Your correspondent John Crace accuses me of speaking “haltingly” when I introduced the actress and human rights campaigner Angelina Jolie Pitt before she gave evidence to the Lords’ sexual violence in conflict committee which I chair (John Crace’s sketch: Hague upstaged as Jolie sprinkles stardust, 9 September).
The impression he was trying to give of course was that my fellow committee members and I were beside ourselves with excitement to be in the presence of a Hollywood superstar. To use Mr Crace’s exact words “the general levels of tizziness” betrayed our excitement.
This is nonsense. Mrs Jolie Pitt and her two fellow witnesses, Mr Hague and Lady Helic, came to give evidence about very serious matters of vital importance.
If I did speak haltingly – and my colleagues told me I did not – then this was not because of some schoolgirl-like excitement at being in the presence of Hollywood royalty, but because of my profound hearing loss.
As I have always made very clear, my lack of sensory perception in both ears and eyes from birth could have made life extremely complicated. I owe my capacity to speak at all to the dedication of my mother, my sisters, and singing teachers.
Most deaf people don’t have this extraordinary luck and many remain silent. Indeed a boy of 16, less deaf than myself, told me recently he would never try to speak in public because he would be laughed at.
I would normally not criticise the noble art of the sketch writer, which I often find wonderfully amusing, but in this instance – while I have since discovered that Mr Crace was unaware of my disability – the words that he chose were unfortunate.
Emma Nicholson
Liberal Democrat, House of Lords
