The Heather Jackson Award is made annually to a deafened person who has made a significant contribution to the improvement of the welfare and opportunity of deafened people.
Heather lost her hearing suddenly and as a result dedicated herself to the work of Signature, the National Association of Deafened People (NADP) and Hearing Link until she lost her battle with cancer in 2007 at the age of 58. All three charities are involved in the award.
We are happy to announce that Peter J Pullan, MBE, has been voted to receive the Heather Jackson Award for this year. As one of the three founders of STAGETEXT in 2000, along with Geoff Brown and Merfyn Williams, Peter played a leading part in procuring equipment, largely at his own expense, encouraging theatres to put on captioned shows, setting up STAGETEXT as a charitable company and obtaining funding, notably from the Arts Council England. Without his leadership it is doubtful whether the organisation would have reached the level it has today. In later years, when the day to day running of STAGETEXT was carried out by staff, Peter continued to be active as Chairman of the Board of Trustees.
Now retired, Peter continues to support STAGETEXT in its development plans for the future. He is keenly interested in the development of new captioning technology, and the growth of communication support for tours and lectures on a wide variety of topics in museums and galleries, all of which confirm Peter’s belief in the importance of access to communication in English for deaf, deafened and hard of hearing people. Above all, he is delighted to be able to attend theatre and arts events with his partner and enjoy them just like everyone else.
He is a worthy winner of the Heather Jackson Award, which will be presented to him at the NADP Annual General Meeting in April.
