Paralysed woman uses Morse code

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Alan Jones demonstrates the switch he made to allow his mother to communicate using Morse code.

A 79-year-old woman who was almost completely paralysed after a fall has learned to talk to her son by tapping out Morse code with her thumb.

Sylvia Jones, 79, from Swansea, suffered brain damage five years ago.

But thanks to her schoolgirl knowledge of Morse code, she has broken her silence using sounded dots and dashes.

Her communication skills were developed with her son Alan, an ex-BBC technician who rigged up a system using an old margarine tub and shower curtain ring.

He had worked out how they could communicate again after sitting by her bedside for 16 weeks as she recovered from a life-saving operation.

Mrs Jones's injury has left her unable to move, speak or feed herself but her understanding is unimpaired.

Mr Jones, 52, of the West Cross area of the city, said: "First one eye opened, then the other, then her right thumb moved."

He said that after she was moved to a hospital ward he thought about how to communicate with her and remembered her knowledge of Morse code.

She can hear and understand what I am saying but she has to use Morse code to answer Alan Jones

"My mother had learned it as a child from her father, my grandfather," he said.

"Of course, she hadn't used it for 60 years so obviously she was rusty, but she remembered it and it all grew from there."

Mr Jones, a former BBC World Service technician, used his technical knowledge to make a system using a margarine tub, a shower curtain ring and an old plug.

Using this, his mother is able to knock out messages in code so they can communicate.

He has also devised an electronic version of snakes and ladders, so his mother can play the board game with him.

He has grown so skilled he can look at her thumb and understand what she is saying by interpreting her movement.

"I printed out the information I needed about Morse code from the internet and taught myself the alphabet," he said.

The Morse chart in the room at the care home

"She can hear and understand what I am saying but she has to use Morse code to answer.

"The first thing she ever said after I had learned the alphabet was 'How is Fred?' "That was a reference to our pet tortoise who was in the attic hibernating. She was more concerned about the tortoise than herself."

Mr Jones spends up to nine hours a day sitting with his mother at the residential home, where she now lives in nearby Gorseinon.

His goal is to get her back home permanently and he is now working on a way to translate her coded messages on to a computer screen.

"That will mean what she taps out will be able to be read by anyone present, allowing her to have conversations with other people."