article by a learner from South Lanarkshire

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Picking Up Your First Book

It might not sound hard to you but to someone who is struggling with reading it’s hard to pick up a magazine or a book and read it.

Like myself I was struggling with reading, and didn’t know what thing I was missing out on. I picked up magazines and lost interest in them. I heard about a night class that helps you with reading writing and anything else you were struggling with. I went along to the night class, I was nervous at first but made very welcome and met lots of people with different problems, and the good thing about it is no one knows what everyone else is here for. It is so confidential. You were made at ease. My reading is improving bit by bit.

I liked the actor John Thaw and knew he had a book out about his life. The book is called ‘The Two of Us: My Life with John Thaw’ by Sheila Hancock.  So I bought it, I was nervous at first because if the story jumps back and forwards I would lose interest, but the book was good start to finish. It was all about his private life, his battle with drink, his depression and his illness. The book starts with his childhood, his mother leaving the family home, his father bringing his brother and him up. It tells you about the time John and his brother going to his mother’s door and her giving them money and telling them not to come back to her door again. This did not hold him back as he went on to become, in my eyes, the best actor on TV. It tells you about his first marriage failing and how he met Sheila Hancock who became his second wife. It tells you how they complemented one another, but John still liked a good old drink in times of stress. It tells you about his illness and his shattering discovery that his wife developed breast cancer and how he shut himself away when she needed him at that time.

I recommend this book to anyone who likes John Thaw and is interested in finding out more about him. I myself liked the book from start to finish.      
 

Webmaster replies

A great review - it makes you want to learn more about the man and his life.  

I hope you don't mind, I've made the first sentence a paragraph; I think it deserves it. 

If you don't agree I'll change it back.  Cheers.

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