I've always been an enthusiastic reader; in fact, I think I was able to read simple books before I started school. Of course, it was simply that I learnt to associate the letters on the page with the sound of the words that I knew by repetition. 'Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen' was a poem I could recite by heart and recognise on the page. Putting the two together was no big deal.
I started school in September, 1947 and by the end of 1948 I was in Miss Mars's class. All the female teachers in those days were 'Miss' as it was expected that married women would have a full-time job looking after their husbands and 'bairns'. My recollection is that Miss Mars was a stern, ungainly woman and marriage may not have ever been a possibility for her.
It was in her class that I first made the connection between the letter that I recognised on the page and the sound it made. Once I understood that, I could work out words I had never seen before. I don't know how many books I have read since then: thousands, certainly but maybe hundreds of thousands.
Sadly, though, I am now not reading as much. When I put a book down after reading a few pages, all the details drift away from my memory. When I get back to the book, I flounder with what's happened before and I now know where the phrase 'losing the plot' comes from.
I'm now experimenting with audiobooks to see whether it makes a difference.
The other problem is that I think I've written this blog before. My only hope is that my few loyal readers are just as forgetful as I am.
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