DREAMER, VINDICATED

For as long as I can remember, I have always enjoyed writing fiction stories, writes subscriber Peter Mitchell. As a classroom dreamer at my secondary modern school it seemed such a natural thing for me to do. But they said I was a hopeless case.

My English teacher, an ageing dragon, had one aim in life – to make my life hell – insisting I wrote joined-up letters in a regimented upright style. The contents of the essay didn’t seem to matter much to her. I had to use a school-issue ink pen with a yellow plastic shaft and scratchy nib, which I constantly dipped into a porcelain desk-top inkwell. Thirty other children seated around this torture chamber did the same in complete silence, hoping this overpowering teacher wouldn’t target them.

Worse was the horrible smell of sodden ink soaking into a crumpled piece of blotting paper and the unexpected ‘friendly fire’ from a classmate who liked to dispatch this blue wet blob onto the back of my head when our teacher wasn’t looking.

After leaving state school in 1969, with no qualifications, my education blossomed. I attended technical college and found that most lecturers preferred the content of my written words rather than the disciplined penmanship my old school mistress had demanded. But I have to say, even today, people often tell me my handwriting is immaculate. So I must accredit it to my once-feared English teacher.

Fast forward to my retirement after a lifetime career as an electrician. I have written four books with two more in the pipeline. I write every day. It’s my hobby and far cheaper than playing golf or going to the pub.

I know my old English teacher would never have imagined that I could pen a book. I can see her now... standing over me, breathing firebrand criticism, ordering all those corrections and telling me how awful my writing is and that I should grasp my ink pen properly and make those letters vertical so that they almost reach the line above. Then, she would remind me: I am not a writer – just a failed dreamer.