The boy who read too early

I didn’t mean to cause trouble. I just wanted to read.

I was five years old, sitting in class with a book in my hands, happily flipping through the pages. I'd already learned to read at home, sitting on my father’s lap, surrounded by the smell of tobacco and the rustle of Sunday newspaper headlines.

Reading felt natural, magical even.

But not to my teacher.

When she told me to stop reading, it wasn’t just confusing, it made me realise the world didn’t always appreciate what you loved most.

This early brush with unfairness, and the feeling of being out of step with the world, pushed me toward stories.

It gave me something to write about, like loss, loneliness, injustice, and the quiet strength it takes to hold onto who you are when the world doesn’t understand you.

This blog is about those early years of isolation, quiet rebellion, and the people and moments that set me on the path to becoming a writer. Before the mysteries, before the crime novels, before the detective stories, there was just a boy, a newspaper, and a love of words no one quite knew what to do with.

Was I simply a boy who read too early? Or was I a writer in the making, long before I realised?