She got flak from viewers for her behaviour on the Udaipur trip a few months ago (one of the India trips in the Real Marigold Hotel documentary series). I guess it’s because they didn’t know – or, perhaps, didn’t care too hoots if they did – that she was born deaf in her right ear and partially deaf in the other, and that she’d lost much more hearing in that ear over the years. Her deafness being complicated by not having had 3-dimensional hearing.
She’s said that her hearing was “all on the same plane. Background and foreground sounds flatten out, so a car coming down the road is as loud as a person’s voice right next to me ... I often didn’t know people were talking to me. I’d walk right past them and they assumed I was snooty.” So anywhere noisy, she’d be looking to get out of the din. In India that couldn’t have always been possible when out and about, and places such as The Golden Temple area would have been hellish on her hearing.
She’s talked about how deafness can be a lonely existence. Also, because of recurring skin cancer on her nose, she stays out of the sun between noon and 4pm; so it could have looked like she was anti-social and acting a diva.
When she began to cut the crusts off sandwiches she was making for her group of travel companions, some protested and one remarked: “The Queen doesn’t have crusts, do you?” She looked up and smiled and there was laughter. It was said affectionately, and her travel mates seemed to enjoy her, crankiness and all. I do.