Hello to all

[LouiseA]

Hello, my name's Louise and I'm a 52-year-old disabled single mum from Yorkshire. I was a journalist and sub-editor for 20 years after leaving school and during that time, I worked on a number of stories involving members of the Deaf/deaf communities and learnt how to fingerspell as I didn't have the resources available in the 1980s to learn British Sign Language.

Since then I've gone on to pick up odd signs and have also worked with HCPT with both Deaf/deaf and hearing impaired people and have two close friends who are trained BSL interpreters.

As I'm now mostly housebound with a disability, and one of my regular carers was hearing impaired and used hearing aids, I have time and the resources are now available to look at learning at least the basics of BSL in the hope of being able to converse to some degree with anyone else I may come across in my life.

I hope to be able to gain more understanding of BSL and its importance within not only the Deaf/deaf world but also wider British life.