Great to hear someone actually benefited from that Investors in People initiative. Companies were quick enough to say oh we're proud to be Investors in People, but I never really met that many people you were invested in!
I am a Chemical Engineer and worked on enough chemical plants, oil refineries and oil platforms to know what noise is. But I was able to piss off back to my office often enough so as not to have been affected by hearing loss.
My wife suffers from hearing problems so I know which ear to be on to make myself heard!

my fellow travellers thought that I was aloof, as I seemed to only speak to them or reply to them, when I felt like it.

Welcome to the aloof club. I have ankylosing spondylitis, a shitty rheumatoid arthritis and have had since I was 12. It meant I did not move head to look at you, rather I learnt to have fucking awesome peripheral vision so I could see you. But because I was not looking directly at someone with my body, I was called an aloof cnut! If you were important enough then I would turn my upper torso.

Mr G the groundbreaker being the first in the UK to get that kit and procedure! Great to hear you can now hear and touch wood you will hear your granddaughter and be gobsmacked at what you missed! And yeah vanity, ha once we don't give a fuck then that goes out the window too.