…many of yeez of a certain age will recall the basic schooling process of the three ‘R’s… Reading, (W)’Riting and (A)’Rithmetic… happily, this ol’ Scots Jurassic has always enjoyed WURDS and NUMBERS… I firmly believe that’s down to the intrigue of connectivity I found between ‘communication’ and ‘understanding’ – two quite different elements in ‘comprehension’… in primary school classes, ‘times tables’, thrust upon we infants from the age of ‘why-and a- half?’, built up an instant awareness of how numbers related to each other… the modern way of teaching children multiplication and division leaves me flabbergasted… the old adage of ‘K.I.S.S’,- ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid’, seems to have been thrown into the academic garbage can… I recall from an early age having a dictionary as a constant companion, much thumbed through – always at hand when reading books…

…stories became much more vivid and alive when I…