Remember "University Challenge"? Where two universities took each other on in a general knowledge clash of the boffins? The best part was their names:
"Nigel Ponsonby-Holroyd, reading Chemistry"
"Jemima Puddleton-Smith, reading Law"
"Rupert Hoddleton-Jones, reading Modern Languages".
Mine would simply be "Pearl Gaitskill, reading." That's all!
As long as I remember, I've loved reading. My mother was the one who invoked my love of reading from a very early age. She read to me over and over and over again, pointing out the words, until by the age of four, I could read small, simple books for myself. Dad also would read to me, always bible stories. They were wonderful moments. From Dad, I gained my love of scripture, but Mum was the one that told me stories which fired my imagination, made me dream, took me to faraway places.
Learning to read was by far the best skill I ever learned. In those difficult teenage years, when everyone feels awkward, but a slightly podgy, short, geeky girl with glasses even more so, books were my solace, and my escape hatch. The longer the book, the better. It was during that time that I developed a love for historical novels, and especially those of Nigel Tranter. I also grew to love the works of Charles Dickens.
When my children were born, some of the greatest memories I have are of reading them bedtime stories. I read the first Harry Potter book to them, and as I think of that, I see Andrew with wide eyes, hanging on my every word. It's no surprise that both Catherine and Andrew still love a good story, just in different media - Catherine is as avid a reader as I am, while Andrew is a movie boffin. Anthony, at six years old, refuses to sleep till he's heard a story.
So it makes me truly proud that Cath now takes the next step in her life, going to Rhodes University to study English. Why? So that one day she can inspire not one, but hundreds of children to love literature as much as she does, as much as her mother does, and as much as her grandmother did.
It's all in the genes!
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