Pat Moffat discusses her hearing problems

Resource Type: Audio | Posted on 12th September 2011 by Liam Physick

Pat Moffat explains why she remembers the smells of the Edge Lane market and the flowers so well: she was deaf. She remembers a bus conductor who whistled frequently, and was popular with his passengers as a consequence, but she could never hear him

Interviewee: Pat Moffat

Interviewee Gender: Female

Interview Transcript

Pat: You see, I had no hearing . . .

Jenny: Yeah.

Pat: . . . so I remember . . .

Jenny: More . . .

Pat: . . . smells . . .

Jenny: Yeah.

Pat: . . . and vibrations, more than I remember sound . . . who was it, somebody was saying there is a bus conductor that used to whistle like some man from years ago, but it, he, he, he was always pitch perfect, I never, ever heard him. I’d see people singing along, while he was whistling, you know, when they’d be sat facing you on the old buses, not so much the new ones, but he was a bus conductor, and it, he’d sometimes be on the number six going up to Edge Lane, up into Broadgreen, or he’d sometimes be on the number four, that came up, up here . . .

Jenny: Yeah.

Pat: . . . that went to Woolton . . .

Jenny: Oh, yeah.

Pat: . . . and, he’d, he, he was an entertainer (Jenny laughs), people used to love getting . . .

Jenny: Notorious!

Pat: . Yeah, yeah, but I could never hear him, you know . . .

Jenny: Aw!

Pat: . . . and there was one time, I remember him getting over to me hand, and trying to whistle and I could feel his breathe, but I couldn’t imagine what a whistle was like, nobody could describe a whistle to me, you know, it was a noise you made with your mouth and . . .

Jenny: Yeah, yeah.

Pat: . . . everything was a noise with your mouth, speaking was a noise with your mouth, so I never actually heard whistling . . . I was what, about 15, before I could hear whistling? And then, I lost my hearing again then . . .

Jenny: Oh, yeah.

Pat: . . . it started going, hit the 30s and I went back to being profoundly deaf . . . but the smells, oh, I can remember the smells.

Tagged under: buses, edge lane, woolton, deaf, broadgreen, whistling bus conductor

Categorised under: Social Life

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