I'm the one by the backdoor - I am not the one in the middle of the party.

I think the deafness affects me more than I realise I think it makes me more tired. I loathe parties. I attend, smile and leave.

One of the reasons I wanted to teach deaf children was because it made me very sad that they spoke so clumsily and that they moved with less grace that I knew was possible of deaf people.

When I was young I used to smother myself with olive oil mixed with a dash of vinegar to keep the flies away and lay in the sunshine for hours on end. But we knew no better then. Now we know how stupid that was.

I took some classes in sign language when I was in my early teens because I was told that I would be completely deaf very early. But I never really wanted to learn.

I'm lucky that most of the time I'm on location in amazing places. Most of the time, I don't need holidays, I just stop working.

When I got into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, a doctor told me to give up the course as I'd be totally deaf within a couple of years. But I refused to give in.