Signing and singing

Andrew Thomson is the winner of this year’s Stelios Award for disabled entrepreneurs. He’s founder and director of an online BSL/English interpreter service, www.sign-now.com. In answering our questions, he says he’d like to hear – but only for a day.

What’s the best thing about being Deaf?
Ummm….sorry, can you repeat the question? Oh yes, silence is golden!!

What makes you angry?
Hearing people thinking they know what’s best for Deaf people without asking our opinion to make sure they’re right.

What’s the funniest thing anyone’s ever said to you about your impairment and have you any good put-downs?
People often complain about noise, and once at a residents’ meeting they were protesting about the noise from machinery being used near their houses. One man turned to me and said he’d been wakened very
early in the morning and hadn’t I been disturbed too? “No”, I quipped, “I didn’t hear a thing…”

If you were Prime Minister, what one thing would you do to improve things for Deaf and disabled people?
I would create the position of “Disability Tsar” whose job would be to ensure monies are well spent for Deaf and disabled people. They would achieve this through proper consultation with deaf and disabled people, i.e. those who know best what they need, as too much money has been spent in the past without doing this and opportunities for investing in and improving Deaf and disabled peoples’ lives have been wasted.

What’s the one thing that could be invented to make your life easier?
Hologram interpreters!

What do you most like about your work?
Meeting people with little knowledge about the Deaf community and taking up the challenge to educate them one by one, every single day.

And what do you not like?
Being scoffed at when I say I’m an entrepreneur.

Do you have any secret skills other than those associated with your work?
I sing to my sons!

If you didn’t have your own impairment, which other impairment would you like to have?
I’d spend a day as a hearing person, just to find out what all the fuss is about!