Harry Enfield has been left with serious hearing problems after years of freshwater swimming in north London. The 65-year-old actor revealed he has “extra bones growing in his ears” due to wild swimming at Highgate Men’s Pond in Hampstead Heath.
After recently going to get hearing aids fitted, the comedian was diagnosed with exostoses, more commonly known as surfer’s ear. “I’m deaf, partially deaf. And because I swim in Highgate Ponds, I’ve got stalactites in my ears,” he told Ed Gamble and James Acaster on the Off Menu podcast.
The actor explained: “They’ve got tiny little hearing aids you can get now and apparently they’re very good. They cost a fortune, but they’re worth having. So, I went to get them fitted. They said, ‘No, you’ve got big bones – stalactites – that have grown in your ears. Do you do a lot of freshwater swimming?’ I said, ‘Well, yeah’. They said, ‘Ah, that’s what it is’.”
Enfield went on to say that while there is an option to have them “chopped off”, the process can be “very painful and take a long time”. The actor then joked his ears were now like a “little cave”, adding that the cause could be due to the “rotting corpses at the bottom” of the ponds.
Exostoses occurs when repeated exposure to cold water and wind irritates the ear canal, which then triggers the body to grow new lumps of bone. The growths develop slowly and can lead to issues with retained ear wax, ear canal skin infections, and in some cases, hearing loss. It usually occurs in both ears.
Last year Enfield also spoke about his hearing loss on The Third Act podcast, saying that he was now “getting very deaf and I just cannot hear in restaurants”. He explained that he often asked venues to turn off their background music. Enfield also admitted he exploited pensioner perks despite being two years shy of official pensioner status, saying: “I swim every day in Highgate Ponds. I take my cap off and go, ‘old age pensioner’, put it back on, and that means I go in free until nine o’clock. If I’m late, I pay £2.90, whereas young people have to pay £4.50. That really pleases me.”
