 After 10 minutes sitting patiently, trying my hardest to decipher the jumbled letters and symbols, frustration took over. I thought about giving up. As a 51-year-old man, I'm wasn't suddenly deciding to learn a new language – the sentence I was trying to read was in fact from a simple English language children's book. I had a dirty little secret. One which I'd managed to ignore and hide for over 50 years, but had inevitably held me back from pursuing many things in my life. It had to change. It was time to learn how to read. At primary school, I was written off as stupid. I was never any good at reading or writing; in fact I've described myself up until recently as illiterate. Dyslexia was a word no one had really heard of back then – something that I was only officially diagnosed with 10 years ago – and as a result, I was left alone to my own devices. So, at 13, I decided to leave school – barely being able to read or write at all. My late father was more interested in getting me out to work as soon as possible, so I did a paper round, delivered vegetables and worked in a butcher's shop. Aged 20, I eventually became a slaughterman – another job that didn't require me to have any literacy skills at all. I entered the world of hairdressing, aged 28 – I had told my boss at the time about my difficulties, so he knew I had problems with reading and writing, but luckily my creativity in hair set me aside. I became a multi-millionaire hair stylist for celebrities like David Beckham, Liza Minelli, Piers Morgan, Marco Pierre White and Liam Gallagher, to name a few (Picture: Ray Mickshaw/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images) Being creative was a way that I could finally prove myself. As I became well-known in the hair world, I was in a fortunate position to employ PAs, PRs, marketing teams and more to do everything for me that I couldn't do myself){kind=link}
NEWS… BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT
After 10 minutes sitting patiently, trying my hardest to decipher the jumbled letters and symbols, frustration took over.
I thought about giving up.
As a 51-year-old man, I’m wasn’t suddenly deciding to learn a new language – the sentence I was trying to read was in fact from a simple English language children’s book.
I had a dirty little secret. One which I’d managed to ignore and hide for over 50 years, but had inevitably held me back from pursuing many things in my life. It had to change.