In my previous blog I wrote about why I love words. Today I want to tell you how that love came about.
On long, cold, winter weekends in north-west England — Blackpool, to be precise — my mother would work through a book called “First Aid in English” with me. It was full of quizzes about masculines and feminines, singulars and plurals, synonyms and antonyms. There was probably a lot more that I don’t remember, but I was only four years old at the time.
One of her favourite stories in later life was how she asked me for the masculine of vixen. I had never heard the word before, so I suggested “vicar”!
I don’t remember when she taught me to read but I know I could already read well when I started school. In those days, in England, kids started school in the term that they turned 5, so I was 4 years and 10 months old.
The moral of the story is: teach them to love words when your kids are young, and you will give them a lifetime of enjoyment and delight! Do you love words? Tell us your story about how it all began.