An inspiring & absorbing story but I think I’m glad I read it second because the style of his earlier writing makes him sound rather too much like one of those solemn & earnest little boys whose only conversational style is information, information, information. (You know exactly why he did not get the library job for which he was interviewed). Endearing, but not always the easiest of company. Quite unlike the poetry of Thinking in Numbers.
Daniel’s background is unusual in other ways too – he is the eldest of 9 children. When family grew to include 6 children (5 of them under 4) father stopped working & both parents concentrated on the business of childrearing.
I deduce that they must have lived on benefits & the larger houses they moved to were all provided by the local council or a housing association. But the family could by no means be described as feckless – the parents loved their children & instinctively did a lot of things right for their difficult little boy. All have, as they say, turned out well.
There is no mention of any social worker involvement – despite Daniel’s problems, including a major epileptic fit when he was very young. Schools (mainstream) also seem, for the most part, to have coped sympathetically with this difficult boy. He achieved good GCSEs & A level, but decided against uni & went instead as a VSO volunteer tutor to Lithuania where he began to learn to cope with independent life.
He used the end-of-service grant from VSO to buy a computer – opening up a whole new world of connection & possibility for someone who finds live interaction difficult.
I find it difficult to get my head round the idea that this child’s life was lived in the age of Thatcher – Daniel was born in January of that momentous year for British politics – 1979. Margaret Thatcher became our first woman prime minister at the beginning of May.
Another story of success ‘against the odds’. Must be many more of which we never hear – what these three have in common is the ability to write (& to find someone to publish them)
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