THE Christmas festivities may have been over but that was no excuse not to throw a party. Members who attended the Deaf Centre in St Ebbe’s, Oxford, look to be in a happy mood as they celebrated the New Year at their annual party in January 1963.

Apart from sitting down to tea, they watched a film of new teaching techniques for deaf people taken at the Galliday School for the Deaf in the United States.

The evening finished with conjuring by Mr CM Shine, a deaf member of the Magic Circle.

 

Memory Lane this week

Among the guests at the party, organised by the Oxford Diocesan Association for the Deaf, were the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Oxford, Alderman and Mrs Evan Roberts. The office had been upgraded from mayor to Lord Mayor just three months earlier.

The Lord Mayor presented prizes to the winners of sports contests and, in a speech translated into sign language by Mr EJ Heather, spoke of the strides that had been made to help the deaf and hard of hearing in Oxford.

Services in the past had been fragmented – the Oxford Diocesan Association for the Deaf and Dumb looked after adults at the Deaf Centre in Banbury Road, while the Association of Parents of Deaf Children did its best to see that young people were properly educated.

In addition, there was the Club for the Hard of Hearing and the Ear Department at the Radcliffe Infirmary.

As our sister paper The Oxford Times pointed out in an article in 1957: “For too long, the deaf and hard of hearing have been too little considered among the physically handicapped. The hearing public sometimes becomes impatient with those who do not hear.”

Prospects improved that year when the local clubs and societies combined to acquire the freehold of a building in St Ebbe’s as a new Centre for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

The building was an old Baptist chapel and hall, which had been used as a food office during the days of rationing and later as the Co-op Hall.

The Oxford Times reported: “It is believed that the new centre will be the first of its kind in the country, in the sense that it springs from the voluntary fusion of various bodies having a common purpose.”

When the new centre opened, it had a room for billiards and darts, another fitted with acoustic equipment for use as a chapel and classroom, committee rooms, canteen, cloakrooms, a social club for games, dances, stage shows and parties, and special classes to teach lipreading and other skills.

To finance the new centre, organisers had a fundraising stall at the 1957 St Giles Fair and ran an Oxford Hearing Week later in the year.

 


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