‘Discovering I needed hearing aids made me feel so old’

as good as it was through headphones. The difference is so subtle, you don’t put them on and suddenly find everything is amplified, but my eldest daughter says my hearing improved massively.”

The first big test was a noisy party.

“In normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have heard anything being said,” says Susannah. “I think I could hear better than anyone else there – people were saying, ‘I can’t hear, can you turn the music down?’ For me, there wasn’t too much loud talking, clattering of glasses or music, everything was perfectly pitched.

“I thought, OK, I’ve got to embrace this. So I started showing people and the reaction has been, ‘That’s so cool, they’re amazing! I can’t even see them.’

“I’ve been lifting up my hair saying, ‘Can you see anything different about me? People have asked what I’m talking about, if I’ve had a piercing. I chose black ones and they look like an extension of my glasses.”

There are benefits you wouldn’t notice too. A study in the Lancet suggested 8% of dementia cases could be prevented with hearing loss management, while research found those who are deaf are twice as likely to experience mental health problems.

“Being unable to hear can leave you feeling very isolated,” says Susannah. “We know how important it is for mental health to be in nature. I’d lost a key part of that. I run a lot in the countryside and can hear the impact of my feet, the birdsong, the wind, the rain again now. It makes you appreciate how much you must miss out. And that’s before you even think about how dangerous it is if you can’t hear a car approaching.”

Susannah urges anyone who struggles with hearing to get tested.

“A lot of my mother’s friends refuse to do it for the same reasons I did. Even though they’re 10, 20, 30 years older than I am, there’s still that stigma. And they do feel isolated.

“What I found is, saying, ‘What? Excuse me?’ all the time can feel so ageing. When you hear with crystal clarity, it makes you feel younger. It’s kind of liberating.”

‘‘ The reaction has been: they’re cool, you can’t even see them