Listen more – and don’t lose your marbles

Deafness is related to dementia but does one cause the other?

dr theodore dalrymple

As Dr Johnson was terrified of madness, so most of us are terrified of dementia, both for our own sake and for that of our loved ones. If anything can stave it off, it is much to be welcomed.

It has long been known that there is an association between deafness and dementia. If there is a causative relationship, in which direction does it flow, or could it flow in both directions?

If deafness causes dementia, how does it do so and could the wearing of hearing aids reduce the risk of developing it?

It is possible that the two conditions, deafness and dementia, develop pari passu, by a similar mechanism, for example by vascular damage. Loss of mental stimulus because of deafness could also foster dementia – as could the necessity for the hard of hearing to devote too much attention to trying to catch sound to the exclusion of other, more varied, mental activity.

And if the wearing of hearing aids could prevent dementia, it is also possible that dementia could prevent the wearing of hearing aids?

A study among ageing American veterans tried to answer some of these questions. Of course, a population of American veterans is not representative of populations as a whole (for one thing, it is overwhelmingly male – 98.9 per cent in this case), but there is no real reason the results should have been any different for any other ageing population.

A large sample – 72,180 – of ageing veterans (over 60) who showed no signs of dementia were provided with free hearing aids after audiological testing, and were followed up for 3½ to 5 years. It was found that those who used their hearing aids persistently had a 27-per-cent reduction in their chances of developing dementia, compared with those who failed to do so; the effect was much less in those aged only between 60 and 70. Persistent use was estimated by the number of hearing-aid batteries reordered by the veterans.

The results were certainly consistent with the idea that use of hearing aids prevents or delays the onset of dementia.

The reverse was also found to be true. People with reduced cognitive capacity are less likely to use their hearing aids regularly: they forget, they have more difficulty with fitting them and so forth.

A vicious circle would thus be set up: reduced auditory stimulus promotes or accelerates dementia; further dementia reduces access to auditory stimulus.

Audiologists say persistent use of hearing aids, rather than intermittent use, itself prevents further hearing loss. This might help explain the effect of reducing the development of dementia. Of course, as some people – including those in married couples – have discovered, not being able to hear is sometimes an advantage. Some of my elderly male patients used to call uxorial complaint earache.

The story is told of an eminent physician of the old school, Frederick Parkes Weber, whose father, Sir Hermann Weber, physician to Queen Victoria, wrote a book about how to live a long time. He himself lived to be 100 and attended medical meetings well into his nineties. He was so learned that cheering once broke out when he admitted in public to never having heard of something.

Once he had delivered himself of his opinion on any subject, he would turn off his very large hearing aid with a tauromachian flourish, as if there could be nothing further of any value to be said on the matter.

These days, hearing aids are much more discreet, allowing for no such thespian gestures. They also carry no burden of humiliation, as they once did.

The Oldie, 23–31 Great Titchfield Street, London, W1W 7PA letters@theoldie.co.uk

To sign up for our e-newsletter, go to www.theoldie.co.uk

Cheer up, Paxo

SIR: Having just read Jeremy Paxman’s reasons to be gloomy (March issue), regarding the issue of his new driving licence, I would like to ask you please to let him know that my new licence, applied for online on the 7th, arrived by post this morning, the 10th.

Nil desperandum, Jeremy. Regards, Rod Atkinson-Hill, Edith Weston, Rutland

Get your kit on, Babs...

SIR: I am deeply offended by the cover of the March issue, which features a seminude Barbara Windsor. Could you not have used instead the charming picture of the clothed Miss Windsor laughing delightedly with Jim Dale on page 14?

I am not prudish (although was wrongfully accused of such by readers of my second-favourite organ, Private Eye, when I complained about the smutty nature of cryptic crossword clues that likewise reduce women to sex objects).

You probably won’t publish this letter, as you seem interested only in flattering comments from readers.

Yours disappointedly, Jackie Lloyd, Lyme Regis

...or Carry On Stripping

SIR: I have just received the March issue of ‘perhaps the best magazine in the world’.

Can I be the first of many elderly persons with rectal wind to say how appalled, outraged and disgusted at this outdated display of near nudity and denigration of the female sex?

Perhaps next month you could publish a still from one of the Benny Hill films in order that I may continue to be affronted.

Damn … can’t cancel the sub. Paid up for next 12 months. Just have to grin and BARE it.

Yours, C Stephen Winterbottom, Kendal, Cumbria

Scots Wha Hae

SIR: In the Old Un’s note about The Bridges of Robert Adam (March issue), I was interested to read Simon Heffer’s assertion that British – by which, I presume he unfortunately means English – attitudes in the 18th century to Scottish cultural capabilities were prejudiced. It was ever thus.

Dr Johnson was, however, something of an outlier in his hostility to Scotland, but was eagerly roared on by the lingering fear in London that it had only just escaped a Catholic restoration.

The intellectual powerhouse that was the Scottish enlightenment became the framework for our modern society and its significance has been unfortunately downplayed ever since.

Yours sincerely, Gordon Wemyss, Leswalt, Stranraer

Glenconner’s angry hubby

SIR: Anne Glenconner was a great supporter of my work with victims of domestic violence. She offered her house for a fundraising event and I was grateful.

Mid-event, showing my film about domestic violence, I heard a thunderous banging on the front door – and on opening it I discovered her husband, Colin, in a furious mood, because he mislaid his keys. ‘What is that noise?’

Cary Grant’s tailor

SIR: Cary Grant’s tailor was Quintino’s in Beverly Hills (March issue). No one knows who made his sunglasses in North by Northwest but his estate recently endorsed something similar marketed by a company called Oliver Peoples.

Prof Dominic Regan, Bath

Geordie Valerie Grove

SIR: Valerie Grove campaigns admirably against verbal atrocities on the radio, but is she right (March issue) to rail against different pronunciations of ‘book’? The word is derived from the Old English ‘bok’ and has surely developed various regional inflections. As a Geordie, albeit long exiled, Valerie will recall that, for more than a few here in the North East, a book is a byeuk.

Geoffrey Phillips, Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear

Robert Conquest’s third law

SIR: Theodore Dalrymple’s jaundiced comments about the NHS and the police having been reduced to nothing more than bureaucracies (March issue) were spot-on.

The word ‘bureaucracy’ used to apply only to public-sector organisations, where process and procedure took precedence over product/output/result. Banks, mobile phone companies, airlines and any organisation reliant on a merry-goround phone system that plays electronic ‘music’, of the sort used to torture political prisoners, should be added to the list.

Robert Conquest’s third law of politics states: ‘The best way to understand any bureaucracy is to assume it has been taken over by a cabal of its enemies.’

Colin Green, Chester

Why oldies indicate

SIR: I whooped with joy on seeing Matthew Norman’s ‘give me a sign!’ (Grumpy Oldie Man, March issue).

‘I’ve never been any good at small talk. So do you mind if I just stand here and gawk?’

‘It’s a film about domestic violence,’ I said.

Erin Pizzey, Twickenham, Middlesex

This may explain some of the problem. While driving through Wolverhampton recently, I came to a large roundabout with traffic lights on red, while I was behind a learner driver under professional instruction. Attached to the rear-view mirror was a dangly thing.

Lights turned green and off he went, with this dangly thing now swinging around, and he did not indicate.

It was off-putting for me, following it, let alone for the young male driver learning to drive and trying to negotiate a busy three-lane roundabout. So it was not surprising that he failed to indicate.

A few days later, when I was following a young learner driver under professional tutelage, we came to a large roundabout. I wanted to go right. So I indicated – unlike the car in front.

I gave him space as there was still no indication, so … which way? He slowed and then I saw the instructor pointing straight ahead, which meant he should have been indicating left.

In both cases, it was not the pupil’s fault that he didn’t indicate or was distracted, but the instructor’s.

So, when those learners go for their tests, that tester should pick up on the fact they don’t signal and will fail them, which means another set of sessions with the same or another instructor!

Second thought: wasn’t there a change some years ago, saying that if there was no other car around, you didn’t have to signal?

So you have to look all around to see if there’s anyone near enough to make indicating necessary! That therefore may be why oldies indicate and others don’t.

Bring back the always-indicate rule. Yours faithfully, Victoria Jenvey, Bridgnorth, Shropshire

Crocodile in Birkenhead

SIR: Eleanor Allen (Olden Life, March issue) may presume that a crocodile of schoolchildren was called that because of the way it moved. But when I was growing up in Birkenhead in the 1960s, we called a line of girls from the local school a crocodile for a very good reason. It was vicious and it bit people.

James Bibby, Prenton,

Merseyside

Online landline

SIR: I usually enjoy Digital Life by Matthew Webster as, despite nearly 20 years’ working in technology businesses, I now find as an oldie that technology is leaving me behind.

However, in his otherwise excellent article ‘What won’t happen in 2023…’ (February issue), he states that ‘BT is shutting down all landlines by 2025.’

That is not correct. What BT is doing is replacing the current analogue system with an internet-based version, called an IP network. You can keep your landline, but you will have to plug it into the internet. And if you have a power cut, it won’t work. So you’ll still need your mobile in the event of an emergency.

Dr David Pearson, Harpenden, Herts

Seeking travel experts

SIR: I’d be grateful if you could include the following research enquiry on your letters page:

I am writing a biography of the Irish writer Robin Bryans/Robert Harbinson, whose travel books and autobiographies were published by Faber in the 1960s, and would like to hear from any reader of The Oldie who may have corresponded with him, or who is willing to share documents, photographs or memories.

I can be reached at 30 Antrim Road, Lisburn, Co Antrim, Northern Ireland, BT28 3DH; p.d.wilson@qub.ac.uk; 07980 983913. Many thanks, Paul

Wilson, Queen’s University Belfast

Picking on foreigners

SIR: I am surprised that Sophia Waugh is surprised by the culture of bullying Ukrainian children at her local school (March issue). Children are often cruel – especially to “the other” – and frequently ape what they see and hear at home from their elders. No surprises they pick on the foreigners at school –they mirror our wider society.

Rodney Pinder, London SE24

Devon language lessons

SIR: Your article (School Days, March issue) about Ukrainian children and their settling-in problems at school rang a bell with me. As evacuees in the Second World War, my brother and I found a similar response from classmates in

Devonshire. But, within months, our accents were as solidly Devonian as those who had been born there.

This meant that there was no further problem – that is until we returned to London six years later, when we had to endure the reverse procedure. If the Ukrainians pick up the language rapidly, I think all may yet be well.

Peter J Holloway, Brighton, East Sussex

Sybil Thorndike’s Hoover

SIR: Gyles Brandreth’s story (March issue) about Dame Sybil Thorndike hoovering when she should have been hovering is very funny … except, only a few days before I read it, I saw the same tale regarding a bit-part player in the TV soap Crossroads. I hope one of the accounts is true! Or – who knows? – both of them.

Simon Broad, Sawston, Cambridgeshire

First dame of theatre

SIR: Gyles Brandreth’s entertaining article in the March issue contains a glaring error. Ellen Terry was not the first theatrical dame, although many people thought she should have been. It was understood that the fact that she had lived, unwed, with her lover, Edward Godwin, and had two children by him made her an unsuitable recipient for such an honour at the time.

The first theatrical dame was Genevieve Ward in 1921. She was an American actress whose work brought her to Britain at which time she became a British citizen. Dame May Whitty also received a damehood in 1918, but it was for her charitable work during the First World War, not for her considerable theatrical career. The Lyceum Company felt strongly that Ellen should have been honoured with Henry Irving and gave her the title Lady Darling. ‘With which title, I am well content’ was Ellen’s response.

From 1984 to 2002, I was custodian of the Ellen Terry Museum, Smallhythe Place, which now belongs to the National Trust and I fell completely under her spell.

Margaret Weare, Stone-in-Oxney, Kent

Venice, Italy’s Birmingham

SIR: In Harry Mount’s article on Wren (March issue), he quotes Betjeman: ‘Be careful before you call Weymouth the Naples of Dorset.’ I recall the story of a group of British canal enthusiasts exploring inland waterways on the continent and their leader proclaiming, ‘Welcome to Venice, the Birmingham of Italy.’

Jon Sims, Rownhams, Hampshire