Ms Seraphim Bryant

Who is one? And what is ones story?

Well I am a writer who had been writing in secret for years.

It all started with a birthday gift from my aunt Ve; A blue journal I hadn’t ever seen a diary journal before, not a proper one. It’s blue leather-bound cover, the newest smell, gold edge paper and its magnolia pages with caramel coloured lines were as if I were looking at a rare piece of art. To be honest I nearly cried when I wrote my name in the front, it’s what it told me to do, it said “this journal belongs to…” but oh was my hand writing terrible.

See I am very dyslexic and my hand witting appalling, especially at that time. 10 years old and I could barely read, less than a five-year old academically. Ashamed I wrote first my diary then my stories, and no one knew, not even my parents.

My dad told me some whopper about when he was a child, and I loved them. I could imagine for hour on my own, whole other worlds. I would try to write them down but often I could not write at the speed my mind would race, whole sentences would be missing. And if you can’t read what you have written you cannot correct it.

This went on for years until I met my high school teacher Mr Bill Young, he had a Welsh name I could never pronounce so he used Bill. He taught me to read, and read and read out loud, then read something else and read it some more. Only then could we get to writing. Mr Young listen to me read painfully for an hour after school, he would talk to me about the class work; write my essay notes down as I worked out what the question was asking of me. “You’re not thick, lazy or slow minded, you have got this far because you’re so smart.”, “You need to un-learn your bad habits and get some solid base knowledge.”, “Don’t let this obstacle stop you, get over it.” He would say bits like that all the time.

I’m still kind of slow at reading (have to read each page twice, once to get them words, second to read what the writer is saying) but reading means I can spell words, I can sound out bigger words, I can recognise high frequency words in a second not seconds and I have some vocabulary. Most of all it means I can visit other people’s worlds and see my own come to life.

Am I still a bit scared when my children ask me to read to them? Yes, but it doesn’t stop me.