choice. Many smaller towns will have no legal aid lawyer. If you live in Hertford, Bideford, Wigan or any one of hundreds of small towns you will have to get on a bus (many legal aid clients do not have a car or access to one) and go to the next large centre Most cases involve several visits to the solicitor so there will be hardship as well as lack of choice.

Freedom and human rights.
It is about more than hardship and long bus journeys. The existence of independent lawyers is one of the main guarantees of individual freedom, the proper working of the rule of law and the reality of our human rights. Rights, you remember, are no use without the means to enforce them. This weakening of legal aid is the other side of a coin which has seen the government make the position of the defendant more diffcult than it was. Some of the safeguards in court procedure which have taken many years to win are being removed. Our prison population is the highest in Europe, judges' discretion in sentencing is limited, there is a move to restrict theright to trial by jury; there are other dangers too many to list here. So, on the one hand the criminal justice system is becoming harsher and more punitive and on the other the government is weakening the possibility of defence. The purpose of the defence is to make the prosecution prove the case in the hope of limiting the number of wrongful prosecutions (and how many of those do we see now?) but it will not be able to do so if it is weakened as the government proposes and if the independence of the remaining legal aid firms is compromised because their only employer, LSC, has the power to award or take away their means of livelihood.

It is little wonder that for the first time in living memory solicitors are staging protests and working to rule. Lawyers often have a bad press but matters have now come to such a pass that everyone should understand what is afoot and do what they can to prevent it.