Dyslexia made me anxious... but it’s made me who I am
TV chef Rosemary Shrager tells Gemma Calvert about the secret battle with dyslexia that caused her mental health to plummet
Two decades ago, whenever Rosemary Shrager had to speak aloud – either to her cookery school students or at industry events – she suffered such debilitating anxiety she would press cocktail sticks into her thumb to try and cope.
“When I started cheffing, getting up to teach students and standing up at speaking engagements was the most awful thing,” explains Rosemary, 73.
“Somebody told me I could combat the nerves if I drew blood and made my thumb painful. So I used to put cocktail sticks in my thumb.”
Rosemary’s battle with confidence began in childhood when at boarding school she spent a decade hiding dyslexia – a common learning difficulty that can cause problems with reading, writing and spelling.
Teachers at Hampden House School for Girls in Great Missenden, Bucks, believed Rosemary was academically gifted but her strong language and comprehension skills were, in fact, masking severe literacy inefficiencies.
“I had a problem with reading and coordinating words, and also with numbers but I was bright and very agile, so to get through school I’d memorise everything and tried so, so hard. Girls with dyslexia are very good at putting up a facade,” says Rosemary, whose coping strategies included substituting or skipping words when reading privately.
But when it came to reading out loud in class word for word, Rosemary would crumble.
“I’d shake every time because I found it so difficult,” she recalls. “I used to sit at the back of class on purpose so I’d be one of the last to read. I was so scared.”
Rosemary’s dyslexia, which affects about one in 10 people in the UK, was formally diagnosed when she was 10 after failing her 11-plus exam, a test her teachers had encouraged her to sit two years early.
“I was unable to get the answers from my head on to the paper and from then on I struggled as I was not considered the bright girl any more.
“My teachers had put me on a pedestal and I came crashing down. My confidence was dashed and for a long time I felt like a failure,” she recalls.
“I completely relate to the fact that people with dyslexia can face higher rates of anxiety and depression because of how it impacts their day-to-day activities. As a child, my anxiety was bad and that continued into adulthood.”
After quitting school at 16, Rosemary enrolled at Heatherley School of Fine Art in London before joining an art college up North.
Then at 20, after landing her first job as a drawing technician for a Londonbased architect, she followed her heart into hospitality.
A self-taught cook, Rosemary began preparing directors’ lunches, and following a move to Cornwall with her late husband, she opened her own restaurant from home. After her husband’s property business was decimated by the 1980s recession their marriage collapsed and Rosemary found work in a London restaurant before being hired to manage the catering at a hotel in the Western Isles of Scotland.
It was here she opened her own cookery school and began speaking at live cookery events as well as making guest appearances on the BBC’S Food & Drink programme, which kickstarted her TV career. Since then, she has appeared in programmes such as
Soapstar Superchef, Ladette to Lady and The Real Marigold Hotel.
Like chef Jamie Oliver, who credits the kitchen for “saving” him after a struggle with childhood dyslexia, Rosemary says: “Dyslexia helped me unlock my creativity in the kitchen. Cooking is all about drawing, balance, texture, colour ,” she says. And over the years, Rosemary has learned how to temper her anxiety when public speaking.
“When I had notes to follow, I would lose my place and panic. Once at a Women’s Institute meeting, I was so full of anxiety I threw my notes in the air and said, ‘I’m just going to do it from my heart’. They loved it. Now I follow bullet points or ad lib.
“The last time I had a cocktail stick in my pocket was 15 years ago. Since then, I’ve practised and built up my confidence and have no problem telling people I hate reading aloud.
“If you have dyslexia, it’s important to get out there, be positive and keep going. It’s fair to say that dyslexia has made me who I am. It’s allowed me to follow my own path.”
That path has now steered Rosemary into novel writing and her third fiction book, Too Many Cooks, is out in February.
“I have no problems with my imagination and writing my novel was easy because the computer does everything,” she smiles. “I’ll look words up on Google and use the spell checker on Word. As a dyslexic, without a computer I would not be able to do any of it.”
Rosemary, who knows only too well about the importance of diet, insists that certain foods have the power to significantly hamper a person’s focus and concentration.
“Diet is important as it changes your mood,” she says. “Consuming too much sugar and synthetic food additives inhibits our ability to concentrate. It causes a foggy brain and is one of the reasons why I’m so serious about not consuming sugar.”
The other reason is type 2 diabetes, which Rosemary was diagnosed with six years ago.
She has transformed what she eats, largely eliminating sugar-laden and processed foods and she limits carbs. As a result, she has dropped two dress sizes, reversed the diabetes and, she says, feels clearer mentally too.
“Not eating those foods also helps if you’re dyslexic because, for me, they cause that foggy brain. Since losing weight, my concentration is much better.”
For Rosemary, who had a hip replacement 14 months ago after two decades of pain, the next priority is getting fit.
“Don’t talk to me about exercise,” she shrieks. “My doctor is furious because I don’t do a lot. After the operation I had to relearn how to walk again and now I struggle so much with exercise. I stopped walking because of my hip. I’ve just got to do it.”
If you have dyslexia, it’s important to get out there, be positive and keep going