Rather randomly, I got thinking about how I struggled with reading when I was young, and this got me thinking about other things that are true in my life that other people might find surprising. Even some people who know me quite well.
So, in the interest of numbered lists on the internet, here are twelve things you may find surprising about me.
1. I was a remedial reader
That’s right, for a period of time in my very young life, I was in remedial classes for reading. I was books behind. I was on the Red Pirate while everyone else was on the Green Pirate or whatever the measure was.
I had special lessons and everything.
I find it very hard to pinpoint exactly when this ceased to be the case and I went from struggling to being someone who read ferociously and started writing epically long Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea fan fiction. It was terribly written, but still a big jump from struggling with reading.
2. I was religious
Well, wait for a second, I’m not sure I was religious, exactly. What’s more true is up until my late teens I went to Church every Sunday, did bible lessons and even had Church-related activities like a weekly activity club and going camping in the summer.
These things came as a bulk package as the church I was going to was The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints, the Mormon church for short. I wasn’t devout. At times it was more something my parents did and we got dragged along. Like many a religious person, it’s just as much the social aspect as anything else.
I have nothing but positive experiences from this part of my life. It positively impacted my well-being, formed and grew my independent psychology, and I met some really nice people.
3. I was crippling shy
Not just shy. Seriously shy. Like get my younger brother to go into the shop and spend my money for me shy. I used to be so sick at school due to anxiety I’d occasionally be sent home by the teacher as I was obviously ill.
Luckily these things receded as I got older.
This is one of the main reasons I take great pains to separate shyness and social anxiety out from introversion as they’re not remotely the same thing.
6. I rolled a car
I passed my driving test and then never drove for a long time. Then I found myself driving quite a long way on a motorway to visit a client. Inexperience meant I had no idea how tight turns could be on motorway exit lanes and I was driving in the dark.
I went too fast, not crazily fast, but it was a very tight bend and I tried to turn, skidded and the car rolled. I ended up hanging in my seat held in by the seat belt as the car was on its roof. Luckily traffic was very light. If it had not been I would have not crashed as other cars would have informed me of how much more I needed to slow down.
It was one of those ‘could have been very different’ moments.
7. I’ve been on oil rigs
I used to go out to oil rigs on helicopters. I’ve done it twice. It was an interesting experience. It’s the closest I’ve come to being in some sort of action film. Wearing all the safety gear. Jostling to try and avoid the seats everyone believed were more dangerous. Getting off at the oil rig helipad, sometimes the only person before the helicopter took off again for a nearby rig.
This also means I’ve been placed in an old helicopter frame with other people, dropped from a height and had the airframe tumble a few times before having to get out. Fun times. It’s these sorts of experiences that inform the fact heights and coasters don’t bother me much.
8. I used to do cosplay
At one point my circle of friends was defined by a Star Trek Club. We used to go to UK science fiction, which mostly meant Star Trek Conventions, back in the day. This was in my early twenties. We used to do cosplay.
Okay, some perspective. Cosplay wasn’t even a word at the time it was just doing fancy dress as a themed party. We did get quite good at it, but good meant something very different to what it means no. Yes, there are pictures. Thankfully all this happened before the advent of the internet so they sit in boxes somewhere unavailable to the general population.
Fun times.
9. I’m a published writer
I’ve not written a book, but there was a time I had a regular writing gig in a UK role-playing magazine. The magazine was called Arcane, it was by one of the big magazine publishers at the time and it paid really well relative to other options.
I’d got to the point where I was having something published every 2-3 issues and they seemed interested in the things I suggested. Sadly this position of authority and trust ended as the magazine went under.
Pity, it was a good magazine albeit of the sort you’d not see done by a major publisher ever again.
10. I’ve had two eye operations
Like Rocky Balboa, I don’t see that well out of one eye. This is because while revising for my end of second-year degree exams I noticed I’d lose sight of my fingers in the top half of my vision in my right eye. A bit shocking. I went to an optician and even before I got home they had the eye hospital ringing me to rush me in.
Two eye operations to fix a detached retina followed. No idea how it became detached. It certainly wasn’t due to being beaten around the head by a giant Russian. Thankfully the left eye hasn’t had its retina fall off. I also got out of doing my second-year degree exams and they just gave me a good result based on my work during the year.
11. I was poor
At some point during the eighties, my family went from being quite well off to being poor. It was something to do with people with no qualifications going from being able to earn good money to having trouble finding jobs.
We almost certainly officially counted as poor. Not 19th century poor, walking around with holes in our shoes poor but certainly there was a period we were getting food delivered to us via the church poor.
If you’re thinking ‘this must be where my obsessive need to save and be financially secure comes from’? Well, you’re almost certainly right. Thankfully I benefited from my generation’s access to free University so was more socially mobile than my parents.
12. People assume I’m right of centre
People seem to assume I’m right of centre. This probably comes from my feeling that the government shouldn’t be getting all up in my grill much. I have reasons, those reasons basically amounting to every time they have got up in my or my family’s grill it’s been a cluster-fuck.
Don’t even get me started on my experience of working for the public sector. It’s also sometimes I seem to be slightly on the right just due to people I know being more on the left.
This isn’t true, I just tend to be a fan of bolder policies that are normally associated with the left. As an example, if universal income has any chance of working we should try it. This is the boldness we need, not swinging between left and right but really bold things that totally reshape people’s relationship with ‘work’ and the potential of their choices.
And, Finally…
It’s interesting writing these things as they become things that are part of your life but you just forget about them. It’s also true some have had a bigger influence than others. It’s definitely the case my conservative attitude to money is dictated by my childhood. My independent streak, once you take out the influence of my parents, is definitely influenced by not drinking as a teenager.
What would be the things people might not know about you?