\\DON’TFORGET THE HEADPHONES

For those of us lucky enough to benefit, modern hearing aids are wonderful but perhaps the sounds we hear are not nearly as good as what we remember from the good old days of big hi-fi speakers and lots of base to our music. So, while being laid up with a broken ankle and not able to walk out and about, I dug out my old headphones and found myself listening to music the old way, the full range of frequencies and the pop songs of the fifties and sixties just like it used to be. The volume was probably too high for safety so I did not listen too long.

Audiologists are the professionals who sort our hearing aids for us but I have never heard them mention headphones. Hearing aids are sophisticated and cost lots of money and need maintaining; A decent pair of headphones can cost as little as thirty pounds from a local store and they don’t need maintaining.

There are several options: Tiny ones, like those that come with your smartphone, nestle in the ears; some have an overhead band and either cover the whole ear or part of it. Others are known as bone conduction headphones and the band sits around the back of your neck with the sound pressing against the bones in front of your ears. There are even sun glasses with small speakers inserted into the glasses frames which are wireless.

So, give it a go and try some headphones and you never know, you might really enjoy the sound of things you have not heard properly for years. But don’t bother to break your ankle. That is a very silly thing to do.