Daryl Ainsworth

Born in 1960, I was profoundly dyslexic, but being blissfully unaware, was quite a happy little child. Sadly, that was all about to change - my bubble was about to burst, a wrecking ball swinging towards me with the word ‘school’ written on it! That didn’t matter to me because I couldn’t read! However, this was going to turn my happy little world upside-down, and spin it around quite a lot too! But, 'school is great' right? ... a place where I could go and receive quality education, be inspired by those who’d gone before me and come away with knowledge and experience which I’d be able to apply and build on throughout my life. Well, no, not quite. In 1965, dyslexia wasn’t a ‘thing’… it was okay to be ‘thick’ though and it was also okay to be punished, in every imaginable way, if you couldn’t spell ‘diddlie skwot’, or anything else for that matter. So, I was misunderstood and became a target for the frustrated teachers to unleash their emotions upon. It wasn’t that all the teachers were bad, but some of the teachers were very bad. The 'smaller' and 'thicker' they could make me feel, then the better and cleverer they would feel themselves! For them, it was a 'win-win', for me it was a 'lose-lose', or at least that’s what you’d think. However, rather than being the victim, as you might expect, I was developing skills that would enable me to 'snatch victory from the jaws of defeat'. I developed the ability to daydream, and escape to my own little world, at will. Despite the turmoil around me, I would be ‘hidden in plain view’, whilst on another planet, or in my case, 'my island'. Admittedly, occasionally I’d return to reality, with more than a 'bump', as a blackboard rubber rattled itself around my ears, at unimaginable speed! But, these were just unpleasant interruptions from spending my time on an island of dreams and boundless possibilities. There I was, able to develop my imagination and clearly see that a dream can shape your reality, and a good dream can shape your reality and the reality of those around you! After years of being pressed into a mould, that I didn’t particularly fit, I left school, married a teacher (yes, you did read that correctly), then, became a technical advisor for Universities, where I spent much of my time in meetings with the Directors, whilst keeping very, very quiet about my own academic background. The devastation caused by the wrecking ball, I’d now repurposed. The debris, left in its wake, I’d carefully picked-up and reassembled to make something far more beautiful. I could use my imagination, to look at problems from different angles to those around me, and come up with alternative, creative and even elegant solutions. So why would I write a book? Would it be that I thought the nine million books now available on Amazon kindle was not quite enough to satisfy the avid reader? Or, maybe I picked