You’re lazy & you’ll never amount to anything...

So said the headmistress after slapping the 6-year-old me. 

Maybe I was 7. I was definitely still in primary school. A young and suggestible child - lazy, I didn’t try, never amount to anything! 

I’d forgotten this incident until my mother reminded me of it a few years ago.

In reality, I was not lazy ... I was dyslexic. Which meant reading, writing and maths were all pretty difficult skills for me. 

I’d do anything not to read out loud in class. 

Even refusing to read to the headmistress in the annual ‘test’ until she slapped my legs to make me. (Oh, the good old days when our educators still beat children to make them comply!) 

I learnt the meaning of hypocrisy that day though. 

After stumbling through a page or so of my book, tears in my eyes of frustration at my own inability, coupled with anger and the pain from the slapped legs - I was given a sweet and told I’d never amount to much. (Although possibly not in that order!) 

This was Birmingham in the 70s & at that time the local education authority did not recognise dyslexia. (They also didn’t really seem to have much of a grasp on child psychology either!) 

Even though they didn't understand my teachers tried to help and by junior school, I was having regular ‘remedial reading lessons’ (yep, really, that’s what they called them!) I had to read stupid children’s books that were incredibly boring whilst everyone else did art or PE. Both things I enjoyed and was removed from. They made me feel incredibly inferior, forcing me to read to one of the classroom support staff. Who obviously had no idea why I was struggling, & got very frustrated, when I would fail to read a word I’d already sailed through a paragraph earlier. 

I wasn’t acting up or being wilfully difficult - I genuinely just could not connect the shapes I was looking at on the page with a word I knew. Even if I had done just that a few minutes earlier. That’s just how my dyslexia brain works- or rather doesn't work.

I was stigmatised as ‘remedial’ & a ‘thicky’ who couldn’t read, spell or do mental arithmetic. Which meant I was a logical target for some light bullying. 

I’m not telling this story for your sympathy - but rather to say we should NEVER allow others to define who we are ... or what we can achieve, and maybe it will encourage others with dyslexia and dyscalculia. 

I’ve worked hard to overcome dyslexia - many others have far more complex and impactive varieties, but I've compensated by working hard all my life. But I’ve not done it alone. 

In those early school years, my parents helped me a great deal, with both encouragement and practical support. 

My father spent many hours reading bedtime stories to my brother and me. I may not have been able to read well for myself but as a result of those stories, I wasn't lacking in imagination nor vocabulary. Later on, he’d spend just as much time working through my maths homework with me too - with immense patience. I would get marked down in class for not using the methodology that they taught but I was getting somewhere due to his persistence with me. 

Later still, Dad would sometimes find audio-books of my English literature set texts at the local library. In the days when audio-books were not easy to come by.

I am immensely grateful for the encouragement, help and support my parents gave to me. They instilled the belief that I could make something of myself. They also instilled a strong work ethic. 

As I said, I’ve always worked hard and I think that comes from their example in those early, formative years. 

Surprisingly, at secondary school, I found I did actually enjoyed learning. 

The emphasis was now off the 3 R’s and that shift meant I discovered I actually had a decent brain (for most things). I threw myself into this new joy of learning & acquiring knowledge. 

Maths was always a struggle and French was simply beyond my dyslexic brains' comprehension. But everything else I enjoyed. 

I would spend hours each evening doing homework - literally 3 or 4 hours most nights, not just doing the set homework, but going back over my lessons to be sure I had it all straight in my head. Making sure that I hadn’t misread & misunderstood. 

By this time I knew I wanted to have a career in the creative industries. 

Drawing had always been my refuge. I was good at it. Drawing also meant I didn’t have to engage with reading or maths in any way to practice it. I could spend hours lost in my own world with a pencil and some paper.

Originally, I’d thought maybe I could get into architecture- but I soon found I’d need a very good grasp of maths to make it in that field. 

By 13 or 14 I knew graphic design was the career I wanted to pursue.

I continued to work hard, I knew I had to if I was going to compensate for the oddities of mental wiring. 

I eventually left school with a good crop of O-levels ... and my older brothers leaving certificate (but that's a whole different story of forging an identity for myself which I'll save for another day!)

A-levels came next, followed by a foundation degree, a HND, then onto Polytechnic - and finally graduating from University in the early ’90s with a BA Honours Degree. 

I had started freelancing as a designer in the late 80s whilst continuing with my studies. As I said I've always worked hard.

I’ve had to relearn my craft a few times as the industry transitioned away from drawing boards and Linotype machines, into the digital age with desktop computers taking over. The learning curve has been continual and actually seems to get ever more rapid as software and technology develop. 

That goofy little kid who was never expected to amount to much is actually pretty proud of what he’s achieved. 

I’ve been a partner in my own design business since 2001. COVID might get the better of the firm still, but we’ve worked hard to get here and we’ll work as hard as we possibly can to keep going. 

In any given month I get to work on a vast array of projects. In our brand development work, we get to do strategic business planning which usually means drawing on applied human & behavioural psychology. In our research, we’re using critical analysis & ethnography, colour psychology and semiotics too. I've even learned to spell them all correctly (most of the time!).

When we are working on advertising, ironically, I’ll often get involved in copywriting also, although modern technology is a huge help with the spelling & grammar checks. Although in advertising you do get to twist those rules sometimes.

Why am I telling you all this? 

We can so easily live under the proclamations of our teachers or elders. Crushed by a few careless words, well-meant actions or a misguided rebuke. 

How we respond to the hand we are dealt might be the only thing we have any real control over in life - but it’s enough. 

We can choose to be beaten down or we can choose to put all our efforts into achieving what we set out to do - defined by our own definition of success not what those around us project onto us.

As I said, I did not get here alone. My parents, my brother, the wider family, my wife, my friends, tutors, colleagues, business partner ... the list is endless and I am gratefully for all those who have encouraged and supported me or simply offered friendship, life is not just about work after all. 

I hope I have helped others along the way too. I may not have amounted to much by my old head-mistresses standard - but personally, I think she might just have been a bit too quick to judge. At least in my (misspelt) book.