Identifying with Harry's plights

From the archive, first published Saturday 26th Nov 2005.

I was travelling back by train from the Royal National Institute for Deaf peoples' offices in London (RNID) recently in the company of a number of deaf tutors when the topic turned to the cinema.

Despite obvious frustrations with the lack of subtitled performances (deaf and hard of hearing people live in the hope that a cinema will have a subtitled showing and that they are free at that time) one lady in particular was waiting with bated breath for not only for the new Harry Potter film, but also the next book.

Others in the group had not read any Harry Potter books and were interested in why she found them so fascinating.

Many deaf people over the years have told me of the difficulties they faced as children and this lady was no different.

Like Harry, during her early years she felt isolated in her family home unable to communicate.

Harry was this wizard with no knowledge of the wizarding world; she was deaf with no knowledge of the deaf world.

Like Harry she went to a boarding school and was introduced to the deaf world where communication was not a problem, while Harry met magical people and understood he was no longer alone. Like Hogwarts her school had four competitive houses and like Harry's first experience of Quidditch, she had her first encounter with lacrosse and became a member of her house team.

She assured me that her family was not as bad as the Dursleys but she understood why Harry spent his summers waiting for the call back to Hogwarts.

M Starr

Swindon

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