Richard Magill
My husband Richard Magill was a well-known member of the Deaf community. He went to St John's Catholic School for the Deaf in Boston Spa before returning to his family and the Deaf community in London. He wrote,
“I have strong links with the Deaf community as I am Deaf and BSL is my first language. Deaf culture inevitably shapes my beliefs and relationships with other Deaf people.”
Richard started his working life as a graphic designer and then later trained as a BSL teacher doing the BSLTA Tutor Course at the University of Durham in 1987. At this point Richard began teaching British Sign Language full time. He joined the RNID in 1987 working as their Senior Sign Language trainer until 2007. He trained some of the earliest qualified interpreters and taught British Sign Language across the levels from pre-level 1 through to Level 4 (now level 6). He was also involved in interpreter training and train the trainer programmes.
After his children were born Richard worked for the RNID in Bath, and as a Lecturer at the University of Reading teaching BSL on the B.Sc. in Theatre, Arts & Deaf Studies degree.
Richard also published several editions of his book “Start to Sign”, jointly with Anne Hodgson.
Richard died in 2016, aged just 60 leaving a young family. His illness was made worse by lack of access to adequate communication in the hospital and the hospice. I had to translate his diagnosis as there was no interpreter. Throughout his illness, some interpreters were outstanding, but others were either inexperienced or unable to handle the trauma of the situation. They either did not understand his strong BSL or did not understand the medical English. I found myself giving my time over to mediating these communication gaps and calling out mistakes. It is very difficult to interpret such complex language in such a traumatic situation without background knowledge of the patient and the complex medical language involved. At the hospice there was no interpreter at all other than those who gave their time freely as a gift and a Deaf friend whose help was invaluable. Our time together was short and precious and this unwished for role brokering language stole time from us as a family.
Sarah Magill
The Richard Magill Fund
After Richard’s death, I set up the Richard Magill Fund jointly with Gill Behenna, Sally Paull, and Hilary Sutherland initially with the aim of ensuring that other Deaf people and their families should not have to walk the same journey we did.
Richard and I were always fighting for access and interpreters; a battle that continued right up to his final stay at the hospice and this needs to end. At such a difficult time in anyone’s life, I hope that the Richard Magill Fund will go some way to help alleviate this exclusion for others. I also hope it will re-empower Deaf people in any end-of-life situations to make their own decisions about communication, access, and even participation in hospice activities that may make things a little easier. I also hope the Richard Magill Fund may be able to help to facilitate Deaf patients to have a Deaf volunteer by their side if they should wish, enabling caregivers to understand a patient’s end-of-life non-standard BSL if needed.
This is a Deaf charity, run by Deaf people for Deaf people, and inspired by Richard who was a beautiful sign language person and for whom the Deaf community was a core part of his being.
Sarah Magill