As I look at the two smart little bags on the table in front of me, one of which contains Dead Sea beauty products and the other an NHS hearing aid, I am reminded of that ad which was around at a time when advertising, so recently deployed to help win the war, was in its infancy.  For whatever reason – maybe because it asked a question  – I remember Which Twin has the Toni? as vividly as I remember The Squander Bug and Walls Have Ears which, like every war-child, I took to heart, talking in loud whispers in case the enemy was about.

How adults managed to keep their voices down when striving to be heard by the hard-of-hearing elderly, I have no idea. But I am pretty sure that the health service, in its infancy (if it existed at all then), was not handing out these beautifully packaged hearing-aids which I am now trying out for the first time.

So far, the only novelty is that, as I move about, I hear the sound of my feet, also the rustling of the pages of the book I am reading*: a book which reveals, among other tantalising gossip, that professional philosophers are the most spectacular philanderers.  Bertrand Russell (see A QUIET DAY) was not the only one.   ‘Freddie’ Ayers, Stuart Hampshire, Isaiah Berlin were all at it like rabbits, and with each others’ wives and girlfriends.  It seems that my own first husband, who taught the pre-Socratics, was part of a grand tradition.

But, back to ears: what I was looking forward to hearing more clearly was not any old sound but the sound of the human voice.

Not that I have trouble hearing my husband, who was always called on to make announcements in his teaching days, as his voice could be heard above the student din.  But we have a few friends – all men, all big men – who talk so quietly that I can’t hear a thing. Do they keep their voices low so as not to overwhelm with their size?   I imagine there is a parallel in the animal world and that David Attenborough would know the answer.

Be that as it may, it was after an embarrassing evening when I had to pretend to be hearing what was being said and tried to make the appropriate clucking noises, that I went to our GP and asked to be sent to the Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital, in whose catchment area we are lucky to be.

Here, some weeks later, I emerged – diagnosed borderine hard of hearing – from a cosy, sound-proof room, with my bag of goodies which has hung, until today, beside the glossy black bag full of Dead Sea beauty products, which I have also yet to open.

One of those annoying children who always left the best bit to last, I grew into an adult who keeps expensive gifts till they evaporate or grow green with mould.  But my jewel-like hearing-aids aren’t going to be left till their batteries crumble with age. They will, I hope, very soon enable me to hear whatever anyone is saying, however softly they speak.

*  A House in France by Gully Wells