Fierce (6 page)

W
HEN
I was nine I was diagnosed with dyslexia. Before then, I think my teachers genuinely thought I was stupid. I’m sure of it. They would give me the most ridiculous exercises to do. I was given a page full of drawings and I’d have to label them. I knew what a cat and dog was for fuck’s sake. That isn’t what dyslexia is about. It was so humiliating to be given that sort of work to do.

It was my mum who picked up my dyslexia. My dad is dyslexic too. She realised I had it too when she read my school reports and cottoned on. The teachers said my spelling wasn’t improving like it should be. My mum was really insulted when they wrote those things. She didn’t want people to think that I was stupid. She didn’t want me to think that for that matter either.

One night Mum sat me down in the lounge at Welders and told me all about what dyslexia was. Because of my dad having it, she knew exactly how to deal with it. She reassured me and told me I had nothing to worry about. It made me feel a whole lot better.

It wasn’t until we moved to America when I was thirteen that my dyslexia was tackled properly at a school that specialised in teaching kids with the condition. I’ve put a lot of the stuff they taught me then into practice now. Dyslexia affects the way the brain processes words
and letters, making it difficult for sufferers to read, spell and write. About four per cent of people in Britain have it.

I realised there was something keeping me apart from the rest of the class because I had started to hate reading out loud during lessons. It was something that began to worry me. In the morning, when I was getting ready for school I’d sometimes think, ‘Oh my God, everyone is going to make fun of me if I read out loud today. They’ll laugh if I get a word wrong.’ In the end I refused to read to the class.

I knew how to read, but in my head. It was when I had to read aloud that I’d get all the words confused. For example, if the sentence said: ‘It rained today.’ I would read it out as: ‘Rained today it.’ My brain process would jumble up the words. I do it with numbers as well.

My spelling also suffered because of the dyslexia. I used to spell phonetically. So if someone said the name ‘Siobhan’ I would spell it ‘Shivorn’.

My mum bought me a computer so I could do my homework and then spell-check it all. It really helped and improved my spelling.

Around the same time, my mum noticed that Jack was struggling too. He was also diagnosed with dyslexia. It’s obviously something that runs in the family.

Over the years, I’ve found ways of dealing with my dyslexia, but it has been a massive struggle for me. It’s something I have to work on every day. Technology – like predictive text on my mobile phone – has made it easier.

When I decided I wanted to do this book, I did ask someone to help me. I knew exactly what I wanted to say, but I realised that chatting to someone who would type what I’d said would be far more practical.

In my line of work, I have to make sure I’m really focused. My peers will walk in, read the autocue and go home. But I have to be prepared if I am going to present a TV show. I have to write down what I’m going to say and memorise it.

Years later, when I got a job at Radio 1 co-hosting
The Surgery
on a Sunday night, I would get so nervous when it came to the script read-through before the evening show. Sometimes I wouldn’t be able to read out loud and I’d fuck it up.

In the end, I confessed to my producer that I was severely dyslexic. I explained that the way I had learned to deal with it was to prepare. So I explained that they wouldn’t be able to just shove something under my nose with a second’s notice. Of course, I knew it was live radio and I would have to react to people phoning and emailing in to the show. The one thing I have learned is that when you’re dyslexic it’s amazing how clever you become. You become very canny at covering things up.

W
HEN
I was twelve, I started at Pipers Corner School. It was a private school tucked away in a corner of the Buckinghamshire countryside near High Wycombe. It’s a boarding school and a day school, and I came home every day. Usually Mum or the nanny would come and pick me up. We had to wear a white shirt, red jumper and grey skirt. It was really posh and incredibly strict.

From day one I made sure I talked to absolutely everyone and I made lots of friends.

I could have gone to the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in London. My sister Aimee went there for a while and my mum had gone there when she was little. It was a performing-arts school for kids. I didn’t want to go. Fuck, no. I didn’t want to go to do ballet or whatever. I appreciate the ballet. I think it’s beautiful and I can understand why someone would want to be a dancer. But fuck, not me.

Instead, during those first few weeks at Pipers Corner School, I was so conscious of the fact that I came from a family with a famous dad that I would lie about what I wanted to be when I was older. I was so desperate to fit in that I would say I was going to be a nursery-school teacher. Also, I thought that if I said I wanted to be a rock star like my dad they would laugh in my face. But I had sort of planned in my head that I would become a businesswoman
because that’s what my mum was. I’d watched her at her desk doing all her filing and paperwork and I wanted to do the same sort of thing. Despite the dyslexia, I loved a good school project. I couldn’t get enough of them. I was meticulous with how I planned them. You name it, I bet I did a bloody project on it. Eggs, chairs, Indian spices … I once spent hours patiently sticking tiny grains of spice into my exercise book. My parents never helped me with my projects. No. Never. Although Mum was very encouraging when we were at school. She would buy all the arts and craft things and made sure we had everything we needed, but we would do the work ourselves. I absolutely loved covering my books in crisp and sweet wrappers. And tinfoil … what the hell! When was the last time you ever heard of anyone doing that?

I used to buy
TVHits
magazine because you got free stickers. I would cover my folders with pictures of Ant & Dec, Boyzone, the Spice Girls and NSYNC. Much to my father’s dismay, I really fucking love pop music.

Science and history were my best subjects because they’re fact, fact, fact. You can’t change fact, can you? Either it is or it isn’t. Of course people can change history. But the facts always remain the same.

You can forget maths. It made no bloody sense to me at all. It was the dyslexia. I would get all the numbers the wrong way round. On my report card one year it said: ‘Maths is not Kelly’s favourite subject. But when she concentrates, she does very well.’

I had no problem with making my voice heard. On one report card, the teacher put under oral
communication: ‘Kelly has excellent communication skills.’ No shit! Blame my parents. Years of being on tour with my father meant I could talk to anyone of any age.

When I was at school I mothered everyone. Fuck knows why. I was very good at sorting everyone out and being Miss Practical. We had a school newspaper and I was the agony aunt. My classmates would write in with their problems about homework or bullying or whatever. I would print one of the letters with my answer. I loved it. I think I get my need to mother from my own mother. She’s very good at just getting on with things and being practical.

I am not joking when I say that I have absolutely everything from my school days. There’s a massive trunk outside my bedroom at Welders in the UK crammed full of all my exercise books, reports, projects, letters … That’s Mum for you. She’s a bloody hoarder.

Dad was always banned from parents’ evenings at Pipers Corner School. On the few previous occasions he had turned up, he would fall asleep as the teachers spoke to him and Mum.

Another time, as the teacher sat behind the desk talking to my parents, my dad kept pulling up his T-shirt and showing her his stomach. I mean, for fuck’s sake. My dad does this crazy thing where, after he has eaten something, he lifts up his T-shirt to see if he’s gained any weight. That’s why he was doing it.