Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Childhood illnesses have left me with hearing loss
ON screen we know Stephen Mcgann as Call The Midwife’s GP Dr Patrick Turner, who spends his time curing the patients of post-war Poplar in East London. In real life, however, he is more used to being on the other end of the stethoscope, declaring himself to have been “a very sickly child”.
“My brothers and sister affectionately called me ‘Bone’ because I was so thin you could see all my ribs,” he recalls.
“I suffered from childhood asthma, which led to sinus trouble and ear trouble. I was hospitalised with pneumonia once and developed bronchitis. I always had a bad chest.”
Of those early years, Stephen, who was one of five children, says, “We were a working-class family, so we all lived together in a terraced house in Liverpool. It was terrible in winter – you would get condensation on the bed. It was damp, dangerous, cold and it contributed to my breathing problems.”
Holidays were particularly tough, causing dust allergies to flare when Stephen was staying somewhere new.
“I remember very clearly a time when we were staying at a holiday camp and my brother Joe took me out of the chalet for a walk by the sea because the dust was making me so short of breath.
“There was a point on the sand where I was so weak that I began to fear for my life because I couldn’t breathe at all. That feeling of drowning, of not being able to grab any useful oxygen, is one I’ve never ever forgotten.”
By his mid-teens Stephen had thankfully grown out of the asthma that plagued his early years, but his constant ill health had left the former Emmerdale star with a permanent souvenir – he is significantly deaf in one ear.
“My chest infections would periodically spread to my ears and when I was seven one left me with a perforation in my left eardrum,” reveals the 56-yearold, who lives in Hertfordshire with his wife Heidi, 57.
“While perforated eardrums generally heal up on their own, occasionally they don’t. There’s a procedure which grafts skin over the hole to remedy the issue but it didn’t work for me.
“I had this large hole in my left ear and underwent four separate operations in an attempt to fix it, but for some reason the graft would never take. The upshot is that my hearing in my left ear is significantly reduced.”
It’s an unexpected revelation from someone who has appeared on stage and screen, and something Stephen has never spoken about before, but as he explains, “Luckily it’s only an issue for me when there’s a lot of background noise because I still have one good ear. But if that goes, I’ve got problems.”
There was, however, one occasion when Stephen’s hearing loss almost sabotaged his ability to perform.
“About 10 years ago I was in The Glee Club at The Library Theatre, Manchester, in which we had to sing and harmonise,” he explains. “I developed an infection in my good ear which led to a small perforation and then I was in trouble. I was really deaf.
“I was told by the doctor not to worry too much as it would heal, as most perforations do, but I knew from my previous experience that there’s also a chance it wouldn’t, so it was a worry. Additionally, I had no understudy so I still had to perform even though I couldn’t hear the other actors to harmonise with them.
“I managed to stumble my way through until the right eardrum repaired itself – I could still hear my own voice inside my head so I pulled it off somehow, but I did feel quite vulnerable. It brings you up sharp and makes you think about the fragility of our systems.”
As well as avoiding getting water in his left ear at all costs, Stephen always signs up for his annual flu jab in an attempt to ward off any seasonal ailments. “Protecting my hearing is certainly one of the reasons I don’t want to get flu because it could spread to my ears and cause some really serious issues,” he says.
Stephen, who is supporting Public Health England’s flu vaccination campaign, adds, “One of the biggest things I’ve learned by playing a post-war doctor in Call The Midwife is that we often underestimate the danger of those viruses around us until we meet them up close.
“Vaccination is one of medicine’s greatest gifts. Flu can be very serious, even deadly for the elderly, young children and those with underlying health conditions.”
Stephen’s last bout was over a decade ago but he hasn’t forgotten how unpleasant it was.
“I was on the way to visit my wife Heidi’s parents and I remember the journey clearly because I was feeling a bit peaky in the car and then became profoundly ill within about six hours.
“What followed was 48 hours of really scary stuff. I couldn’t believe it when the doctor who came out to see me said I had influenza. I remember thinking, ‘No, no it can’t be, it must be some terrible disease’.
“It’s an eye-opener when you get the real thing – you certainly know all about it. Until you’ve had it, influenza is something people think a bit of Lemsip will help shake off, but it’s a dangerous, dangerous thing – and vaccination is a marvellous thing.”