A powerful voice

The first thing that strikes you about David Totterdell is his mischievous sense of humour.

The retired accountant and systems analyst who is a dinky-di Aussie speaks with a BBC English accent and takes great delight in effortlessly adopting an Australian twang and a Texan drawl.

“G’day mate,” he laughs before launching into a few phrases that wouldn’t be amiss at a boot-scootin dance in the American deep south.

There’s a reason why he speaks the ‘King’s English’: the Oxford English Dictionary’s pronunciation guide to be exact.

The 78-year-old resident at Uniting AgeWell Manor Lakes Community, equipped with a steely determination, was born deaf and taught himself how to lipread with the dictionary doing the rest. Over the years he has developed an impressive command of the English language. He has never learned Auslan.

Now he uses lip reading as well as an app on his phone that turns speech into text on the screen, even from someone standing a few metres away. David also carries a small whiteboard and a black marker in a light sling bag “just in case.”

David has been at Manor Lakes for three years and enjoys bingo, movies, going on bus trip outings and the exercise classes to increase his strength. “I’ve also made a few good friends and the staff are very caring,” he adds.

He uses his mobility scooter to nip down to the shops for a spot of retail therapy and is also very active on social media and other digital platforms. He loves spending time with his wife Kim and daughter Barbara. World Hearing Day was on March 3, and this year’s theme, ‘From communities to classrooms: hearing care for all children.’ looked at preventing avoidable childhood hearing loss as well as early identification and care of those with auditory problems.

This is something that David knows first-hand – because it was something he did not experience. He was born and raised in Sydney to a father who was hard of hearing and a mother who had a cochlear implant. Neither of his siblings have hearing challenges.

“Back in those days there was very little, almost nothing, to help children like me,” he says.

Despite his incredible achievement in learning to speak, read and write, David also came up against another obstacle: prejudice.

Over the years he has been a powerful voice in lodging complaints with the Human Rights Commission, as he continues with his mission to chip away against discrimination.

“Sadly when I finished my schooling things were very different compared to today,” he explains. “I applied to study geology at university but I was given some trumped-up excuse about why I couldn’t, so I ended up working in a factory instead.”

The manager quickly recognised David’s abilities and before he knew it, he was off the floor and in the payroll office. He studied accountancy part time, qualified with ease, and then branched out into computer systems and business analytics.

Over the years David has held a number of high-powered roles in Sydney, Melbourne and at the remote Groote Eylandt off the coastline between Darwin and Cairns.

Ironically one of his accounting roles was with a quarry. “So, I ended up working with rocks after all!”

After a long and very busy life, David’s health started to decline. “I opted to move into aged care for multiple small health issues that in a collective whole made it difficult for me to live at home, but I feel very supported and safe here” he explains.

And he’s heard. He’s part of the Food Focus group that helps determine the winter and summer menus at the site. A role that he enjoys.

Uniting AgeWell’s residential sites have a number of systems in place to help those with hearing challenges:

Residents with hearing challenges sit in the front of the room, or nearest the person running the activity
There are closed captions on TV and movies
Staff provide visual prompts, such as cue cards; ensure hearing aids are clean, charged and fitted daily
Staff are trained to speak slowly and clearly without shouting and also ensure that lip-reading is made easy
Background noise is kept as minimal as possible, closing doors if necessary

Find out more about living at Manor Lakes Community.