Peter Stringfellow is not the kind of man who likes to offend. Having spent half a century gladhanding guests in his hugely successful nightclubs, image is everything to him and upsetting people is anathema.
Sometimes, however, he simply cannot help it. Such as the occasion when he was attending the Pride of Britain Awards and Tracey Emin, the enfant terrible of British art, caught him swapping her table place card with that of his wife, Bella.
'She wasn't very impressed, to say the least,' recalls the 69-year-old entrepreneur.
'Tracey was clearly under the impression i didn't want to sit next to her.
'I had to say: "whoa, calm down! I'm completely deaf in my left ear, so it would be completely pointless for you to sit there because it will ruin your night and mine."
'I think she was a bit surprised that i was so open about my deafness. But why should I be ashamed of it? It's not anybody's fault and if people can't deal with it, then it's their problem, not mine.'
Such candour is typical of a man who - courtesy of a facelift and several thousand pounds worth of dental work - looks 20 years younger than his genuine age.
With a 28-year-old wife - a former ballerina, no less - and a booming business in the youth-obsessed world of nightclubs, he exudes vigour and good health.
Engage him in conversation for longer than five minutes, however, and the reality emerges, accompanied by a dazzling flash of those pearly whites and a trademark guffaw.
'I'll be 70 in October and fully expect to live well into my 90s, but right now my body's falling apart,' he grins.
'I'm deaf in my left ear, now the other one's going, too. I've got a lazy left eye which is effectively useless and just lately I've started seeing spots in the other, which means I spend half the time looking around like I'm trying to catch a mosquito. Apparently, it's called black spot, it comes on with old age and I'm just going to have to live with it.
'So i can't hear and I can't see. oh, and I've got a dodgy knee, but I'm not going to let it get me down.'
By his own admission, the light-hearted banter is a coping mechanism. He is far too confident to be laid low by his ailments, and is speaking out to mark Deaf Awareness week in the belief he can offer hope to those in the same position.
This is a man who sat down in front of a House of Commons Select Committee inquiry into lap-dancing clubs, cupped a hand behind his ear and bellowed: 'I'm going deaf, so if you want me to hear you, please speak up.' A shrinking violet he is not. Having been in the nightclub business since 1962, standing on stage alongside the likes of the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, it's no great surprise that he suffers from hearing problems.
Yet it was a flight in 1983 which first triggered the tinnitus - a constant ringing in the ear - and which has plagued him since. 'Believe me, I was suicidal about tinnitus. You're doing anything to get to sleep - drinking, whatever - eventually you manage it and then you wake up and it's still there.''I was on a plane to New York and coming down with flu,' he recalls. 'It seemed to take ages for my ears to pop and when they did I ignored the strange whooshing sound which followed.
'But when the flu went, this sound didn't. So I went to my GP, who introduced me to tinnitus and sent me to a specialist on Harley Street. 'That was the beginning of a journey which lasted two years. I went to doctor after doctor, eventually seeing this guy who sat me down and told me: "There is no cure. You've got to learn to live with it."
'Believe me, I was suicidal about it. You're doing anything to get to sleep - drinking, whatever - eventually you manage it and then you wake up and it's still there.
'My saviour was my career. My life is in nightclubs and within that environment it went. there's noise there anyway, and gradually I learned to accept it.'
Most cases of tinnitus are associated with hearing loss arising from intense sound exposure, ageing or exposure to drugs, including aspirin. It usually takes the form of a ringing noise, but in some patients it occurs as a high-pitched whining, buzzing, clicking, roaring or, as in Peter's case, whooshing sound.
Tinnitus triggered by prolonged exposure to loud noises is caused by damage to the minute hairs in the inner ear. These stereocilia vibrate in response to sound waves.
Peter, however, points at a number of potential factors besides noise - while readily accepting he was reckless with his hearing in his youth. 'When I was a child, I had a deep ear infection,' he says. 'Then, in my 20s, I perforated my eardrum while diving off the coast of Cornwall.
But there was one occasion in about 1968 which stands out. I was on stage with the Pretty Things and stood for 45 minutes right next to the amplifier. I've never heard anything so loud, and it was days before my hearing came back.
'I was in the prime of my life back then, chasing girls and living for the moment, and I certainly didn't think I'd done any damage. 'But we pay the price in the end, all of us.'
There is also a possible hereditary element. Peter's father, who worked in Sheffield's noisy steel mills, wore a hearing aid and Peter's son, Scott, a 42-year-old racing driver, is already experiencing hearing problems.
'I was in the prime of my life back then, chasing girls and living for the moment, and I certainly didn't think I'd done any damage.'Tinnitus, however, was only the beginning of his woes. Ever since that flight, 27 years ago, Peter's hearing has gradually deteriorated to the point when, nine months ago, he finally removed the hearing aid from his left ear and accepted that it was 'gone - basically dead'.
'I hadn't really been able to make anything out with that ear for years, but it was giving me a noise, and that gave me a sort of balance, but eventually I lost even that,' he says. 'The irritating thing is that I still have tinnitus roaring away in that ear, but nothing else.
'Since I took that hearing aid, I acquired an earpiece for the other ear - my "good" ear.
'But I'm losing the hearing in that ear, too. it's going at the top end of the register, which if you consider my profession is ironic as, in theory, it makes women's voices harder to hear.
'The worst part of hearing loss, however, was the way it affected my balance. The first time I got it I was in a restaurant and, all of a sudden, I was thrown on to the floor, as if somebody had hit me on the head with a hammer. Boom!
Jacqueline Sheldrake, the audiologist who treats Peter, describes what he endured as 'a Meniere's-like episode'. Meniere's Disease is a condition of the inner-ear caused by fluctuations in the fluid, leading to feelings of vertigo, tinnitus and progressive hearing loss.
Adds Peter: 'It was years before it went away. I was tripping over things all the time - all because of my hearing problems.
'But then, eight years ago, I met my wife, bought a boat and started to move away from my old life of being in the club every night. 'I relax more - and it's made a huge difference. The first time I walked off my boat, I recall thinking, "there's something different." Then I realised the dizziness had gone.'
Peter put it down to stress - something tinnitus is closely linked to. nevertheless, his hearing has continued to deteriorate, to the point where he is becoming increasingly reliant on his hearing aid.
He has taken advice from the Royal National Institute for Deaf People on selecting the best device for his needs. He says he is helped by the fact that in his club people tend to raise their voices to be heard, though at times he has to bluff his way through conversations. ('A lot of conversations in this business are pretty superficial anyway,' he grins).
Although his wife, who is 41 years his junior, is utterly unconcerned by his hearing loss, some changes have been inevitable. 'I can't go to the cinema, and at home I've got two big speakers on my side of the bed so I can hear the TV.
'Let's be honest here: I'm a rich man, but if I was just a regular guy I'd sell my car or miss my summer holiday if it meant I could afford to have this hearing aid. It's that important.' Sadly, I cannot go to big concerts any more, either - it's just too loud. I am also very careful with the hearing I have left.
'Every time I go swimming, I use an antiseptic spray in my ears to make sure I don't get an infection. The irony is not lost on me that I can't go to a disco, and I'm the guy who introduced them to this country!'
Now, Peter would never consider going without the aid - a Widex PA115 which is all but invisible in his ear and retails at around £1,800.
He is evangelical about the issue of deafness, insisting that he has no compunction about telling people he is deaf and asking them to speak up. 'I hate mumblers and get great satisfaction from telling them it's their fault, not mine.
'I want people to look after their hearing because once it's gone that's it. And for people like myself, for whom it's too late, they have to remember it's not their fault.
'Don't be frightened of it and, for God's sake, don't be ashamed, either.'
Deaf Awareness Week, rnid.org.uk.
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