My Name is Lark. This is my story:

I started my life with my parents, a sister of 2 years and a half-sister eight years my senior. We lived in the basement of my Grandparent’s house in Carden Place, Aberdeen.

When I was two years old, our parents took us to live in a granite semi-detached house overlooking the River Dee at West Cults.

I never really knew my poor Mother; she was ill most of her life we spent many hours visiting her in Cornhill Hospital, Aberdeen.

My sisters and I attended Cults Primary School and I vividly remember my first day in Primary One. It was Easter and I had been 4 years old on the 23 January. I was very shy but happy enough to join the teacher who was a friend of my mother and I knew to be a very kind lady. I was one of the last to arrive and was seated at the back of the class. Our classroom was in the basement and it had a huge coal range, which heated the whole school. There were dozens of half- pint bottles of milk placed neatly around the heater for us to drink at playtime. I was keen to go to school in those days and always seamed to do well especially in painting.

My problems started in Primary 3. I was getting into trouble for not paying attention, for being late, for not listening and especially for ‘not doing better’. I began to hate going to school and dreaded every weekday. I didn’t have friends. I was never picked to be in any teams. I was treated like an outcast.

In Primary 6, things got much worse. It was thought that I might be deaf in my right ear so I was removed from class several times to have my hearing tested. When I had the earphones on, my mind kept wandering so I was in trouble again for not concentrating. Because my reading was so bad, I was moved to the front of the class as they thought I might have sight problems. I still could not tell the difference between right and left, tell the time or tie my shoelaces. I could not tell the difference between b and d, P and 9, p and q. I also wrote words back to front.

As my mother was in hospital most of the time, my half-sister was put in charge of my homework. She would pin me between the wall and the dining table and force me to do spelling. I remember her ordering me to spell curnel. She kept shouting at me and I could not understand how I kept getting it wrong – I was spelling it as it sounded – C U R N E L. She went crazy. She screamed – ”it is spelled C O L O N E L”. Well, I never forgot that. She was also in charge of brushing my hair. I had a ponytail then and she took great delight if ripping off the elastic band and tugging my tangled hair. She got so angry with me that she took a pair of scissors and cut off my ponytail. I cried all the way to school and the class laughed at me even more.

My father rarely spent any time with me. Occasionally, at bedtime, he would read some pages from my sister’s book. I loved hearing the story as I could understand it and imagined what the people looked like but he kept saying that I would never learn to read if I didn’t try. Sometimes he would help me do my homework; sums mostly. I would tell him that I had been given sums on page 9 as well as page 8 just so that I didn’t have to do the work incorrectly in class the following day.

Although we lived in a big house and everyone thought we had lots of money, nothing could have been further from the truth. The roof was leaking so badly that my parent’s bedroom ceiling fell down. I had to try and sleep with drips plopping into buckets and basins on my bedroom floor. We had no central heating or double-glazing and the wind howled through the ill- fitting sash windows. In the small bedroom downstairs, fungus grew out from the damp walls. My dad drove a crumbling Ford Consul with water lapping at our feet. In the winter, my sister and I would walk to the Petrol Station at Bieldside to get paraffin for the single portable stove to heat the bedrooms. We almost died when the wick became faulty and filled the house with thick, black fumes. There was never any food in the house. My father thought that because we were getting school dinners, which were excellent, we did not need anything else. My breakfast was half a cup of tea shared with my sister. Supper was a slice of bread. I never want to see another tin of ‘Winny Wilts Macaroni’ again.

Primary 7 was frightening. Miss Gill was our teacher and she was ancient. She had taught some of my classmate’s parents. I was seated next to Stella, the brightest child in the class. This proved my undoing as I had by now learned to cheat by copying and was often reduced to tears when I had the same marks for mental arithmetic as Stella. Everyone in the class fell about in hysterics knowing well that there was no way that I could have answered even two questions correctly. From that day on, I was made to sit at a desk in the corner beside the door, where I couldn’t cheat again. Miss Gill had no time for me; there were 47 other children in the class needing her attention. Every day after assembly we would be marched into class and Miss Gill would fire questions at us. Times tables had always been a problem for me and now we had French to make my life hell. Every question she ever asked me, I got wrong. Her punishment, for me alone, was to dig her large amber knuckle-duster ring into my back or crack the back of my hand with a wooden ruler. I lost count of the number of times I got the belt; up my fingers and onto my wrist, usually because I was very inquisitive and could net resist finding out what was happening in a room, which I had been told not to go into. Nobody at home was interested in my bruises. Sometimes, when Miss Gill was off, we had a very nice lady to take our class. She always had bags of home baking, which she would present to pupils who did their work correctly. Needless to say, I never got anything. Parent’s nights were a waist of time. My father saw no reason to attend them.

As my sisters had their own friends and other things to do, I was very much left on my own. I spent all my time roaming the woods and fields near my house. The farm at the bottom of the garden provided us with thick, creamy milk and the occasional egg. It was also a source of wonder for my nosiness. I had my first brush with the constabulary when I discovered a box of rifle bullets in an old shed and had a very embarrassing visit at school. How the class laughed.

Our house overlooked the old Cults Curling Rink and I loved skating in the moonlight but hated trying to tie my soaking wet laces. I had to use double knots, as I still couldn’t fathom out bows. Sometimes if I couldn’t get my skates untied, I had to struggle home up the steep, snowy hill with them on. There is little left of the curling rink now.

1963 was a very bad year. After several attempts, my mother finally succeeded in ending her life. It was 13 December and I was removed from school immediately. My father was distraught and that Christmas was dreadful. A fortnight later, my father dropped me at school gate but I did not have my schoolbag with me. I was not ready to go back and I knew what was going to happen when I entered the class. Miss Gill wasted no time in crushing me further. Time stood still for the next few months; the nude Christmas tree waited in the bay window to be thrown away but no one could face wrapping up the glass borbels, which my mother had painted.

School camp was a nightmare. I longed to get home and I was jealous of all the packages, which other girls in my class got in the post. Along with sweets and a new jumper, one girl even got a camera in her parcel. I got nothing. My father and grandmother came to visit me at the end of the first week but Dad refused to take me home. They did, however, take me out for afternoon tea. Dad bought me a small plastic pony with fuzzy brown skin. Next day, it fell off my locker and broke a leg. I was so upset. I really enjoyed the final week at camp and had learned to tie up my own hair.
I failed my 11+ examinations and dreaded the thought of going to the big school. All my report cards read the same ‘could do better’, ‘not trying hard enough’, ‘a dreamer’.

I had to travel by bus to Culter Secondary School. I was always forgetting my bus pass or my jymn-kit or my dinner money or cookery class ingredients. I was now in with pupils who didn’t know me and teachers who did not know of my problems. The classes were smaller but I was now in a ‘B’ class and labelled a dunce. More laughter when I was asked to stand up and read out aloud in front of the class. More stuttering and stammering. More disgrace and shame. More ridicule. Utter hell.

With the opening of Cults Academy in 1966, I was back on home ground. No more travelling or missing the bus. I was still having problems with time – I couldn’t read a clock and couldn’t work out how long it would take me to get from A to B etc. I was still late for school most days. As I was the youngest in the class, I was not old enough to leave school with the other pupils. It was decided that I would repeat a year. Again I found myself in with a new set of strangers. This time I was in an ‘A’ class, completely out of my depth and one of the older pupils. I began playing truant: mostly on a Wednesday after swimming lessons. Nobody ever noticed me hiding behind the piano in the lounge and in those days, no school register was taken in the afternoons.

Both my sisters had left school and had started work so I was at home alone after school and spent all my time watching television: anything and everything. It suited me because the half-hour programmes were perfect for my attention span. I started writing little stories and I got interested in horses. I never got any pocket money and would go to jumble sales and try and persuade the ladies to give me very scrappy books for free. The first book I got was called ‘Chalk and Cheese’ about two ponies, I must have read it a dozen times.

My father remarried and I now had a new stepbrother who was just three months older than myself an Australian, very good-looking and exceptionally clever. I suddenly had friends but they only used me as an excuse to get closer to him. With him around, there was no more skiving.

I muddled though that final year, dreading most of the subjects but longing for Art, English and Music. My spelling was still dreadful but I enjoyed thinking up stories to write about. I chose to take car maintenance and woodwork for free periods and loved it all. Now I was getting recognition for the things I could do. I was only allowed to sit two ‘O’ grade subjects: Art and English. At only 15%, it was not worth me attempting Arithmetic.

I was thrilled when I passed both the examinations. My father was even more proud when I came home with a Bible, which I had won for the highest mark in the class for General Knowledge, in the girls’ section. The Bible had a very pretty gilt and red label on the flysheet with my name on it. My father now decided that I could be a brain surgeon. The only options suggested to me by my careers' adviser were hairdressing or nursing. All I thought of was poisoned people with green hair. I was not fit to be let loose in the community.

I left school as soon as possible and worked as a receptionist in a hotel in Aberdeen. Six weeks later I was unemployed. I then worked for five years in a department store as a clerk. Thinking that I could probably do better, I joined a Banking group but after only 18 months I realised that the position was too difficult for me. The Manageress was dreadful to me and I suffered a mini breakdown.

After recovering, I moved to a construction company and survived there for a couple of years. During this time, I had married, buried my Father and stopped work to bring up my two sons. I had pre-eclampsia during my first pregnancy and very bad post-natal depression, which I hid as much as possible. I began to feel that there was nothing that I could do correctly. The same problems arose with my second pregnancy and I had a dreadful delivery. Sleep deprivation for three years and the delayed shock of losing my father took its toll but I refused to admit I had a problem. Nobody was going to tell me that I was an unfit mother. Things settled down for a few years. My husband and I moved house three times and I found the moves very difficult.

I wanted to stay at home and be there for my children when they were ill or came home from school - to give them the childhood I had never had. I was not in a position to earn enough money to pay a childminder to look after my own children so I took in a couple of friend’s children to enable them continue their careers. I charges £1 per hour per child. I really enjoyed all the children, especially the babies. This arrangement worked well for ten years.

I had always dreamed of being able to drive a car but never thought I was capable of doing so. My husband lost his licence and I had to learn, very quickly. Somehow, I passed on my second attempt then crashed the Company car through the garage door. Nobody was hurt but the car was written off. It was two days before Christmas and I was supposed to be driving all the relatives to my in-laws for dinner. I was not very popular and I had a miserable time. I got an old run-around, which only lasted a year. I was given a red Fiesta for my 40th birthday. When my childminding services were no longer required, I started doing garden design and maintenance in my spare time. My husband was in a very high-powered job and, to my knowledge, we were comfortably well off.

I got involved in the Cats Protection League and I became a voluntary ‘trapper’ of feral cats. I was in heaven now that I had found my niche. I loved sitting in the car watching and waiting for cats to enter the traps. I would take them to the vet, for neutering and either release that back into the area or take them to foster homes. I had lots of kittens to hand- rear and all the family joined in with taming the wind felines. My husband, rightly, envied me my freedom and made it clear that I would have to get a career of my own. I was terrified of going back into a working environment. I still had all the problems from twenty years ago and I didn’t even know how to start up a computer.

I took a course called ‘computers for the terrified’ and was even more terrified at the end of the 1o week course. Everybody else was producing Christmas cards to die for but I was still floundering around. I applied for various positions but never even got a reply. I did however have two interviews but because I had no real experience of anything, I failed yet again.

My husband decided to work overseas but he had no intentions of taking us with him. He left us to make a new life for himself and the girlfriend I had known nothing about. I was devastated.

The boys were 14 and 17 years. As my husband was living and working in the Far East, my solicitor was unable to get the appropriate maintenance from my husband. I got jobs working as a cleaner in local schools and in private houses and continued with the garden maintenance. After four years, my shoulder became too painful to do anything heavy. I was working from 4 a.m. to 7 p.m. most days and had a back-checking job at the weekends.

At the dentist one day, I noticed an article in a magazine about Dyslexia. As I slowly read the pages, I started sobbing; every problem I had ever had was in front of me. I was so upset.

Months later, I found an advert for an evening meeting for Adults who thought that they might have Dyslexia. I arrived at Harlaw Academy, feeling very wary and trembling. I followed the arrows showing the way to the Dyslexia Meeting. It was like being back at school, I was dreading it and almost turned back. In the class, there were eight or nine people and the instructor, Jan, who introduced herself. We were asked to say a little about ourselves and one lady, who had obviously been to meetings before, stood up to give her story. As she recalled her problems, I got the feeling that I had known her before. I said nothing at the time. It was my time to open up and I found the experience totally draining and I could not stop crying. When the meeting was finished, I got my friend in a corner and she agreed that we had been in the horsy world together during our early teens. We got the chance to have a really long chat and at the end of the evening I felt that I had ‘come home’ and that these people all knew and understood my problems. I drove home in tears of relief.

On a routine visit to the doctor, my blood pressure registered at 210 over 110. I was sent straight to hospital with suspected meningitis. Five days later I was back home with the strict warning that I would have to give up some of my jobs. Over the following months, I attended various departments for scans. My eyesight had been badly affected by the hypertension and I was on a combination of three drugs to try and keep my high blood pressure in control but as the medication was not classed as life threatening, I got no help with the cost.

My older Son, after graduating with second-class honours, moved into a shared flat in town and I felt dreadful. Without his maintenance, I was forced to put our house on the market and had to carry out several exhausting repairs in a very limited time. I found the viewings very draining and painful. The house sold quickly and my younger Son and I were facing homelessness. I managed to find a tiny flat locally but no animals were allowed so I had to make the dreadful decision to have my two elderly cats put to sleep. Moving house was a nightmare. I couldn’t afford a removal company but all my neighbours helped, I was so grateful.

I continued my monthly meetings with the Adult Dyslexia Group and found that the information provided very encouraging. There were usually new visitors at these meetings and it was reassuring to know that I wasn’t the only person with this problem. Members came and went but it was very clear that all had been very damaged during their school years. As a group, we talked and had speakers and celebrated Burns night and Christmas. I managed to scrape together the fee for a pre-dyslexia test but could not afford the £200+ for a full clinical psychologist’s test. It appeared that I would be asked for the written proof of my Dyslexia time and time again. I approached my local Medical Group to see if I could get funding or a referral but I was refused.

It was about this time that I was approached by the Dyslexia Association to attend monthly meetings of several Groups for learning difficulties in the Grampian area. The meetings were held in the boardroom of Inverurie Town Hall. My first meeting sent shudders through me but the ladies were exceptionally nice and it was clear that I was the only one there with learning difficulties. Words like ‘bullet points’, ‘brainstorming’ and ‘projected forecasts’ meant nothing to me but over the months, I did pick up a lot of information and the committee learned that the wording and phrasing of their intended pamphlets would have to be simplified to cater for the poorer readers. The outcome of all these meetings resulted in the forming of a combined leaflet covering all disabilities called ‘Aberdeenshire Literacies Partners’.

After the two years when the lease on the flat came up for renewal, I realised that I could not afford to carry on paying the £350 per month. I bought a mobile home locally and we moved again. My younger Son endured the noise from the nearby filling station for only a couple of weeks then left to live with his brother, who had just bought a flat in town.

I kept applying for jobs but got no interviews. My situation was getting desperate. There were no suitable jobs for me so the Job Centre suggested that I should enrol at College to gain some sort of qualifications. The thought terrified me but I knew that I just had to try something. At the following meeting of the Aberdeenshire Literacies Partners, one of the ladies from Aberdeen College was there and she very kindly sent me some leaflets and the name of someone very nice to contact at the College. I am very grateful to Linda for persuading me to take that first step. After an interview with Carol at College, I was sent to the guidance department where I was again asked for proof of my Dyslexia and was told that ‘everyone is Dyslexic to a certain extent’. This made my blood boil. They had no real idea what Dyslexia was.

I started a course called ‘Bridge the Gap’, which covered Numeracy and Literacy. I was dreading the first day and had a panic attack on the bus on the way into town. All I wanted to do was go home. I eventually got there but all those young people and the complicated layout of the building made me feel very small: distant feelings of Miss Gill came rushing back.

The ten-week course was just what I needed. It was a very small class and I loved every second. The lecturers were so patient and understanding. Two people from the class decided to stay on to do another course so I enrolled in the next step up called ‘Renew’. This was a larger group and again the lecturers were superb. The subjects were Numeracy, Communication, I.T., Local Investigations, Basic Applications of Behavioural Science and Sociology and Psychology. Not long into this course, I noticed that I was having problems reading the whiteboards. Jan suggested that I have my eyes checked by an expert in Aberdeen who dealt with dyslexia sufferers. My first meeting with him was very traumatic and my response to his gruff attitude was to leave immediately. I forced myself to stay until the end. I left with a green plastic overlay for placing over written work, a bill of £200 for new spectacle lenses, which I could not pay and in floods of tears. I did a lot of crying and a lot of thinking over the Christmas break from College. That meeting with him was probably what saved my life. I struggled through my course and enjoyed all but the Sociology and Psychology, which I failed.

I continued attending the monthly Adult Dyslexia meetings and we were invited to a meeting of Dyslexia Scotland in Stirling. Jan drove three of us down and others in our group met us there. Groups from Inverness to Glasgow attended. There were speakers and talks and a very nice lunch. By the end of the meeting, all of us were in tears of anger and relief. We had all been tortured one way of another.

I also attended the Dyslexia Institute meetings for parents and teachers of Dyslexic children. At one on the meetings there was a talk by an excellent clinical psychologist. For the first time in my life, I understood what was really wrong with me but I had to leave the meeting abruptly because I was so upset.

After finishing the ‘Renew’ course at College, three of us enrolled in the Administration course. At the moment I am trying to finish an SVQ 2 course and am doing work placement in an office within College. I am so lucky to have had this opportunity to start afresh and am loving life again. I am not sure what I will do at the end of this course but I know that with the help of Dyslexia groups and the College staff I am now in a much better position to get employment.
Although I still have difficulty with spelling, multiplication and time tables, I am a much more confident person who always tries harder. This Lark is ascending.

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