The Damage We Do

Attended an interesting talk yesterday about dyslexia, given by a very personable young lady. I didn't learn much new in the way of facts about the condition, but she forcefully communicated the sense of real handicap that sufferers must face, and the extraordinary strength of character shown by many to rise above it. This is not to say, by the way, that those who fail to cope with the problem somehow lack character. Just to keep going in educational systems, indeed a world, geared to the ability to deal with the written work is enough.

I couldn't help but think of my Dad and his problems reading and writing both during and after the talk. I don't know that he was dyslexic, but I was aware by a very early age that his speed of reading was extremely slow and that writing anything was quite an effort for him. He would almost dig into the paper when using a pen, such was the obvious effort he had to put into forming words. It's painful to think of this even now, mainly because it obviously, in some deep sense, pained him.

From odd things said now and again, mainly by Auntie Norah, I came to form the impression he'd had a torrid time at school in Gorton in ways that the family didn't really want to talk about, and never really did. Just hints, odd glimpses of a time best forgotten. My guess was that some idiot of a teacher, maybe more than one, had taken it upon themselves to make the little Jack Connor's life a misery for being behind everyone else. (Alarmingly I have developed a bit of a revenge fantasy over what I'd like to do to them, or have done to them, but that way madness lies.)

All in all, it's difficult to think of any good that came out of his education - if you can use that word - except that somehow he emerged as the perfect gentleman that pretty much everyone who met him respected and loved. Oh, and I learnt that cleverness and quickness of mind are worthless qualities, though handy in our fallen world, compared to the things that really count.