TINNITUS

Tinnitus from that day

There are few events in a person’s life that make such an impact that you remember ever detail for the rest of your life.

I was four years old in 1955. That is a magical year now because of the songs and nostalgic TV shows that have come out about those days. But for those who lived there it was not really quite as romantic and certainly not as enlightened as it is today. Enlightenment comes only from experience, so I guess that my experience on that night of 5th November of that year has helped with the overall enlightenment and so the protection of children in these modern times.

Tinnitus is an unseen blight on millions of people today, and so much of it could be easily prevented. My story is just like that. Tinnitus has been with me since that night and this is the story of how that happened.

Traditionally known as Bonfire Night, Guy Fawkes Night was an annual celebration on the evening of the 5th of November every year in Australia. This was, of course, mostly due to the fact that Australia was a British colony and so much of the traditions of England were generally celebrated also in Australia. Every year my family, being very much so influenced by the traditions of our grandparents, would celebrate Guy Fawkes night along with the greater community and these celebrations were considered part our heritage. The purpose of this story is not to give a history lesson of this particular tradition, and if the reader wishes to find out more then they should go here for that background.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes_Night

This story starts out with a very traditional outing for families in the early 50’s in Australia and an outing that was very much looked forward to by the children of the era. Myself being the youngest of the family and went along for a night that promised to be nothing but fun and excitement; one of joining in with the entire community in a celebration that we little understood but certainly enjoyed as only children can.

In that time fireworks were not viewed as anything more than a great source of fun and enjoyment for the whole family. I can clearly remember the shops being stuffed full or all kinds of gunpowder products all of which were sold as a means of providing fun and exciting entertainment for all the family. There was absolutely no restriction on the sale of fireworks, and children of any age could buy what ever they wanted if they had the money to pay for them. It is to be remembered that TV was not even heard of in Australia at that time and even such things as radio plays were still struggling to get an audience with the wider population. It is quite understandable that outings where the whole community joined in for some kind of celebration or entertainment was something that we all looked forward to and made preparations for a long time.

The traditional way of celebrating this very historic occasion was for families to go to some public parks or other outdoors place and to set up a bonfire, lay out blankets and pillows and generally set up for a wonderful night of entertainment and family involvement fun. Food was mostly in the form of sandwiches made by mum during the day and drinks were sweet cordial for the kids, and thermos flasks of tea for the adults.  Without internet, television, and the radio providing only music, some entertainment, and basic news broadcasts, there was no way that the messages about the dangers of the activities could be distributed. Actually, the dangers and casualty figures were only just beginning to be compiled so there was no way that people generally could form any opinion other than from what they actually saw with their own eyes, and of course, that was very limited.

At the night of November 5th 1955 I remember being very excited because the much awaited Guy Fawkes night had finally arrived. We had talked about this upcoming event for a long time and excitedly prepared for it. My parents were as enthusiastic as was the rest of the community about the great festive night that were all about to enjoy. We had saved up our pocket money for months so that we could buy “crackers”, the generic name for fireworks of all kinds.

And there were many varieties of crackers that we could buy. Sky rockets, jumping-jacks, sparklers, catherine wheels, and of course the real crackers, or those things that just went bang after you lit the fuse. All great fun but the greatest fun for children was the biggest cracker of all. This one we called the “tuppeny bunger”. It got the name because it cost two pence “tuppence” for one and was a huge explosive that was later found to be about the power of a quarter stick of dynamite. How much we really did love those things because of the power that they could give and the awesome noise that they gave off when “let off”.  As children will always do, we had experimented with these things and found that the loudest noise could be extracted from these when they were exploded in the air rather than just letting them off on the ground. So, the holy grail for us children at that time was to let off a “tuppeny bunger” as high in the air as you could. To do this, you had to light the fuse, then hold it until the fuse burned down almost completely, then throw that thing as high into the air as you could. Depending on how good your guess was about how far to let the fuse burn down, and how strong your arm was for throwing it up, the results varied quite considerably.

The much awaited night finally arrived and my family gathered together all of our much treasured fireworks which were the product of our savings and careful selection over many weeks. Of course, mum did her duty (remember, this it the mid 50’s) and packed all the needs for the family for the evening including the picnic basked with the sangers (sandwiches) and drinks. We all excitedly got in the car, a very large black Pontiac sedan as I remember, and headed off for the seaside where we could have our bonfire and “cracker night” fun.

Now, in those days, it was not a crowded scene as it would be today. We could drive along the seaside, enjoy the fresh air, watch many other families set themselves up, select a nice spot, and set ourselves up for the pleasant evening. Much of the fun was to watch the other families having fun as it was for us to enjoy our own celebration. Sky rockets consisted of a small firework attached to a stick. This would placed in a bottle, pointed toward the sky, and the fuse lit. It would just woosh off leaving a trail of sparks and we all clapped and thought it was just wonderful. We could watch everyone elses skyrockets as well as set our own off for mutual benefit and enjoyment by everyone. 

Of course, we had to have our own bonfire, without which it would just not be traditional. And my family had our bonfire and this was the source of ignition of most of the fireworks that we, as a family, came to “let off” as part of our celebrating Guy Fawkes night. Now, if you could take out the danger, you could only see this as post war community coming together in a spirit of family fun and togetherness. Certainly it had that feeling about it, and I can still feel that and understand the reason why this was such a popular festival time in that era.

The down side, and the reason why it was ultimately banned, was the numerous injuries and property damage that resulted from the play with explosives and fire generating toys. The keeping of statistics, which at the time was only beginning to take shape, showed the awful carnage that this celebrating was causing. So many burn victims, so many unnecessary fires, so much property damage, so much distress to the community had only just started to be realized. I was, at the time, a silent victim of this problem, the statistics of which can never be fully documented.

The night started out so perfectly. My family, me the youngest, all got in the car and headed off for the bayside and set up our place for the evening. The view was perfect beside the bay with a lovely spot to have our bonfire and picnic style nights entertainment. The empty bottles were placed out for the sending off of our sky rockets and even a tree nearby where we could attach our catherine wheels and set them off for us to enjoy watching as they wizzed away with their gun powder power… oh so much fun and so excitement for a four old child.

Now the story gets a bit dark. I remember seeing many fireworks being set off, and being thrilled so much and of course, caught up in the spirit of the celebration. There was no thought given very much by anyone at the time about the dangers of what we were playing with as it was all considered only to be great family fun. There was not even a lot of parental supervision going on as far as control of the fireworks or how they were being handled by the children because that would probably have been thought of at the time as restricting the kids fun. As mentioned, dangers were not well publicised or even considered.

I remember the night getting late, and there were still some crackers to let off, but I was mostly overshadowed by my elders – I had an older sister and brother and being the youngest I was left out of most of the older kids fun. Of course I wanted to show that I was as much of the group as anyone, so I thought that I could let off my own cracker to show them all that I could do it too.

With a bag of fireworks just sitting there and available to me, I selected the biggest one……….. a tuppeny bunger……  and set about lighting the fuse. By this time our bonfire had burned down to just some glowing coals so lighting the fuse turned out to be not quite so easy. A tuppeny bunger always had two lengths of fuse hanging out, the reason for that I still don’t know. On the one that I selected, it had a long one and a much shorter one. By holding the thing near the fire, I was draping the fuses on the glowing coals trying to make them light. The first one to light was the shorter one, and I thought that if both were not lit the thing would not work. So, I lingered there trying to get the long one to start while the short one burned down very quickly. Finally the long one started to burn, and I turned and held it out at arms length getting ready to throw it with all my strength.

It was at that moment that the thing went off and I clearly remember two things that happened simultaneously. The explosion snapped my hand open and I felt the shock of it on all my body. At the same instant, the sound of the blast was like a sledge hammer on my head and my ears started to “ring” so loud that I could hardly hear anything else. Of course, the entire family ran over to me and started to comfort me and checked for physical injuries. Everyone focused on my hand but amazingly I did not have any burn or obvious injury at all. Everyone was nicely relieved that no harm had happened, and while I was a bit shaken up I seemed to be fine after a short time. What no one could ever know, and I did not understand myself, was that there was this buzzing in my ears that was very strange and more than a little unsettling.

Children do adapt to things really quickly, and that must have been the case for me because I don’t remember ever complaining about the ringing in my ears to anyone. It became normal for me and so I just lived with it never realizing how much of a problem this could really be. The ringing, while it did go away to some extent, has never stopped since that night so long ago. In the years since, I have had problems with infections in my ears many times, and while those problems are not directly associated with the first accident, these infections did serve to make the ringing louder.

Today, I have to be very careful about any chance of getting infections in my ears because of the additional problems that this can cause. The tinnitus is still there and will be there for ever but I have managed to live with it okay enough all my life, so I guess that it will be okay for the rest. I have hearing at about 70% in my right ear and only about 80% in my left ear. One other problem that the tinnitus causes is that I cannot differenciate sounds like most people with normal hearing can do. That is, if I am in a crowded noisy room and trying to have a conversation with someone standing very near, I cannot pick out their voice from the background noise. I am told that a hearing aid would sort out all these problems, but I have not gone that far yet. I guess that living with the problem seems to be better than living with a hearing aid. Maybe someday, it will come to that but I guess that I have to consider myself fortunate that I do have reasonably normal hearing and can at least function normally. Hearing disability, being so much a hidden problem, causes other difficulties, even in relationships. Often I have had someone talk to me, or call out to me from a distance away, but I have not heard them at all. Then they think that I am being deliberately rude, or ignoring them. Not so much of a problem if the people know about the disability that I have, but for those who do not know, sometimes they get the wrong impression, and I have been many times not aware of it happening.

Final thought……… Guy Fawkes and his mates plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament on 5th November, 1605 and exactly 350 years later I am afflicted with tinnitus for the rest of my life as a direct result. The Wheeling Circles sure can spin out very widely indeed.