Reading

"Still swotty after all these years?" asks Radio 4's Polly.

It all began with my first reading books - Jane and John (or was it Jack and Jill?). No, it was definitely "See Jane run." I learned to read because my brother Nigel, a year and a half older than me, was learning too, and I didn't want to get left behind. My mother taught us both, and by the time I went to primary school, I could read already.

Jane and John gave way to Enid Blyton's Noddy, and then the Magic Faraway Tree and Famous Five. The Famous Five were a group of juvenile detectives solving crimes while on holiday. They always seemed to be eating: the maid had packed them hampers full of goodies to take with them on their adventures.

We were allowed to subscribe to one comic a week. Nigel, I seem to remember, got the boys' comics Beano and Victor, while I got the swottier Treasure and Look and Learn.

Our younger sister Elizabeth soon overtook us in reading - she ploughed insatiably through Black Beauty (inevitably, about a horse), and the What Katy Did series, progressing to Jane Austen and Antonia Fraser. Much to us boys' shame - but not enough to lever us away from the Beano and onto more cerebral fare.

By the time I reached secondary school, the only novel I had read was Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings. But I had read it six times.

Correction: My mother says I progressed straight from Noddy to the Daily Telegraph. No wonder I had suppressed that particular memory.

Correction: Elizabeth, who is younger than me so has a fresher memory, says "it was Janet and John, featuring Nip the dog. Jane was just a bit player. Run, Nip, run!"