Can't Read Can't Speak Properly A Childhood Memoir

By Robert Hartley

Like many millions of disadvantaged children, Bob Hartley went through school  being unable to read, and he also had a speak impediment. Can't Read, Can't Speak Properly  tells of his experience and his attempts to cope with the daily challenges and eventually overcome them, when having to finally address the question - What do you do when you know you're thick? His solution, to everyone's surprise, including his own,  eventually led  him to pass exams, go to university,  be awarded  a degree and later a doctorate and work as a research psychologist with failing working class children just like he was. Eventually he became an award winning documentary film director.

                                                                                                        

Can't Read, Can't Speak Properly will inspire parents, teachers, and people struggling with the effects of speech problems and illiteracy to believe that there is hope and that lives can be turned round, even when hope is lost.  He did so, and hopefully his story and insights will help others understand more deeply and assist those to find a way out of this childhood ordeal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Hartley
• Release date: Dec 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223301646

Robert Hartley

Robert Hartley worked as a documentary film director making films for television. He trained at the National Film & Television School and he won the British Film Institute Award as Outstanding Newcomer to British Film & Television and other international film awards. Prior to becoming a film director he worked as a research child psychologist with children from London's East End and he has a doctorate in psychology from London University. He has published research as a child psychologist and he has also taught documentary film production at London Metropolitan University.

Book preview

Dedicated to all the children who

go to school each day and cannot

read or speak properly

This book is memoir.  All the events are true to my memory but the names of some people and their characteristics have been changed.

Introduction

Bookshops and libraries are full of books written by people who are good at writing.  Galleries are full of paintings drawn by people who are good at drawing and painting.  TV and radio are full of people who speak well. Most people aren't good enough at writing, painting or speaking to have produced a book, a painting or appear regularly on television or radio.

Statistics show that  25% of the people in the UK are functionally illiterate, that's 9 million people. One in four of British 5 year olds struggle with basic vocabulary while 75% of white working-class boys fail to reach the government's benchmark for literacy at the age of 16. ¹ Seven percent of all children also have a persistent speech or language impairment. ²

This means that the school experience of many working-class boys and girls is often described by people who were always good at reading and writing and speaking.  They mostly come from the middle-class or they were children from a working-class background who were the top of their class, and so gained academic success.  These individuals don't know what it is like to be grow up being unable to read, and therefore they don't truly understand the experience of the majority of kids who fail in school.

This book is different.  It is the memoir of a boy who was unable to read and speak properly. 

Chapter One

The Start

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Early 1950s, Islington, north London

What does one remember from the beginning of one’s childhood?  I remember a few glimpses  of experience and trying to pull the pieces together when I see the family photograph album.  I am told that those pictures are of me.  There I am.  A baby, smiling at the camera.  I’m told it’s me so I suppose it is me, but it really could be any other baby.

There I am sitting with another child in a cot.  I’m told it’s my brother.  There I am in my mother’s arms at a Christening outside a church. It looks like my mother, so I suppose it is me.  That’s me, I’m sure it is but I don’t remember it.  Isn't there always something a bit alien about seeing someone you don't recognise, being referred to as you? 

I do remember going to the garden and picking some flowers and going into the kitchen where my mother was at the sink by the window, and kneeling down on one leg, as if I was a knight, and handing her the flowers.

I remember the funny smell in the basement where Mrs. Allen, the old lady who owned our house, lived. 

I remember an old metal peddle car I sat in, in my garden, and which I loved.  Allied with this memory is the longing for it to still be in my backyard.

And I remember my first day at school.  My brother took me there.  He was two years older and he left me with the other new children at the school entrance.  It was Drayton Park Primary School, Arvon Road entrance, Islington, north London.

Eventually a teacher called me forward and asked whether I wanted school dinners.  I explained that my mother had said that I could.  The teacher asked me again, ‘Are you having school dinners?’ Again I explained that my mum had said that I could have school dinners. 

The teacher then turned to a colleague and said to her, Ask him whether he wants school dinners. The next teacher bent down and looked me in the face and asked ‘Do you want school dinners?’  I said ‘Yes, my mother said that I could have school dinners’.  She asked me the same question again and she got the same answer.

I noticed the teacher was getting a little agitated and then repeated the question but much louder this time. ‘Do you want school dinners?’  ‘Yes I want school dinners’ came my reply.  The teachers looked at each other and someone said ‘Call Mrs. Needham. Mrs. Needham was the Infant Headmistress. 

Eventually the headmistress came and formed a huddle with the other teachers talking quietly.  She then marched forward, clearing everyone aside and bending down almost at my eye level said in a loud clear voice ‘Do you want school dinners?’  I said as firmly as I could ‘Yes my mother said I want school dinners’.  She repeated the question and got the same answer.  Now the teachers were looking at each other and scratching their heads.

After a few moments one said that 'he has a brother in the second year' and the headmistress instructed a child to quickly bring him.  Eventually Trevor arrived looking smart, clean and puzzled.  The headmistress turned to him and said, ‘Ask your brother whether he wants school dinners’.  Trevor turned to me and asked ‘Do you want school dinners’.  I immediately said ‘Of course Mum said I can have school dinners’.  Trevor turned to Mrs. Needham and said ‘He says he wants school dinners’.  I said to Trevor that I have kept telling them that I wanted school dinners.  The teachers seemed satisfied with the answer. 

It was at that moment that I realised that no one understood what I was saying, apart from my brother. 

The thought had never occurred to me that my life was any different from anyone else.  I saw other people and children but never thought about it. The pictures in the family photograph album showed me like any other child, but I was not, because no one understood a word I was saying, apart from my brother.

I think that it was after this time that the most telling information about me came from my parents.  I can’t remember when I was told.  I probably overheard my mother telling someone else.  I learned that at the age of two that I climbed up onto our balcony facing the garden on the first floor of our house and continued climbing to the top of a ladder that was propped up on the balcony towards the roof.  I then reached over to an overflow pipe and fell seventeen feet onto a concrete floor, on my head.

‘His snow-hood saved him’ was the phrase I came to hear when the story was told.  The thought never crossed my mind for a long time what a snow-hood was but eventually I realised that it had kept my head intact and saved my life.  I had fractured my skull.  This seemed to be something noteworthy.  I hadn’t just fallen but I had fractured my skull, and the pieces of my head had been kept in place by the snow hood.  I knew that if I hadn’t had the snow hood up on that day my head would have scattered into pieces, and I wouldn’t have been there to hear the story.

My parents and some family friends, Pat and John Baker had been in the garden at the time and apparently I had wandered off, climbed the balcony stairs and then up the ladder all on my own, reached over, and fell onto the concrete floor below.

I was as interested in the story as much as the people my mother told.  The doctors said that there had been brain damage.  They thought I’d be permanently deaf, but as I listened to the story I knew I wasn’t deaf.

The story got added to by Uncle John many years later after he had had a stroke.  I asked to see him, and Pat, my mother's best friend, warned that he might not recognise you.  Pat said to him that 'this is Bobby'.  John immediately said with surprise ‘Oh you’re alive.  I thought you were dead.  The last time I saw you, you had blood coming out of your ears’. 

The next instalment of the story I overheard, also interested me.  I didn’t speak for a long time. I said nothing.  I had had brain damage but it had meant that I didn’t go through the stages that children normally do when children start to speak. 

I now understood from my own experience that when I did start to speak no one understood me, apart from my brother.  I came to learn that I was going to school earlier than the other children because the doctors thought that if I had more social interaction then it might help my speech development.  That was the story I heard being told about me, but because I didn’t use much speech I didn’t use language much in my life, then although I heard the story being told of how I banged my head, I was really living the life of the story.  The story being described was my life.

My brother translated for me but when he was not around I spoke the way I did and I don’t remember any long conversations, but then I am unsure if any child has long conversations.  At home Trevor always seemed to be around to repeat what I said, if anyone enquired, although it didn’t seem that many people did enquire to me.  I was almost always referred to as 'Trevor's brother' and other people spoke for me.

All I remember about my early days in school was that it was enjoyable but I was shocked at little.  I was initially shocked at seeing the boys chasing the girls in the playground at break times in an attempt to kiss them.  I remember thinking about it and not understanding why they needed to chase them.  Surely all they had to do was approach them when they were sitting still, like when they were in class and kiss them rather than run around at each play time trying to catch them in order to kiss them.  I noticed that most of the time the girls managed to avoid being kissed when in the playground.

I remember spending some weeks considering the girls in the lower school who were worth kissing. After I made my selection, one morning prior to school assembly I remember leaving my seat in the class and going quietly into each class in turn, looking through the door window and going inside to the girl I had identified. I walked over to her seat, kissed her and then left the class to do the same to the girl or girls in the next class.  When I had completed the Infants School, maybe five or six girls in the different years, then I returned to my class and resumed my school work.  I don’t remember anyone saying anything to me.  I was 4 year old.  If they had asked I would have explained why I had done it, but I suppose that if they couldn’t understand what I’d say then it was hardly worth them doing so.

This event told me something important. I could do things and unlike other children who might get told off, I was left alone. 

As I got older I remember being made to stand in the corner of the classroom facing the wall like other children were.  This didn't happen very often.

As I couldn’t speak properly then it meant that I couldn’t pronounce out the sounds of a word in order to read them.  It also meant that I couldn’t spell.  I couldn’t read and consequently I couldn’t write very well. I was illiterate, although I didn’t know what that word meant until many years later.  When the teacher said that this or that shape was a letter I truly didn’t know what it meant and why it was different from a word.  I sat in classes for years wondering what a letter and a word was and how they were different.

I appreciated that other children could read but I had no idea how this came about.  I imagined words and letters falling down from the sky and somehow some children managed to capture them in their heads and put them together in the correct way but for some reason I just couldn’t do it. The letters and words never fell in my head in the right order that made any sense.

The reason I know what I wrote in class was one day I found an old school book with my name on the front.  Inside I’d written repeatedly, ‘I love you and you love me. You love me and I love you.’  That was it, filling half a page.  So I could write.

I remember one occasion when I was older I was made to stand in front of the class and I was shouted at. I must have been six or seven. I could picture it clearly, but when I did I always saw the scene in my mind from the right hand side of the classroom, which was not from where I was standing.  I see it from the position of the desk I sat at.

I saw myself standing there at the front of the class next to Mrs. Needham, the head mistress,  and with my teacher standing close by. They were towering over me. I was on display to the class and publicly being told off. I felt in shock.  I can’t remember what had caused it, but I think that Mrs. Needham had looked through the class door window and caught me doing something wrong.  I know that it must have been serious because Mrs. Needham was there and the feeling of something different, important happening.  I felt in a state of deep shock which carried on for days while in class.

Maybe I didn’t always obey my teacher but I don’t remember ever intentionally disobeying her, so maybe this was the reason I was in a state of shock. Maybe Mrs. Needham thought that as I was getting older, if she shouted at me and treated me harshly then I’d improve. This incident was the exception and maybe I did improve because I don’t remember it ever happening again.

I remember often being kept aside by teachers after the rest of the children had been allowed to go out to play.  They would talk to each other as if I wasn’t there. I suppose that if someone doesn’t talk sensibly they think that they can’t hear sensibly. I remember being shocked at the awful things that they would say about some of the other children. They seemed to be hurtful comments. After those many episodes, a part of me knew something important about what teachers say to each other, when they are together. It didn’t make me feel good although I was expected to consider those moments standing with the teacher was normal.  I didn’t have language to know it but I knew it in another way.  Those teachers who I obeyed without question did not always act or speak in the way that they did when they were addressing a class or talking to parents.  A different side of them came out when I stood there.  I was invisible to them but I was standing there.

Occasionally some thoughts became very significant for me because they were composed with language but for the vast majority of my time, I didn’t use language to mediate life.  I enjoyed the spontaneous experience of life.  I ran around until I was tired. I cried when I was upset and I was happy for most of the rest of the time and especially when good things occurred.

I now know from books that I was a classic example of brain damage.  Life was spontaneous and I loved the spontaneity.  When it was reading time I always looked at the pictures. There was a pace to life, going from moment to moment and experiencing the joy of doing so.  It didn’t feel good slowing down. There was a great resistance to slowing down.  It felt uncomfortable.  Apart from those few occasions when I had to sit down with a teacher to read, there were few occasions when I had to do so. I didn’t understand what the books said or many of the words that grown ups used.  It felt uncomfortable trying to read, as I was used to going at a faster pace.

I went through my life in this way, only to be stopped by bouts of illness. In my case it was asthma and bronchitis.  I heard my mother say 'Bobby has a weak chest'. I now know that with my father smoking sixty cigarettes day I didn’t have much of a chance of avoiding bronchial problems but if I got upset then I also got an asthma attack.  It was as if a fuse had blown somewhere in me. If I got very upset then my body decided it would stop. Then I’d lie in my bed for a week or two, propped up consciously struggling to breathe. 

It was as if my body knew when I had to stop and it had had enough.  So I had days of lying there deliberately thinking that I must breathe the next breath otherwise I would die.  Then gradually as I recovered I was forced to lie still.  I didn’t have the strength to move.  Often I looked out of my bedroom window and for some moments realizing or glimpsing that 'I' was 'me'. In time a different type of realisation came. I was a person. I was me. Here in space and time. I reflected about things when I lay down ill unable to move, which was completely different to when I was well and active.  Although I forgot about those moments once I was well, there was something nice about those times just being forced to lie there, forced each moment to witness the world just being there.  It forced me to reflect.

I also suffered from eczema which covered my wrists and the backs of my legs.  They were covered in craters and they itched all the time.  I scratched them continually to get relief.  I’d hold my wrists under the hot water tap at the kitchen sink at its hottest setting, feeling ecstasy as it relieved the itching.  I often wondered if I would ever have the backs of wrists like other children had.  Smooth soft skin, unlike the deep dry cracks with blood coming out if I scratched too much.  My eczema meant that each morning and night I had pink calamine lotion painted on the backs of my knees and wrists and I’d often be sent off to school  in bandages covering my wrists so I wouldn’t scratch.  That was a big part of my life.  I sat for hours each day looking at and scratching my wrists to relieve the itching, and what thoughts I had, concentrated on the backs of my wrists and knees.  I was preoccupied with wondering whether I would ever see my wrists with normal skin, like other children.  No one gave me any hope that I would

My right eye also cried by itself even when I wasn’t upset.  This meant that tears ran down my face for hours on end for no apparent reason.  Despite many visits to Moorfields Eye Hospital and lots of doctors looking into my eyes nothing could be done to stop it.  My mother was told that it might stop as I got older.  This meant that tears streamed from my right eye for days on end and although I spent ages wiping them away from my cheek with my hand, I don’t think my class mates thought I was crying.  They never acted as if I was.  It was a condition that no one could explain, although I noticed that my eye stopped crying when I was asleep. 

My mother also repeatedly told me to breathe through my nose, to avoid asthma.  I didn’t think I could because my mouth always opened when I breathed.  It was another thing that I had to think about.  I had to breathe through my nose and to do that I had to consciously try and close my mouth, and put my lips together, and not forget to keep them together. I noticed that my dog, Andy, a black Cocker Spaniel, breathed through his mouth even though he had a nose, and so I thought that it was normal to do so.

I remember later a teacher getting upset with me when she told the class that everyone breathed through their nose.  I put up my hand and informed her that it wasn’t true because I couldn’t.  ‘I breathe through my mouth’.  She told me that I didn’t, and that ‘no one did’, but I had to insist that ‘I did’.  She looked at me for a while but decided not to continue the conversation.

I noticed that my asthma attacks were sometimes brought on if I laughed a lot, so I had to consciously try and stop myself from laughing in the way I did.  This was difficult to do but I managed to do it because it was very distressing having asthma attacks.  I wondered why it was easier to not laugh  than close my mouth when breathing.  I had to gain control otherwise I’d be ill again and I hated not being able to breathe.  I felt that I might die at any moment if I didn't make the effort to produce the next breath.

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I don’t remember any teacher ever asking for my opinion about anything, so I never had to think about anything other than living my everyday life, which didn’t seem to involve thinking very much at all or communicating much.  Mostly it involved doing what grown ups told me to do. Teachers didn’t ask for my opinions, so I never had to develop my opinions in any developed way.  Teachers only spoke about the normal stuff in classrooms and I never noticed them talk much to other pupils either.

Apart from thoughts that were forced on me by my health, thoughts involving language only seemed to come if something happened, that for some reason I felt was unusual or led to me being dissatisfied  at not understanding and wanting to knowing more. The feelings I was feeling would not let go of the event. My feelings were showing me what was happening and some feelings wouldn’t leave me. Thoughts would often arise many weeks after the event that tried to explain it, otherwise I was completely absorbed into the spontaneous experience of the moment. Thoughts sometimes came if I got into trouble, but mainly I felt upset and cried if something bad happened. I was happy the rest of the time. 

The types of thoughts I had during the times I was alone for hours on end during asthmatic attacks mingled with my dreams. I repeatedly dreamt of floating in the air down Highbury Grove towards Highbury Barn, over the heads of people doing their shopping. Highbury Grove was where I lived and Highbury Barn was a road where there were shops nearby. Sometimes I was in my dressing gown and sometimes in my pajamas.  I was convinced that I did so because it seemed so real.  I could float in the air.  All I had to do was lean back a little as I floated.  I saw Mr. Gifford, who had a very large chin and was always dressed in an apron.  He owned the grocery store and I looked down on the people doing their shopping but no one seemed to see me.

My brother’s and my bedroom was on the first floor and there was a staircase to run up and down from the ground floor where my parents were, and where their bedroom and the living room and kitchen was.  I loved that staircase. I ran down that staircase as fast as I could, two steps at a time and slid down the banister using my arms, but I also knew that I could float down the staircase if I wanted to, as I have done hundreds of times in my dreams.  I also knew that if I wanted to travel down the street, all I had to do was lean backwards as I was standing and I could float along without having to exert any energy at all. I could float in the air. I was convinced of it. I was convinced I could but I don't remember doing so when anyone else was around to see me, so we could talk about it, although I knew that I could.  These dreams and thoughts stayed with me until my teens. 

We had a TV and I remember seeing American films where a child, who had  had enough of home, packed their bags and went away to roam the country.  I remember doing so many times.  When I had had enough I’d go to my bedroom and get the small case that was there and put some clothes and toys in and announce to my parents that I was leaving home.  I’d walk to the end of the path to the road, turn left and walk down Highbury Grove but then stop at Hamilton Park, by the letter box, as I wasn’t allowed to cross the road.  I’d stand there as if it was an ocean but I couldn’t cross, because I had been told by my mummy that it was dangerous to cross the road.  What was beyond was another world.  Then I’d return home.  Nothing was said.

I also remember my father turning to me often when in the hallway and telling me that he was leaving home and that he wouldn’t come back. He’d walk to the front door, open it and walk down the steps, along the drive into the street, turn left and go down the road.  I remember running after him screaming hysterically ‘please don’t go, please don’t leave’.  Then when he was ready, he’d turn round with a smile on his face, saying ‘OK’.  He’d then walk back into the house.  I remember crying uncontrollably.  For him it seemed to be a game.  This often happened and it always produced the same reaction. 

Chapter Two

Junior School

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As I proceeded from the infant classes to junior school the teachers started to give the class tests.  I was disappointed at repeatedly getting 0 or 1 out of 10.  It felt uncomfortable.  But Miss Johnstone, the Junior School Headmistress, who was very strict and nobody disobeyed, started to give a hopeful message that I thought sounded sensible.  She declared that if you learn one new word a day, then by the end of the year you’d have learnt 365 new words.  I thought that this was the strategy I’d adopt.  I’ll learn one new word a day and then I’d know lots of words that I could spell by the end of the year.

I decided that I’d start by choosing the word ‘library’ and that once I had learnt to spell it correctly  I’d move on to another word. ‘Library’ often came up in the spelling tests, I thought, so I’d wait for it. 

So when the next spelling test came in class I waited for the teacher to say  ‘library’, and I ignored the other words.  It didn’t come up.  I got 0 out of 10.  I was hopeful that if it came again then I could spell it correctly and get a mark and then I could move on to another word.  Then another test and another test were given and it didn’t come.  My marks appeared to be getting worse but I knew that it didn’t represent the whole story.  Then ‘library’ came.  But I got the spelling wrong, but I only had one letter out of place. 

I decided that I should try and do what Miss Johnstone had suggested and learn a new word each day but that I shouldn’t wait for it when given a test, at the expense of everything else. I didn’t learn a new word every day, because no one tested me to see I had learnt it properly and it was too long to wait between tests.

We were given books to read but I always looked at the pictures.  They were irresistible. I flicked the pages waiting for the next picture to appear. When a teacher came to hear me read, which occurred very rarely, I tried my best to sound out the letters but they never seemed to come out of my mouth in the same way as the teacher or those children who could read.  It seems clear that if you couldn’t make the normal sounds that make up words when you talk then it was even more difficult to do so when you try to read or write.  My ears never heard the sounds they needed to hear coming from my mouth

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Miss Johnstone took the school assemblies each morning and told us how we were to behave. Soon all the children were told that they had to eat all of their school meals and they would not be allowed to go out and play until they had.  I liked my school lunches but I hated parsnips. The day came when it was my turn to be seated with one or two other children in a deserted hall at the lunch tables, head bowed over a plate looking at a couple of parsnips.  First a teacher stood over me insisting that I eat my parsnips, and telling me that I won’t leave until I had.  They weren't my parsnips, they were the school's parsnips, but as far as the teacher was concerned they were mine and I had to eat them.

I told her that I don’t like parsnips because they made me sick. The teacher persisted and I could see that the food was cold and wondered why they would want me to eat cold food anyway?  I was now the only child left in the hall with the kitchen staff clearing away the tables.  Then Miss Johnstone came over to take control.  I explained how I felt but it made no difference. After a short time my resistance was broken. I put a fork of cold parsnips into my mouth and swallowed.  After a few moments I remembered why I hated parsnips. I vomited and all my meal and the parsnips spread over my plate and across the table. There was a moment of silence, as I sat there looking at my vomit and then turned to look at Miss Johnstone.  I had told her the truth. I had told her that parsnips made me feel sick.  She then briskly told me to go out to play. 

I can’t remember how I spoke but I knew I stuttered and words fell over themselves at the start of sentences.  They never seemed to be able to get into the right order. Words came out quickly like an express train or a cupboard overloaded with cups.  They fell out and some got broken.   The words got jumbled up and I got flustered trying to get them out in the right order. I remember people looking at me quizzically at those moments and I felt nervous as I tried to express myself. Eventually the words would come out. A sentence would be completed which satisfied me, although I wasn’t so sure about the listener. I don’t remember a fuss being made once the words had come out. No one seemed to demand that I say anything further.  I also remember having problems getting the days of the week out in the right order.

Sometimes my stuttering was worse than others.  I don’t know why.  I just couldn’t express myself like other children, but for the most part I never thought much about my speech.  I just spoke.

I remember my mother repeatedly telling me what to say if I ever got lost.  I had to say ‘I am Robert Hartley, 42 Highbury Grove, London N5.’  I had to repeat it until it was fixed in my head. That was what I had to say. It was like a label stuck on my tongue that was in my mouth, which had to be produced if anyone enquired. I presumed that every child needed to know their name and address in case they ever got lost.

I remember using this label many years later in my teens, when I was asked my name. I remembered seeing a bemused expression on people’s faces. I knew that I should have only told them my name but the whole address and post code came out as well. I seemed to have become attached to it. It rushed out of me. I sometimes wondered what they must have thought but time moved on and their puzzled expression and frozen moment soon passed. I knew that when I am asked my name then I should only give them my name, but I couldn’t sometimes help adding the next part. When they asked me my name they got my name and address and post code as well! It came out in one chunk.  I couldn’t help it but part of me also felt that having my address wouldn’t do them any harm.  If was a full response.  The more information the better, I thought. 

I was the kid who would wish someone Happy Christmas when I meant to wish them a Happy Birthday, and vice versa.  The wrong words got blurted out and it was only when I saw the person’s face or I heard my own words, that my error was recognized.  Correcting my mistake didn’t do much to take the puzzled look off the recipient’s face.

The same errors applied to the use of the words borrow and lent.  I would say I lent something when I had borrowed something and vice versa.  These errors stayed with me for decades.

I was spontaneous and my mind worked fast.  I lived a spontaneous life. I was very active.  I was impulsive.  I didn't stop and think. Life went from moment to moment, a stream of spontaneous experience. It was enjoyable that way. Anything that interfered with it was noticed and resisted.

Even though I was active I enjoyed playing alone for hours with my toy soldiers on Saturday mornings in my bedroom.  My bedroom had pink walls. I loved that time.  It was a time when I could take out my toy box and it didn’t matter that soldiers and knights fought with cowboys and Indians with a castle and toy cars as part of the scenery and action. 

I also loved running. I ran everywhere. I was so confident with my running that I’d run all the way home from the school at lunchtimes sometimes and never be out of breath. Then I’d run all the way back and be in good time. I was amazed at myself that I could do so. I could run and I was as good as anyone else at doing it.

I also enjoyed skipping along. Skipping was better than running I thought, because it took less energy and you moved just as swiftly to where you wanted to go. I couldn’t understand why grown ups didn’t skip.  Skipping along seemed so normal, a bit like floating when I was dreaming as it took very little energy to move swiftly. I noticed that some animals on TV knew how to skip along, so it made me wonder even more why grown-ups didn’t do it. This puzzled me.

An activity that spoilt every day for me was being told to take off my pullover.   Immediately I found myself getting hotter and hotter and increasingly unable to breathe, as the jumper predictably got securely stuck over my head.  Now my arms were up in the air pulling as hard as they could, as I struggled to free myself from its clutches. It was a daily torture that nobody else seemed to care about.  Grown ups and parents just looked on, as I struggled with increasing turmoil under my pullovers. Just because it was eventually removed and I hadn’t died, it was viewed as an acceptable, 'normal' activity and it shouldn’t be changed.  I wondered how many children didn’t survive and had actually died when they were asked to take off their jumper.  No one spoke about that.

My mother loved gardening and Miss Johnstone announced that she wanted all the children to enter the Islington Schools daffodil competition. Each child was given a bulb. I took my bulb home and my mother got a flowerpot and put the bulb under the earth and told me that we would put the pot in a covered fireplace in the dark. I didn’t understand why but my daffodil was in the dark and I peeked at it regularly to see what was happening. Nothing much seemed to happen but my mother said that it would be ok. After what appeared to be a very long time my mother took it out of its dark place and into the light.

Eventually the day of the competition arrived.  It was Saturday the 15th of March 1958.  My daffodil looked beautiful. Each child had to take their plant to the Central Library in Islington.  I walked with my brother across Highbury Fields to hand it in.  There