NOT TALKING FOR THE FIRST FEW WEEKS OF PRE-SCHOOL. I WAS INCREDIBLY SHY. The only person I’d really interacted with was my mum, Lynne. My dad, Norris, would be at work all day, often on building sites in Bolton, where we lived. Then he’d come home and I’d already be in bed asleep.
The teachers were very worried about me, but Mum told them to give me time. Eventually, I uttered my first words: “My mum has lions and tigers in the house!”. The teachers were even more worried about me, though I was actually talking about the ornaments on our mantlepiece.
I started to enjoy things like reading aloud in lessons and basically haven’t really stopped talking since.
She had been a teacher in Jamaica before she and my father emigrated to Britain in the early Sixties. Then I was born, and finding time for childcare and getting her British teaching qualifications was too
