Many retired men and women who spent most of their working lives on the ‘shopfloor’ of UK industry and manufacturing right up until the late 1970s, 80s and beyond will recall just how easy it was to forget about ‘factory noise’ and get used to simply using hand signals or shout when you needed to make yourself understood!
Today, of course, the general rule is if you cannot hear a person talking at high volume from about 1 metre / 3 feet away the likelihood is that you are being exposed to a dangerously high sound levels from nearby machinery and the very real possibility of sustaining long-term hearing damage.
Yet it is surprising how consistently most people think that significant hearing loss is a natural consequence of the ageing process. Recent medical research has shown this is simply not true. In reality, the idea may have arisen because of the many workers who endured excessively noisy workplaces where ear protection equipment was mostly absent or simply not worn, causing more permanent noise induced hearing loss over a period of time.
For most of the twentieth century, right up until the early 1960s, noise levels in the workplace were not even recognised as presenting a health risk! Countless thousands of heavy engineering, industrial production and manufacturing employees throughout the North of England and the Midlands were unaware of the degree of industrial deafness they would eventually suffer.
Noise intensity and duration of exposure are key factors in determining levels of long term hearing damage and permanent hearing loss. The permissible daily level of exposure to noise threshold is 85 dB(A) for eight hours. For every 3 dBs over 85dB, exposure time reduces by one half before risk of hearing damage occurs. The exposure limit for 112 dB(A) is less than one minute.
A quiet office generates an average noise level of 50dBA and a busy restaurant just over 80dBA. Individuals who 
worked ( or are still working) in processing plants, can manufacturing, foundries and with machinery such as hydraulic presses, lathes and pneumatic drills are regularly exposed to levels reaching 100dBA. For those operating chainsaws, sandblasters and riveters, or working in diesel engine rooms, levels can exceed 120dBA, as is often recorded in nightclubs and live music events.
It was not until 1974 that an attempt to reduce employee exposure to loud noise levels was made with the introduction of the Health and Safety at Work Act together with the Health and Safety Executive Code of Practice. Another ten years elapsed until, in 1986, an European ruling was finally put into place in the UK under the Noise at Work Regulations, 1989.
The Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005, introduced in April 2006, was designed to protect company employees by making employers legally responsible to take specific action when noise reaches the set ‘Action Levels’ of 80 dBA and 85 dBA.
The legacy of the UK’s recent industrial past continues today with around 10 million people possessing some form of hearing loss and over three quarters of a million suffering with severely impaired hearing. Any man or woman who feels their working past may have affected their capacity to hear should seek hearing loss advice at the earliest opportunity.