The Importance of Being Able to Read Should Never be Doubted...

When you’ve always been able to read and write you take it so for granted you don’t realise how lucky you are. I certainly didn’t.  Since my eyes were opened to the problem so many adults face, I've been open to helping where I can and with Mavis Ackerley, who herself had a rough upbringing, from the Morning Live team I recently went to Worksop library to meet some people who have braved asking for  assistance in helping them read and attend lessons in their local libraries. It's incredibly sad to see how kids were once pushed to the back of the class and the impact that has had on them long term. It could all have been so different if they'd had teachers who spent some valuable time with them. 

The timing of being asked to write a Quick Reads coincided with a visit I’d been asked to do at a woman’s prison – New Hall in Wakefield.  I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had a lovely day there as it happened and I really counted my blessings when I came home. So many of the women there vow never to go back inside again, but they do. And the reason so many of them are stopped from changing their lives lies in their low literacy levels. They will go back into the community armed with good intentions but their choice of jobs is limited because they left school with no exams, they can’t fill in application forms. So they gravitate back to their dysfunctional comfort zones and the cycle begins again.

Until I went into New Hall I hadn’t comprehended how important the skills of being able to read and write competently were. I set myself a task of writing down everything in a single day where I used my skills to read because we just do it, and we don’t realise we are doing it. Looking on the TV to see what’s on, reading a newspaper to see the news, reading a bus timetable, sitting in a doctor’s waiting room passing the time with a magazine, reading labels in supermarkets, following recipes. What if you had baby formula and couldn’t even read how to mix it up? Not being able to read impacts on everything: safety, health, mental health, enjoyment of life, quality of life. I once had to fill out a form for my mother – an attendance allowance form. 29 pages long. Because I could fill that out, she got money she was entitled to. Even I was almost defeated by that form, so imagine someone who has reduced literary skills tackling it. 

The literacy levels in this country are appalling. One in five adults has the reading age of a 5-7 year old. And those figures are getting worse.  About eight million people in the UK. That means they can’t read the instructions on a packet of tablets or a simple road sign. Because we don’t just read for leisure – reading is a life essential skill and its effects are far-reaching. 

 

            All this was going on in my head when I was asked to write a Quick Reads book?  And that’s why I said yes. Because I know how little changes can lead to massive changes.  I want as many people who can’t read to learn. And what better way to help people to learn than to make them want to learn, making it a pleasant experience, making it not feel like work that will defeat them or patronise them – or even scare them.

 

            Once upon a time, adults who sought help were given the equivalent of Janet and John books, children’s simple stories which did nothing for their already low self-worth. Quick Reads are a selection of stories written by best-selling authors for adults. We’ve all taken care to deliver tales which read every bit as well as our longer novels because we want to encourage not to make people feel incompetent. They look like books for adults – because they are books for adults, with adult themes and language. The only difference is that they’re shorter, the sentences aren’t long and complicated and full of clauses and the vocabulary is simpler. Why use ‘discombobulate’ when ‘confuse’ will do the same job? I defy anyone to read one of these books and spot any real difference to our longer outputs. They’re directed at adults who need help to build up their reading skills, who are off-put by thick tomes of dense passages, but they’re available to anyone and the font is slightly larger too for those with reduced eyesight. Perfect for a ‘quick read’ (ho ho) or for those people who have suffered a stroke or have an illness which means a shorter more easily absorbed story is preferable, something not too taxing – and light enough to hold without too much effort too. Jojo Moyes calls it a ‘gateway drug’ and she’s right; it is a perfect taster for the rich world of books out there, all waiting to be read. When asked to give a quote about why I was involved, I said that reading is a key to a life enriched. Being able to utilise literacy skills opens up a door to a much bigger, more satisfying – and safer - life. 

 

         Simple, straightforward storytelling. No complicated plots to confuse issues, no stupidly long words to make a reader’s eye snag and interrupt concentration. But surprisingly challenging to write. At first, I found myself writing in a way that a five year old child would have rolled their eyes at. So I changed tack, wrote the story which is about four old friends going on a trip to Amsterdam for a hen night and then went back to simplify the words, break up long sentences and it was a worthy and enjoyable challenge. 

The storyline is straightforward: The hen is having doubts that the others put down to just wedding nerves. But she’s never quite got over her first love. And lo and behold he turns up on the ferry. And it’s up to the magic of Van Gogh and a day out in Amsterdam to sort out her head for her.  It’s about people having dreams that shouldn’t be compared to other people’s dreams because yours is tailor made for you whether that’s to climb Everest or have a pink bath in an ensuite. In this book I attempt to widen a reader’s horizons. I take them on a tour of Amsterdam and I want them to feel every bump and sway of the ship in the North Sea. 

Liz, reading below, made us all feel so proud. She was told she was stupid at school and so overcame a lot of hurt to be able to seek help in later life and she was reading like a pro - a star pupil. The pride in her own face was unmistakeable. It was a very emotional filming episode.

 

            We absorb so much vocabulary and information without even trying when we read. People equipped with a wider store of words are more confident because they feel able to interact more with others and are better equipped for what life throws at them, they’re more resourceful. Those with better literacy skills get better chances, better jobs. It can be no surprise that there is a correlation between a restricted vocabulary and low self-esteem. 

 

            Reading is a magnificent sleep aid. It rests and relaxes a brain, powers it down. 

 

            Reading also sharpens our ability to focus and concentrate, skills we are in danger of losing with this modern technological age which presses us to multi-task. We watch TV whilst texting or checking in to see what other people's take on things are on Twitter.  When we go to watch a band, we record it on our phones rather than just being there in the moment and enjoying it first-hand. Reading demands our whole attention to make sense of what is going on. Being forced to do one thing only but properly lessens our stress levels.

 

            Reading switches our brain into the mains, gives it power, improves memory function, staves off dementia. It’s a ‘use it or lose it’ muscle that needs stimulation.

 

            Reading gives solace and escapism for people with anxiety, the poorly who need to forget for a couple of hours that they are hooked up to a drip. It distracts from stress. 

 

            Reading a good story can do what no film can: allow a tailor made hero and heroine fashioned from our imagination to play out the story in our heads. How many of us watched Fifty Shades of Grey and thought ‘Nope, didn’t imagine Christian like that’? It’s a lovely, gentle pastime. One in three adults do not read for pleasure. What a travesty.  

 

            Reading educates us as we read factual books about the experiences of others, makes us see what is possible, encouraging us to make changes for the better. Reading gives people insight into what healthy relationships should be. I've had more than one letter from a woman who didn't realise she was actually living in an abusive relationship until she read objectively the experience of one of my characters and the penny dropped. And she got out. Reading gives us a wider understanding of the world in general. It reminds us of the impact of people’s actions upon others; prompts us to be mindful of the pleasure we can give, or the harm we can inflict. It reminds us to be sympathetic and empathetic, things which can be overlooked in today's world.

 

            Reading is free if you use the library – millions of books out there to improve and lengthen your life for the price of -  absolutely nothing! Quick Reads books are there in libraries now – or in bookshops or online for a very paltry £1.00 each. They can change reluctant readers into confident ones. They can change lives.

 

            There are wider implications upon society for reading. Being literate unlocks more chances in the job market. More vacancies are filled. The pressure on the welfare system is relieved. Literacy improves confidence, lessens stress – that impacts on the health service which is groaning under the weight of patients with mental health issues.  The economy benefits, crime levels drop. All from people being able to improve on their reading skills. And in this present climate, reading really can benefit people more than ever. 

 

            Our education system is suffering. Excessive accountability and figure/target satisfying, the pressure for data dumps has been taking our teachers away from teaching. I know this because I am a fully-paid up trained teacher myself. Accountability was just making itself known when I qualified. More and more reports had to be completed, teachers were complaining then about the excessive paperwork and it’s a lot worse now. Grass roots: children need to read and write adequately because almost EVERYTHING in their future adult lives will depend on it. Government, let our teachers flipping teach – that’s why they joined the profession in the first place. And these days if there isn’t already, there should be a component to the curriculum on how to use language in this techno age ie responsibly. Not purely for trolling on the internet. 

           

           I have no idea why the Quick Reads project was ever in danger as it once was before it was rescued by Jojo Moyes – it is too essential to ever close down. The government could have stepped in to pledge money to keep it open. It would have been cheap at the price for the savings they’d have made elsewhere. This is base level stuff. It doesn’t need a team of financial experts to see the return they’d get for their cash. 

            

            There are only advantages to learning how to read. Reading is a key to a life enriched. A life enhanced and changed, a life happier and more fulfilled, a life with more choice and less stress. And it could – and will for many – start with one of these books priced at a quid. Tell me a better investment than that? 

The BBC Morning Live interview can be seen here (about 40 mins in) 

 

 

Kindness, Acceptance, Peace.

I always thought that my ex-husband would die on the 3^rd September. The lyrics of the song ‘Papa was a Rolling Stone’ were written for him: a stone that rolled his own way who baulked at responsibility and commitment leaving a trail of devastation in his wake. But he didn’t, he died at 2am on Tuesday July 11th, 2023 in Galway hospital. 

He moved to Ireland after we divorced twenty years ago and I haven’t seen him since. Our elder son has only the sketchiest memories, our younger son has none and my ex was never in touch with them – not a card, not a phone call. I heard from him only once when a letter arrived. He had obviously seen me on the TV and it had it inspired him to write a very short note to say as much and sending love to myself and the boys. No address. At least that proved he was alive, news that my beloved father-in-law was desperate for because no one knew for sure: we had no clue where he was. My father-in-law sadly died not knowing because his son hadn't been in touch with him for sixteen years and searches yielded no results. Yes it is possible to fly that low under the radar, even in this day and age. I was always convinced he would turn up when he was in need and as such I have always been on low alert waiting for it.

            A month ago I was contacted by someone asking if I had been married to him and a red light was activated. This person told me that my ex didn’t know he’d tried to track me down, but he felt obliged, on his behalf, to tell me that he was very poorly. I turned into a detective that would put Sherlock Holmes to shame to find out what all this was about because I was convinced of an ulterior motive. It stirred up a lot of things because our marriage was a car crash of the highest order, but back then I’d always hoped I could rescue it, and trust me I tried. No one marries expecting to divorce. I wanted us to be forever, but our forever ended short. Even when we divorced, I wanted to keep it civil because the guilt of having been the one to call an end to our marriage weighed heavy on me. I didn’t want our sons to come from a broken home yet I had been the one who filed for divorce. When my Decree Absolute came through – on Halloween – I popped the cork off a bottle of champagne, took the first sip and broke down. That piece of paper represented my failure and I think I’ve been flogging my guts out ever since to make it up to my lads. But I would never have cut their father off from them, he severed those ties and kept them severed. For too many years I’ve been angry at him for taking off without a thought for his lovely father, his brother, his sons without a backward glance at what that level of abandonment might do to them.

            I had barely begun to comprehend that his name was back on my horizon again when he died awaiting a major operation, frail and thin and so ravaged that his friends who had seen him only a short time before couldn’t recognise him. I couldn’t register it, I couldn’t define what I felt. I don’t know why I was so upset, I’m still processing it, still struggling with a situation that sits outside the norm. I can't explain it and I can't understand it, I can only feel it. It isn't anything to do with love, but it is everything to do with loss.

            My ex found his way to a gentle, accepting community in very Irish Ireland. He lived a simple life, labouring on people’s houses, on their land, on a dairy farm, his home a ramshackle lowly dwelling place with a wild feral cat running around for company, enjoying the craic in the local village pub. The few photos I was forwarded by people who knew him show him aged, smiling, as if he’d found his contentment. Trading home comforts for a harder life but one as free as it is possible to get is undoubtedly the highest state he could find: satisfying the ‘here for a good time, not a long time’ adage. People in that community gave him lifts when he needed them, work, companionship, donated clothes and bedding, washed his laundry when he was ill, took him at face value. The couple on the farm fed him when he was poorly at the end, forced him into hospital, cared for him. Then the community arranged his funeral for him, wrote their eulogies, liaised with the priest and turned out en masse to mourn for one of their own in church. We watched the service online and it was humble and touching and yes, they included our names out of their innate goodness. They asked us if it was okay if he stayed in the midst of them, in their churchyard. It was only right and proper than he rested among these wonderful people who had enfolded him. It was a funeral service with the purest sort of kindness at its heart, their consideration has deeply touched me. On his coffin was a photo I’d sent over of him in his younger days looking handsome with that full head of thick hair that he has passed on to his sons. But I don’t recognise this man they will miss. We all refine of course. I hope I’m not the same person I was years ago, I hope I have evolved somewhat from a much rougher copy (and will from this rough copy). He obviously moved away from the man I knew too. Maybe in shedding everything but that which served his basic needs – and that little feral cat running wild about the place – he found all he needed in life. Maybe it was just easier to keep focused on forward than to unknot everything that lay behind him, cut the ropes and let it sink to the depths of the sea that lay between us. Maybe addressing everything was too big, too much and so he reset his whole life and began afresh.

            It is the finality of it that is hard to comprehend for the family he left behind him. I know there was always the lingering hope of a reconciliatory pint, of them being able to talk, which has now been removed and can never be. It is a confusing time. Why else would I be so incensed that he has gone denying his sons a single scrap from his emotional table, worrying about the effect on them, and also poring over pictures of gravestones because I can’t bear to think of him in an unmarked pauper's grave. 

            I know the priest is surprised that the quiet man who stood at the back during Mass had chosen such a different life from his ex-wife, who is doing okay at writing books. And she made that happen so she could support her children as a single mum, and had enough material from that marriage to write novels until the pen drops out of her hand at her own end. Books featuring women rising like phoenixes from the ashes of bad relationships. That marriage was rocket fuel for my literary ambitions. The end of us was the beginning of me, and probably the beginning of him too, even if the path he took led to a wilder, harsher terrain.

            There are a lot of feelings here that refuse to sit in pigeon holes. I don’t know what the correct protocol is for a long-divorced ‘not-widow’. There is a template when someone close dies, but this chapter was left out of the textbook. I have few good memories of our time together, they were all snuffed out by the weight of too many bad ones. I have no idea why all this has affected me so much because I can hold (and have held) grudges for decades, trust me, I’m no saint… except to say that I gave birth to his sons, who have the best of him in them, and who I love more than my own life and that link will always be - maybe that is it. My overwhelming feeling is one of sadness, of something ended, even though for me it had ended long ago. And yet it feels now as if it has ended again, but properly this time. Maybe I am worried about the effect of that ending on those I love with all their questions left unanswered. It is impossible to get into someone’s head who thinks so differently from you, who has such opposing values. It was also impossible back then to see someone continually swimming against the tide, taking the path of most resistance when it would have been so easy to go with the flow and I could never work out why he did it. He was an apprentice-trained joiner. He had a trade, a way of living well but he threw that away too. He was a puzzle that defied solving beyond his last breath, the ultimate enigma.

            These are uncharted waters: losing the father of your children. Someone who, apparently, spoke of us fondly to his Irish friends who knew this different version of him. Every time I think I have a grasp of it, it slips away as if greased and it will not be pinned down. He told people about us, but he wouldn't answer any questions. Information given was on his terms only. 

Then I found that letting him go with my forgiveness freed me. There is no longer a need to try and untangle the knotted emotions, I have buried any enmity in its own grave. It is all finally done. There was a weight inside me that I didn’t know I was carrying but now it has gone. I have told my sons to let him go with forgiveness also and move on. Any ends that remained untied, we have to tie off ourselves now, make our own closure. 

It will take the soil on his grave time to settle, in line with our feelings, but settle it will.  And I will see to it that there is a stone erected so that one day his sons can go and see his resting place if they choose. It is a marker for what was once but is no more. It is time for us all – living and dead – to be at peace.