First book I ever bought myself was a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island”. I found it at a church fete when I was a really small child, no more than 5 or 6 years old. I’d been reading from a very early age having taught myself when I realised the words were supposed to make sense! In retrospect I wish I’d been given access to other languages when I was that age because I think I’d have learned very quickly and would now possibly be a competent polyglot! Still, that’s all in the past and these days, I have enough issues with English.

As I implied above, I’d been reading for a long time before I bought the book. I used to be an avid reader of ‘comic book annuals’ such as Beano, Dandy and The Eagle which I also got on a weekly basis (I was spoiled). One memory still clear in my mind was lying on the floor of the lounge room in our house, trying to read a tory to my parents and being totally unable to read it through properly because I kept collapsing in paroxysms of laughter. I have no memory of the story itself, just the uncontrollable laughter.

I can also remember lying on the floor in front of the fire, and reading stories the newspaper to them and coming a cross the word ‘co-respondent’. I had never seen it before and had no notion of what it meant. Anyway, my mother corrected my pronunciation and was told off by my father , who was at that time very ‘proper’ and old-fashioned, even for the day (we’re talking 1950’s here!). I remember her saying it’s no good to him (me) to mispronounce words so he needs to know how to do it properly. She didn’t explain what the word meant, probably a good thing, but I was very grateful and continued with the joy of reading all my life.