Obituary
Simon Douglas
21.12.79 – 07.06.09 (died aged 29 years)

Simon was born profoundly deaf to a hearing family, having contracted rubella before birth,.  He was educated in units attached to mainstream schools in Bedfordshire. At nursery showed a strong preference for sign language and discarded his hearing aids whenever he could. He had two younger sisters with whom he developed home signs.

He gained sufficient GCSE subjects to enter Barnfield College to join the BTEC National Diploma in Computer Studies Course and spent a year at Luton University following the BSc degree course in Computer Visualisation and Animation.  Access to lectures was provided by Communication Support workers (CSWs) but Simon was a very able student and worked much of the time on his own.

He decided to leave the course when he was offered a job at John Bunyan School, Bedford as ITC Technician.  He enjoyed the work and stayed for five years, from 1999 - 2004.  He then changed career and became a teacher of BSL at Barnfield College and Milton Keynes Adult Continuing Education Department.  He was a popular teacher and brought much humour to his classes. In 1997 he was Chair of Deaf Support a voluntary organisation assisting me, the Executive Officer with a service matching CSWs to deaf clients.  Simon also set up office IT equipment to make communication between deaf and hearing easy. Simon ran computer and BSL groups for the South Bedfordshire Youth Service.

Tragically in 2007 Simon’s mother died from alcoholic poisoning and Simon never recovered from the shock and bereavement.  He followed his mother’s pattern and died himself in the same way in spite of efforts of family and friends to save him.

Simon will be sorely missed in Bedfordshire by family, friends and colleagues both deaf and hearing and particularly by me who had worked alongside him during his short life and learned so much deaf awareness from him as well as, IT, BSL and human psychology. Simon was very unique and much loved by all who knew him.

Sandra Dowe  

 

A Poem in Memory of Simon Douglas

Deaf Simon
For Deaf he was
Voice low and slow
Hands fast and fluent.
A Deaf view of life
He had, Deaf Culture,
Deaf humour, Deaf face
That showed a million meanings
In a day.

Simon, quick to learn
The natural teacher
Shared his knowledge gladly,
Loved computing and fast driving
Flitted from task to task
Living life at top speed
Till his time ran out;
But not from our memories.

 

Sandra Dowe
June 2009

© Sandra Dowe-Bradley 2009