Newcastle University

Do you remember how you were taught to read? Who taught you to read?

Well, school. My father – my dad – taught me the alphabet. We were taught at school. [… inaudible] Vaguely, I can remember being taught at school. Strange, you’re asking me that now; I can’t even .. I can remember, as I say, my dad did, with the alphabet; he used to sing along to help you. And I can still do it. But it was obviously the teacher, but I can’t even remember who my first teacher was. I assume it was that. But I think I would have got a bit of help with it from my parents. But I always read the paper. My dad used to bring the paper home every day, much more than they do now. I mean, that was what he did, every day; he used to collect a newspaper, and I used to read that. So I would say, probably from about eleven I used to read the paper right the way through, and then I Used to ask them questions. And I still read the paper every day. It’s a bit like … It’s almost [laughter] – strange – like this little ritual we have in our house. So we get a regional … we get The Journal, ,we get the local paper, then we get a national paper. And it’s almost like, I’ve got to have read that paper, because by tomorrow there’s some different news. So I want to know what’s happening today and then I can … [inaudible]

And that’s something that’s come from your childhood?

It has, because I used to read my dad’s paper every day. It has, because you’re looking at about fifty-odd years now … [inaudible]

And you had that routine of asking him questions after.

Yes. I used to go through the paper, But of course, in those days, you know, in the fifties, you would ask a question but you wouldn’t always be told. I mean, now it’s very different but then it was .. [inaudible] ‘Oh, no, that’s not for you’ type of thing. But … You know, there wasn’t very much in the papers in those days that you couldn’t read; you know, that wasn’t … I mean, nowadays you wouldn’t ... I’m not saying that you wouldn’t sort of talk a child through it. But you know how sometimes you might think, ‘Gosh, that’s a bit inappropriate.’ Well, you know, you’re talking about sort of ’59, ’60 or so. Everything that was in the paper, in the [inaudible] you could sort of ask a question about, or even be told you couldn’t have the answer to that question – so that was fine, you moved on.