BIll thomson
I grew up in Freuchie. Primary School felt like living in a vacuum as I had learning difficulties and by the age of eight or nine I was moved to a remedial class. I did my sums and timetables and learned words that I instantly forgot. At Markinch Secondary School I was treated fairly, but all I did was survive it. I left school with no qualifications and over the next thirty years I held a number of different jobs. I was a gardener for a year, a paper mill worker for fourteen, a drain cleaner in a food factory for three and a half years, and a gardener again for the next seven years before finally being paid off with ill health in 1986. During this time I also got married and had a daughter, and it was my daughter who first prompted me to think about my learning difficulties, as I couldn’t help with her homework.
By chance one day I saw an advert for second chances into education at Glenwood School in the local paper, but it took me two weeks to pluck up the courage to phone. Once I did I never looked back. I found out I was dyslexic – complicated by having scotopic sensitivity syndrome, and found logical thinking difficult. I also discovered that I am a very creative person. For two hours a week for three years I received Basic Adult Education including literacy and numeracy support, then I started attending classes at Glenrothes College in 1995. I studied creative writing, literature and communications and realised that I enjoy writing poetry.
Subdue your fears of what might be ahead of you. Learning will open rusty doors in your mind that have been closed for too long and who knows what might be in there!
I now give talks with the Scottish Adult Learners Partnership and have won many individual awards. I’ve had six framed poetry exhibitions, and have been invited to speak on Radio Tay, Radio Forth and Kingdom FM. I am the resident storyteller at Glenrothes Hospital for the elderly and basically my whole life has been turned around. I have experienced a real joy in learning and relief in the knowledge that I’m very capable, but that my mind is just wired in a different way. I now have a burning desire to help others who might still be in the same situation as I was, and although it wasn’t easy I would encourage everybody to take their second chance as the opportunities are out there.