HEAR FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 60 YEARS

HEAR...Kenneth Broom, 89, hears for the first time after being deaf for 60 years.

THIS is the moving story of how an 89-year-old British man regains his hearing ability after being deaf for 60 years.

Thanks to a cochlear implant last Oct, Kenneth Broom, a Second World War hero, rediscovers a world that he almost forgot.

"It’s absolutely marvellous - a new lease of life," gushed the old man, who is fast catching up with the world of speech and music that he had once missed.

"I was in the lift the other day and I thought I was going mad because I could hear a voice talking and then I realised it was the recorded lady’s voice saying 'Lift going up'."

Even the simple things in life, such as the sound of waves, bring joy to Broom. He recalled how he sat on a bench overlooking the sea at Cromer, north Norfolk, Britain.

"I could hear a noise but I couldn’t work out what it was for a time - it was actually the sound of the waves. I couldn’t believe it - I could hear the sea again."

He's also catching up with his past - that was being brought up when he heard a familiar number that he used to listen to in his childhood: Beautiful Dreamer.

"I hadn’t heard it since I was a boy," said Broom, who's been playing music since he was a kid, playing flute and bugle, joining the Middlesex Regiment at 14 as a drummer boy, before he went deaf.

It's not all sound of joy to him though, as he revealed: "I was near a bus the other day and there was this terrible 'beep, beep, beep' noise going on. I didn’t know what it was but I’ve been told it was the sound they now make when they’re reversing."

The former army bandsman was deafened after being blown up three times by the Nazis. It started in 1950 when he slowly lost the ability to hear high tones, before he became stone deaf by 1971.

After that, Broom had gone through countless attempts in order to hear again, but he was told by post-war doctors in London that there's nothing they could do. He was also told that he was too old for a cochlear implant.

Things took a turn for the better a few years ago when he underwent more hearing tests at different hospitals and was eventually referred for an operation at Addenbrooke's, Cambridge.

Profoundly grateful to the medics who have helped him along the way, Broom estimated that, supplemented by lip reading, he has now recovered about 60 per cent of his hearing. (Daily Mail)