I wore a borrowed pair of RAF ground crew issue ear defenders at the 1985 British Grand Prix held at Silverstone. I remember removing them because they turned the exhaust notes of the turbocharged engines from merely penetratingly resonant to mind-numbingly painful beyond what I can describe.

Tinnitus and high frequency deaf in one ear.Worked on most 60s aircraft without much ear protection but then had 30 years in Power stations where it is very noisy!!No chance of any compensation for me!

Interesting thread and one which many young peopel should read. I grew up next to LHR in the Trident Caravelle VC10 707B/C era with its constant blend of roars and screams -what life on the ramp was like I can only imagine. I suffer from aprtially degraded eharing at high frequencies parly due to that and aprtly due to spendinn about half my life on international phone calls which were full of hisses and crackles and the like. Was a bit surprised when the doc told me that but he said it isnt only volume/loudness but constanmt repetion of some frequencies even at relativel low levels can imapir detection of those frequencies later on in life. I wonder what thirty years in a 737 cockpit with attendent slipstream noise does to hearing too

What will happen to the under thirties whauwho dont wear ear defenders but ear assaulters i cannot imagine. We all know hearing performance is a very subtle sneaky thing and as the song said you dont know what you got till its gone