Annette Crosbie, who became a household name when she played Margaret Meldrew in One Foot in the Grave, talks to Alice Lagnado about how acting with a hearing loss requires a no-nonsense approach.

"I can find myself acting with a younger person and not being able to hear the lines clearly."

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The Annette Crosbie interview was first published in October 2010's issue of One in Seven, RNID's membership magazine. Become a member of RNID to receive One in Seven magazine every two months.

Annette Crosbie, the delicately pretty Scots actress who became a household name when she played Margaret Meldrew in the TV series One Foot in the Grave, is finding it ever harder to listen to the radio or watch television.

The background noise so beloved of modern programme-makers is driving her to feel a little bit like her on-screen husband Victor, the original grumpy old man, who was memorably played by Richard Wilson. Like most people with a hearing loss, she finds that background noise in programmes can make it extremely difficult to hear what is being said.

But unlike Margaret Meldrew, Crosbie 76, shares her home with some very sympathetic and easy-to-please companions, in the shape of three large greyhounds, retired racers who pad around, and lie in the garden, and sleep, and look at you with gentle eyes, and are a quiet foil to any frustrations.

Which is a good thing, as hearing loss since her 50s means that Crosbie is often confounded by those things she used to enjoy, like listening to other actors on radio or television or in the theatre.

"(My hearing) is getting worse, I think, like my eyesight,” she says. "Old age sucks."

Actors and presenters no longer pronounce their consonants, or ensure that their voices are 'supported' and do not drop at the end of sentences, she says. "I can listen to Judi Dench, and actors of my generation, and understand them easily. But I can find myself acting with a younger person and not being able to hear the lines clearly, and they’re as near as you are (I am sitting a metre or two away). I suspect that clear diction is not "cool".

In her 20s, Crosbie recalls, she and other actors were "constantly nagged" by the sound department who could not get close to the actors, so needed to hear them very clearly. "They would say, 'You're going to have to pitch that up', and you would say, (and she puts on a loud whisper), 'But I'm planning for murder! If I say it any louder they'll hear me!'"

"Everything's changed. When I first broadcast, I used to get lectures on how you had to
keep the voice supported, so that when you get to the end of a sentence, you don't ever drop it.

They do it all the time now on the radio – John Humphries, all those people who should know better and were trained to do it properly, yet they all do it. You can be listening to the Today programme, come to the end of a sentence and think, 'What? what?' It's not just me, and it's not just me because I’m deaf, it’s people of my generation who are not deaf (too)."

It's interesting that older people are often regarded as being grumpy, although their actual complaints are legitimate. It seems too easy a way of putting down a whole group of disparate people: stereotyping them as 'moaners' in order to dismiss their concerns.

So I hesitate to use the phrase 'grumpy old woman' when describing Crosbie. Her concerns are not a result of grumpiness for the sake of it, but of becoming, against her will, socially isolated – in her case, due to her hearing loss.

She avoids restaurants because they're too stressful, and boycotts most special occasions, except when she can take her daughter (also an actress) along, to tell her what's being said. RNID has long stated that hearing loss can cause social isolation, and that this is one of the reasons why it should be taken seriously. Social isolation among older people is common; depression, which can result from it, is far from rare.

The charity Age UK is currently campaigning to combat the idea that depression is a natural part of the ageing process for more than two million people over 65 and is concerned that health professionals do not take the issue seriously. Crosbie is not perhaps in dire straits herself, supported by her two adult children and with her three dogs as constant company. But she touches on a topic that is surely painfully familiar to many, and just as invisible to those who do not experience it.

"I can go to things with friends or with family," she says. "But, eventually, the conversation gets away from you. You've lost the thread. You just cut off and sit there and try to keep your face looking pleasant and wait to go home. "It makes you retreat more, which is sad, really."

"It's much easier at work for an actor, of course, because there's a script. You know what people are going to say, so you can relax. The crew are always great – they'll give you a wave if they think you're not going to hear the word 'Action.'"

"Sometimes, however, you find yourself working as an actor and thinking, 'Shall I raise this subject now, and say to the director, are we going to play this part as if she does wear hearing aids and there's just no reference to it, or am I going to have to take them out and then you'll all have to shout?' It's tricky."

It's another question whether she and other older actresses get interesting parts at all. "Women (of my age) cease to exist. If you're asked to do anything, you're usually dying. I don't mind dying on television but we're usually pathetic!" she grimaces. "Over a certain age and that's it, you’re an old woman, and therefore you will be losing your marbles, you will be totally uninterested in sex, all of which is not necessarily true."

Annette Crosbie – she's beautiful, outspoken and practical. It's just a pity many writers for stage and screen don’t seem to realise that women don’t stop existing at 40.