B is for Book

Once upon a time in a little primary school some children set out on an extraordinary journey. Millions of children go on this journey, but then they become grown ups and they forget it ever happened.  Since we were born we’ve looked at these strange squiggles – they’re everywhere – but we can’t understand them. This is the story of how we learned to break the code. It’s a mad, bad tale epic in scale. And we’ll be ready – I mean reading. We’ll discover for ourselves a wonderful, magical universe called books.

B is for Book is a beautiful BBC 4 documentary on how children learn to read. It opens with the above narration of Taijah, a precocious 6 year-old child that describes love as 'when you like someone and don’t know what’s going on.’ She then introduces us to her school, which we're informed encapsulates the whole world, playing host to 47 different languages – and two resident chickens. A later shot shows her in a school council jumper – her natural warmth and smiling articulacy a reminder of what we are missing in our own grown-up government.

Taijah: anthropologist and poet.

Over the programme she introduces us to her friends. There’s Sienna who wants to be a teacher, failing that a butterfly. There’s William who lives with his mum and two-year old brother. There’s Maria, a monolingual English speaker to Portuguese speaking parents. There’s Stephan and Nicholas, twins who are similar in appearance but different in manner. The children all live on the Kingsmead Estate, a notorious backdrop for a 1980’s paedophile killing, and a supposed symbol of urban decay. For all of this, the children are thriving in the neighbouring school, enjoying results way beyond the national average. This is down to the hard work of teachers and the supportive atmosphere at home. The investment in these capital children is bearing fruit, and it’s wonderful to see.

The odyssey into literary consciousness begins at the start of term where the Year One teacher explains the challenges facing young readers: ‘Some of the children come in not knowing the alphabet. Not knowing how to hold a book. Not knowing which way to turn it. They’re on a massive journey.’ Initially in the autumn term the children appear overwhelmed by the squiggles that thwart them at every turn. Sienna would rather play with her portable M&M fan than read a book; Stephan’s fear is so great that he ensconces himself under the table to avoid the lurking book monster – and intimidated Maria plays ventriloquist, waiting for other children to say the letters so she can repeat them back as if they were her own. For a short time, it appears that the children will not crack the code, that words for them will lack definition and form, like an eye drop world of hazy distinguishability.

What do these shapes mean?

Fear not though because these are super-children led by heroic masterminds. They will overcome the villain of Limited Recognition and win the day. In the winter term, these children achieve what King Canute couldn’t, turning the tides in their favour. Through the cape of practise, the children grow into being wonderful, expressive readers. It isn’t long before the code is cracked, broken and defeated forever. They now have the means for their imaginations to soar higher than the whole Marvel universe.

As a teacher, I loved B is for Books as it reminded me about the power of reading. William’s mum uses books to teach her child about why his dad doesn’t live with them anymore, and the twins’ parents use them to explain a grandparent's death. Now the children I teach are older, but books still reveal things about their world that they were previously unaware of. For example in teaching Inspector Calls this year, my class has been introduced to trade unionism, socialism and capitalism. Often books can promote issues that the mainstream media chooses to ignore. Creativity isn’t under the same market pressures as fact, which means books can often be more illuminating on the world than newspapers. In a world of quick-hit Smartphone literacy, books need promoting and preserving. Just because we’ve cracked the code of what the squiggles mean, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t now reflect on what those words mean. The journey of reading shouldn’t end with literacy but continue in hot, nebulous pursuit of enlightenment.

Given I’ve been banging on about books, I should probably talk about one I’ve been reading this week. Provided You Don’t Kiss Me is Duncan Hamilton’s memoir of Brian Clough’s managerial career. Hamilton was a journalist for the Nottingham Evening Post and enjoyed unrivalled access to Clough during his heyday. The reason why Hamilton had the confidence of the manager is typically Cloughie: in their first meeting Clough asks Hamilton about what job his father does; Hamilton replies that he was a miner. Clough, one of nine children born to working-class Middleborough, appreciates his story so allows Hamilton to write his. Over the course of twenty years, Hamilton is there by Clough’s side to witness Nottingham Forest’s ascent from Division 2 to Division 1, and winning back-to-back European Cups. Imagine the Nottingham Forest of today winning the Champions League in three years time – that is what Clough achieved.

Hamilton and his subject.

Clough didn’t achieve this alone though. His assistant Peter Taylor was his right-hand man, and left-brain man. Clough was a man-manager phenomenon: he could look at a player walking down for training and know from their body language whether they needed a kick or a kiss. He was a visionary thinker: he could walk into an underachieving club and see the achievement he would bring. He was creative: he wanted his players and staff to be kept on his toes, so would introduce chaos where others sought structure. On the other hand, Taylor was methodical in tracking players, a scout who lived by the mantra, ‘Be prepared.’ They met as players in Middlesbrough where Taylor argued successfully for the young Clough to be captain. Away from the training ground, Taylor and Clough would talk politics with the former educating the latter. Their story reminded me of The Smith’s Morrissey and Marr where two working-class lads came together to form beautiful music – only this time the music was three points.

Taylor and Clough.

What I loved about the book is how seriously it treats its subject. Football is often dismissed as being something insignificant. But how can it be when it is significant to so many people? How can you dismiss something that occupies the thoughts of billions of people? It can be challenged but it can’t be ignored. Hamilton, an avowed bibliophile, writes about football with a poetry that is often denied this great sport; one choice bit I want to share is his reaction to Peter Taylor’s promise that retaining the European Cup was just the beginning, that the best was still to come:

I can still hear Taylor speaking those words, and the moment makes me think, incongruously, of the final passage of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, of the dream so close that Gatsby could hardly fail to grasp. Like Gatsby, what Taylor didn’t know was that dream was already behind him: the pinnacle of his career had been reached at that very hour.

Taylor and Clough would never relive that dream again. After Taylor published an autobiography without the approval of Clough, the two would fall out, split and irrevocably divorce. The two would never individually achieve the success they enjoyed together. It was a painful divorce that the two would come to regret.

The book that destroyed the story.

Given Clough was the consummate self-publicist, I’ll leave you with one of his quotes that shows his twin gifts: God-like genius and human volatility.

‘I only ever wanted to be manager of England. I’d have made the difference as well, you know. I’d have won the World Cup. Mind you, I’d probably have started a world war in the process…’ 

B is for Book is available on iPlayer.
Provided You Don't Kiss Me won the 2007 Sports Book of The Year.