There is much wisdom in your remarks Kaleigh.

When I was a snall child I used to want to help my Mummy and my Daddy when they were doing things. Mummy was always very busy in the kitchen - too busy to show me how to make things or cook them. Daddy was either away in the Army (this was during WW2 and in England, and even as a two year old it involved me as i was in the London Bllitz and had to be dug from the ruins of what had been our home), or when Daddy was at home he would be very busy outside, painting a door or building a rabbit hutch or greenhouse or henhouse, and he always wanted me to help him, but after a few minutes of me trying to paint a door he would shout at me that I was taking more paint off than I was putting on... Soon I was told to go away, I must have two left hands or something, I was useless...

I had an Uncle who was a musician and composer and who refused to fight, so he was sent to the coal mines but his asthma was so bad they sent him out again, so they put him in prison for a while ( most people alive today do not remember or realise that WW2 was fought by both sides with Slave Armies, whoi were FORCED to join up and go to war with eaxh other whether they wanted to or not!). He was visiting us one Sunday and was reading out the newspaper to my Mummy, and I heard him say "It says here that.... " Being a very curious child, I came over to him and asked him where it said that, and he showed me what writing was and in one afternoon he taught me to read.

I was then put in a Nursery School, so that my Mummy could be taken to work in a munitions factory, It consisted of two rooms in a building belonging to the Church of England in this village we had been evacuated to, and being but 3 years old the Ladies in charge put me with the babies. I jumped up and down and shouted and screamed that I was |NOT a Baby and I could read, and I had come to a School so I wanted to LEARN, not play, so they gave me a book with no pictures except the one of a man and a lady kissing on the Cover, thinking I was lying, so I read a couple of pages to them and they decided to put me with the older children, the 4 and 5 year olds. They did not like me because I could read better than them, but I did not care. I read a book a day and walked all the way to the nearest Public Library in the next village and joined the Library and was allowed to borrow 3 books every week, which I did until I had read every book they had in the Childrens' Section and was allowed to borrow non fiction from the Adult Library.

So I grew up with quite a lot of knowledge but with "2 left hands" that made me useless at making anything. I went on to University and stayed there and earned a PhD and went to work in a Lab for quite a lot of my working life, but when it became obvious that lab workers.were poorly paid compared with those who wore nice clothes and had Company Cars and drove about, selling what the people in the labs had discovered and made, I became a Sales person, then a Sales Manager, and eventually a parent too, but I never stopped my daughters from playing at helping me or making things, and to this day I have nothing to show for it all - I can only criticise what others had done, but my two daughters, now both with grown up daughters and sons of their own, are practicing artists, have helped build their own houses, and have lots of things to show for their work, whilst I have virtually nothing to show for mine, apart from one medical device I developed and patented, that was used for a while until someone else made something even better.

When I am gone the world will soon forget I ever existed. I have wasted all the opportunities I did have but did not follow up on because I had 2 left hands and was useless.

I hope all who read your words of wisdom take note, and do something practical... Bless you too for the inspiring stories you have written for us all to read. Thank you. I wish you had been round when I was little, though only if it had not been in WW2, which I would wish on Nobody.