Breakfast with Bristol24/7: Erika Jones

There was no chance of missing Erika Jones in At-the-Well. Her pink patterned dress and white hair with light pink hue certainly made her stand out from the crowd, accessorised by glasses that Velma from Scooby-Doo would be likely to have in her own collection.

The laundrette and cafe on Cheltenham Road was Erika’s choice of meeting point for breakfast. Just a few hundred metres’ walk away from her flat in Redland, it’s where she comes to wash her own clothes, often reading a book while waiting.

Having never met Erika before, a flurry of hand movements was another big clue that I was introducing myself to the right person. I had arrived 10 minutes early for our interview but Erika had beaten me to it and she was engaged in what looked like an animated conversation with Mike, her sign language interpreter whose voice I would hear to my left while Erika sat opposite me.

At first, I couldn’t help but look at Mike rather than simply listen to his Brummie tones but it was soon difficult not to focus on Erika, who unlike me when our bacon sandwiches arrived could eat and talk at the same time.

Erika may not be a familiar face – yet – but she is widely known within the UK’s deaf community, being a reporter on See Hear – the BBC’s world-renowned deaf strand that this weekend is celebrating 35 years with three days of events of screenings, workshops and talks at the Watershed.

“See Hear means a lot to the deaf community, myself included,” Erika says. “When See Hear first broadcast in 1981 there was nothing before that, there was no access really, there were no subtitles then, we had no access to radio obviously being deaf, there were very few interpreters at that time, so access to the outside world didn’t really exist for deaf people until see hear came along. They had subtitles, they had sign language, the content was about deaf people, you know, it had just never happened before.”

So from watching See Hear, Erika now works on the programme at its base at BBC Bristol on Whiteladies Road, travelling the country to report on stories and picking up the Royal Television Society’s Flying Futures Award for emerging talent earlier this year.

She is clearly a natural on camera, and a role model too for many people in the deaf community. Although that’s clearly something that she is still learning to accept.

“I think prior to winning the award there was nobody in the mainstream media from the deaf community who was winning lots of awards and it certainly took me by surprise as well at the time. I wasn’t expecting it. But yes, I suppose winning the award shows others that it can be done and they should have those aspirations because it can happen for you. But I wouldn’t label myself as a role model. I just do what I do, but it was a bit of a wake-up call for me though when it happened.”

Clearly an adventurer, Erika moved to Germany to study jewellery design at university despite not knowing a word of the language. Since graduating, she has carried out a range of different roles, from acting, to houseboat renovating on the River Seine in Paris and translating for the EU in Luxembourg.

She has also been paragliding, skydiving and parachuting. So a bit of an adrenalin junky as well then. I wondered if this is in some way because of her deafness?

“I think it’s me rather than my deafness. Although it may be linked to my deafness, maybe my deafness is part of it actually, I’m not sure, I don’t know.”

So does she mind her deafness being such an important part of her life?

“No, not at all, because you have to accept that most hearing people know nothing at all about deaf people, or deaf culture, it’s a totally acceptable and normal question to ask about deafness because it’s a rare thing for many people and I think being deaf can help you accept risk more, be a risk taker, because growing up you haven’t had that security, you’ve had more challenges in your life I suppose, you have to be more assertive, you have to just try stuff, and maybe that is an element of it, for me.”

By now it’s time for our second coffee. Erika had originally asked for an espresso but it’s filter coffee or nothing in At-the-Well, so we order a second pot shared between four – as Sam, a publicist from the BBC, has by now also joined us, tucking into her own bacon sandwich while ensuring that Erika tows the party line. Not that Sam has anything to worry about. Erika is engaging company throughout our 40-minute chat.

One of the few times she becomes serious is when talking about how despite See Hear being based in Bristol, the deaf community in the city is not as strong as it once was, mostly due to the recent closure of the University of Bristol’s Centre for Deaf Studies, a world leading department founded in 1978 but now closed.

At the same time there has been a funding crisis at the city’s deaf club and the deaf centre where people used to socialise. So one of the aims of the See Hear weekend is to bring that community back together again in one place and, according to Erika, “see if we can help them with some more cohesion again and get it to the strength it used to be”.

Erika shares her Redland flat with a lecturer who used to work on the deaf studies course who has lost his job. “In the past we used to get so many deaf people coming from all over the world, who used to stay with the deaf community, mix with the deaf community. Of course, they’ve all gone now,” Erika says with sadness.

It’s not all doom and gloom, however, and Erika says being deaf as a very positive aspect of her life. “The deaf culture is amazing. We have our own language, we have our own ways, we have our own behaviours and ways of life, which can be linked, to the culture, and I’ve always seen being deaf as a very positive thing.”

Tom the Bristol24/7 photographer shows up just as our conversation is drawing to a close. Despite initial mild protestations, Erika gladly poses for him both inside and outside the cafe. When it’s time to say goodbye, I shake her hand but then she beckons me for a hug. It’s the deaf way, she says as she skips away out of the door.

For more information about the See Hear Weekend, visit www.watershed.co.uk/whatson/season/343/bbc-see-hear-weekend-2015.

Illustration by Harry Morgan