I was attacked by a dog when I was a toddler, and my injuries were so bad, I spent quite a bit of my childhood in and out of hospital. Books were absolutely my salvation during those years.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
As a kid, books were my great escape and my salvation.
It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.
Books were this wonderful escape for me because I could open a book and disappear into it, and that was the only way out of that house when I was a kid.
Throughout my career as a lawyer, teacher and labor leader, books have remained my constant companion - stuffed into a briefcase, overflowing on my bedside table, stacked on my desk at work. Books have carried me to distant worlds, opened new doors and made me feel empathy, compassion, anger, fear, joy, acceptance - and everything in between.
Books were my window on the world. Growing up at the Elephant and Castle, which was very rough, my paradise was the library.
My childhood gave me resilience - and there's little that can surprise me in life.
The only book in our home was the Bible. My parents forbade books. They thought I needed help because I wanted to be a writer!
Inside that book, it's my life-all the places where I'm hurting or I laughed or I cried or I prayed. And I've had to pray a lot!
I've had injuries in my life from things beyond my control: runaway horses, helicopters that decide to crash on mountaintops, boating accidents - things that were out of my hands.
Mine was quite a working-class childhood with very little money, and my father was out of work a couple of times, which had quite a traumatic effect.
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