It is difficult sometimes for people who suffer no hearing problems to appreciate the sense of isolation that can accompany deafness. Those who can hear take that sense for granted. Those who can't are constantly reminded of their disability via the ordinary things in life - such as a trip to the cinema, a pleasure denied to many deaf people because they are unable to follow the dialogue.

While their friends and colleagues who are able to hear can go to see the latest releases, they must wait for them to be issued on video with special subtitles.

So it's hardly surprising that news of the development of a special subtitling system should be greeted first with delight by the deaf community and then with disappointment because, as with many other things, it has yet to reach the North of England.

If you are a deaf cinema enthusiast in London, you are well catered for through five trial units operating in and around the capital. But in Bradford there is no chance at present of sitting alongside hearing cinemagoers and following the action through subtitles.

Hopefully all that will change before too long. Spokesmen for the Odeon group locally, as well as Cineworld and the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, have all expressed interest in the system and responded positively to the campaign by Carol McEachran of Thorn Park School for Deaf Children, Bradford, for it to be made generally available.

Let's hope it happens soon so that the district's deaf people can start to take full advantage of the boom in the number of cinemas in the Bradford area.