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Showing posts from June, 2020

Friday morning spelling test

I loved school, but had some bad experiences in primary school. My worst memory of primary school was waking up on a seat in the yard in the rain after cutting my finger with a balsa knife and passing out! What made matters worse was, the ‘trained’ first aider thought it would be best to put me in a seat in the middle of the yard in the rain to get me to pull around! No wonder I’ve had a problem with needles and passing out ever since. The one that stays with me to this day was the barbaric Friday morning spelling test. It had been building up all week, I was and still am terrible at spellings and it all stems from this poorly organised and executed exercise in humiliation. I have a stutter, I have some degree of control on it now but I suffered badly when I was younger and whenever I had to do a reading exercise I would always be marked down because of this, the problem went hand in hand with my spellings. I love to read and have hundreds of books but it always looked like I couldn’

Youth Conference

Late last year, I was introduced to a lovely lady by the name of Theresa Cave. Sadly, Therea’s son Chris was killed due to knife crime, which prompted her to start a campaign to educate people about the dangers of knives and how we can help the communities of today. She asked me to be part of the First Youth Conference which was held in Redcar; I jumped at the chance to help. The day came and I woke up at 7.15am (damn bladder) sorted out my bag, got petrol and set off for Redcar. It was very windy on the drive down with a massive crosswind, I had just had my jeep fixed so I was crossing my fingers to make it in one piece. I made it down in good time despite the wind and arrived at 9.10am. Once I arrived, I grabbed some coffee, and decided to sit and watch all the people arrive. The conference was held within a community centre, each room dedicated to a workshop which would uniquely inspire and educate young adults. It began in the conference suite, with a panel of guests. The audie