I went to primary school because I had to but actually once there, notwithstanding the social and educational issues that I didn’t like, I found many reasons to be in school. I’ve loved reading and writing for as long as I can remember. And there were plenty of opportunities at school to do that. They didn’t have to ask me twice because I took a lot of pleasure from it.
For instance, I remember the day we were asked to take a newspaper to school. I have vivid memories of going to the old newsagent’s in my town, queuing, buying the newspaper of my choice for the first time, smelling it, feeling its warmth. I couldn’t stop reading it in class, in all my classes. And I never stopped reading that newspaper pretty much every day for the next thirty years.
Later on, still in primary, I wrote a science fiction book, which I was asked to read aloud to some of the groups in my year. In my teens, I started writing for a regional newspaper, and writing news items that I would read for the news bulletins in my local radio station.