Further to a recent fresh eye and hearing test and eventually leaving Basingstoke's main operators (Specsavers if names are permitted) this week a new world has opened up. 

It is amazing as age creeps up you acclimatise to what you are used to. The new spectacles with crystal clear lenses - everything is just so much brighter.

So my partner tells me the TV was a notch louder than it needed to be. Over 50 years leading a jazz band, a trumpet in my left ear all that time, bound to have had an effect, but not to this degree?

My surgery kindly agreed, following the tests which were sent to them, that the new aids could be made available on the NHS, but all this for free? Unbelievable. 

The initial sound test was far removed from day-to-day taps, pings and knocks, all computerised, adjusted frequencies.

Anticipating just the left ear being the culprit - but no, both ears with delicate items tucked behind the ear, each unit being individually computer balanced, delightfully operated by a skilled lass, Batteries provided free for months at a time.

Now my partner has to learn 'not' to shout and turning the pages of the newspaper within earshot is thunderous as is any noise I make. I can even hear people talking across the road, just a new world.

Graeme Hewitt

The Vale

Oakley

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