Even as he was announced as one of the grooms in this year’s Married At First Sight UK, Ross McCarthy was clear that the number one girl in his life would always be his three-year-old daughter, Bleu.
And while he is best known as the first deaf participant to appear on the reality show, the 32 year old from Manchester has now found himself going ‘viral’ with his videos of him teaching his little girl sign language. Ross didn’t learn sign language himself until he was in his late teens (as he was able to get by with a combination of hearing aids and lip reading), so there is a poignant reason he is so set on his own child being able to communicate this way.
“I’m getting older and, potentially, one day, I could be totally deaf,” he explains. “I might not be able to communicate with Bleu. As she has no issues with her hearing, I wasn’t signing with her much until somebody suggested I teach her now while she’s young as she would pick it up more quickly.
“I started teaching her a little bit and she seems to enjoy it. Her favourite thing to sign is ‘I love you’.
“We did one video on TikTok that got 1.4million views. It’s absolutely amazing. I’ve had thousands of messages about it from mums and dads whose kids are learning sign language. It melts my heart.”
Viewers of the Channel 4 show will have to wait to find out if single dad Ross’s relationship with aesthetics practitioner Sacha Jones, 29, goes the distance, but Ross says that wearing hearing aids has never got in the way of romance – even on the ultimate blind date.
“I’m not shy. The older you get, the more things you do, the more confident you get,” says Ross, who hoped to be paired with a good communicator on the show. “For me, being deaf, communication is important,” adds
the groom, who wrote the words, ‘I may be deaf, but I will always hear you’ into his wedding vows.
“You do get a little nervous meeting someone for the first time, especially if you’ve got hearing aids on because you’re waiting to see what their reaction is going to be. They might see the hearing aids and think, ‘You’re deaf? No thanks!’”
“My first girlfriend was deaf, so that was easy. If somebody has an accent, it can take a little bit of time to get used to that, but I just get on with it and beat the fear. I’m always confident, always.” As it turned out, Sacha was unfazed and could communicate a little in sign already.
Representing the deaf community was important for Ross when agreeing to take part in the social experiment.
Profoundly deaf since birth, he’s been wearing hearing aids “for as long as I can remember. I thought I was the only person in the whole world who was deaf. I used to think, ‘Why me?’” But supportive friends and family meant that hearing loss didn’t hold him back. “I’ve got five sisters and three were at the same school as me. Their friends were my friends and mine were theirs. I lip read and had my hearing aids. I’d be running around, jumping, climbing fences, playing sport, being naughty. I didn’t think about it.”
Football was a big passion. “I grew up with the people I played with – the hearing people learned to put their hand up to show they wanted the ball. Or if they were behind me, they’d give me a tap. We worked out the communication.”
Now Ross, who began to feel self-conscious about his hearing aids in his mid teens, is partnering with Boots Hearingcare to challenge the stigma that can exist around hearing loss and the use of the devices. “When I was between 15 and 17 or 18, I only wore one hearing aid because, I’ll be honest, I was embarrassed. People were looking at me like, ‘What’s that?’. But only wearing one made my hearing worse.”
Going to Bolton College and meeting “loads of other deaf people” turned out to be a transformative experience. “I saw them signing – I didn’t know anything about it, I was clueless. I was shocked. I’d thought I was the only one. They were doing signing classes so I got involved. The more time I spent with those students, the more I learned.”
Ross even ended up playing international football. “One of the students asked if I wanted to play for Everton Deaf Football Club – I didn’t even know it existed. I went to training and I was absolutely blown away. I got spotted for Great Britain and played for England Deaf Football. It was just amazing.”
While he was studying plastering, painting and joinery at Bolton, Ross was offered an apprenticeship in Blackburn for a firm run and staffed by deaf people. “After a year I was promoted to manager. I’ve been working for them for about 15 years now.”
The experience has made him more determined than ever to champion deaf people. “If I can do it, you can do it, 100%. I want to encourage others to fulfil their potential. That’s my passion.”
■ If you are struggling with hearing loss, visit your GP or an audiologist. More information is available at bootshearingcare.com
Married At First Sight is on E4 on Monday to Thursday at 9pm