Newcastle University

Do you remember reading aloud when you were younger?

Yes. I used to read aloud to myself. There was a period of time when we were living just outside Glasgow, I’ve got a very strong memory of autumn evenings and summer evenings walking home from the library reading my new book aloud! I used to read aloud in the bath when I was little, I used to read aloud at school a lot, and read to other children. … Sorry, it makes me sound horribly precocious!

No, it sounds lovely – walking home, reading aloud [laughs]!

Oh, I can remember … because often, when people get this angst now about children, I can remember, you know, I would just say to my mother, and this was in primary school, I would say to my mother ‘I’m going to the library,’ ‘Fine’, and I might be in the library until five o’clock when traditionally they shut. So I’d be walking home in the dark, under the streetlights, and nobody was concerned.