I cannot remember not being able to read. I know that I could read by the time I started school (I went a term early so this would have been while I was still only four), the reason I know this is that one of my first memories of school is of being told to stop reading ahead and to churn through the page everyone else was struggling on with them. I think the book in question may well have been a Janet and John. My schooling went downhill from then on.
I can remember being given A Christmas Carol and Treasure Island to read when I was eight. I think I was quite liked Christmas Carol, but really enjoyed Tresure Island.
We had the good fortune to live in a tiny village called Pettistree next door to Wickham Market the village where the primary school was. Wickham Market is quite small but had all sorts of basic shops and services, doctors, grocers, chemists, a hardware store, my father’s office and a small library.
Well before I was 11 I had exhausted the library’s children’s section, but I remember reading and enjoying the Famous Five, Secret Seven, Swallows and Amazons and Biggles, and then I moved on to the adult section.
After a little while I realised that taking books out at random meant that I kept getting confused about what I had and hadn’t read, so I went back to A and worked through from there (skipping over Cartland, Barbara 🙂 ). I can still remember the look of shock on the librarian’s face when I collected Mein Kampf by Hitler, Adolf, which I had ordered specially. By the time I was sixteen and discovered girls I had reached Y for Yates, Dornford and we moved to a different village. So I have never read any books by authors whose surnames begin with Z.
Early on I encountered Aldiss, Brian and Asimov, Isaac and science fiction has been my genre of choice ever since.
I think I’ve been through Pettistree, is that next to Bredfield? Went to a very funny gig/party in Bredfield village hall once many years ago.
Yes, that’s right, it is very “blink and you have missed it” though. Bredfield pub used to be nice, not been there for years though.
Not that I went through Pettistree to get to Bredfield mind you, since I live the other side of Ipswich, so came at it from the south. I have no idea why I’m telling you this. I used to drink sometimes in the pub in Great Bealings, but maybe that was a bit too far away for you.
I enjoyed your photos of Nowton Park. Made me feel homesick, I used to go running there when I lived in Bury St Edmunds.
Gt Bealings was quite near where we moved to from Pettistree so I have been to the pub there quite a few times.
Wow, me too. Reading before I started school, getting way ahead of the class with the awful Janet and John. Except I didn’t get caught… I read it discreetly, and noticed when it was nearly my turn to read aloud so that I could find the right page. So pointless. At least in today’s schools children read at their own levels, in a wide variety of far more interesting books.
I started reading the adult books alphabetically too, at our local library, but I don’t think I got further than B. I wasn’t impressed with Asimov or Aldiss, so I skimmed many; Then as I was approaching the end of the Bs I saw that dreaded shelf of Cartlands, and decided I’d rather choose books that looked interesting so I went to the H section, and started reading my way through Heyer and Hodge and Heriot and the like.
Hi Sue. In case you are still wondering, there is some good stuff on the I and J shelves too. 🙂
Me too (about the reading before school age)…but I can remember it feeling like a curse. I have a crystal clear memory of driving through Wood Green with my dad and freaking out because every thing I saw (shop signs, advertisments, street names etc) I was reading..it felt wierd to be recieving this information automatically…one particular sign (for a kebab shop) is still particularly vivid..I remember asking my dad if there was any way I could switch my brain off so I didn’t have to read everything..he laughed knowingly. Willow is 8 and not reading yet….but Meadow reads at least a couple of books a day from cover to cover.
Talking about reading, Jax (and other computer types) might enjoy something from Google via Chris Applegate.
I took the advice of one of the commentators and found this exampe of nooooooooooooo (scroll up a bit to see all of web section 98).
That is fun. I enjoyed the moment of Anglo-American tension