When the Guardian journalist Michael Simmons, who has died aged 80, was coming to terms with hearing loss, he wrote a moving article for the paper that attracted more readers’ letters than anything in his previous 30 years of accomplished journalism. It was a classic piece of reflective prose from a writer who was always willing to explore new subjects. Under the title The Sound Barrier he ranged over the significance of sound, from hearing one of his favourite poems, Siegfried Sassoon’s Everyone Sang, to his memory of Egyptian workers singing unaccompanied on their way home. He added, regretfully, that the whisper – “good, bad, or mischievous” – was also now a thing of the past.
Simmons went on to write a book on the subject (Hearing Loss: From Stigma to Strategy, 2005), probing a condition he said was “frequently exploited by unscrupulous hearing appliance manufacturers”. He also explored another aspect of later life in Getting a Life: Older People Talking (2001), persuading Barbara Castle, Denis Healey, his Guardian colleague Mary Stott and his own former editor Peter Preston to contribute. In a career that included many years covering eastern Europe with distinction, followed by a late shift to domestic social policy, Michael was a journalist with an ever inquiring mind. He was also, as a colleague recalls, “one of the nicest and gentlest people on the paper, and never said a critical word about anyone behind their backs”.
Continue reading...