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WordPress asks me today, “Who was your most influential teacher and why?”

That would be my English language teacher when I went to sixth form college. Influential because she was the first teacher who attempted to convince me that I wasn’t a dunce and actually had some potential.

I suppose she was the teacher who helped initiate my lifelong relationship with the written word. For sure, at the time I had little actual talent, but I had a sense of humour she seemed keen to nurture. I was penning whimsical comedies when she first encountered me.

Up until that point, I had been through nearly a decade at private school, to which I was poorly suited. Nearly all of my teachers throughout that period convinced me that I was both inexcusablly lazy and an idiot. And, to be honest, I believed them.

When I moved to college, though, that narrative was completely turned on its head. All of a sudden my teachers were praising me. That change of attitude had a positive impact on me. So much so that in my first year, I sat an AS-level exam and got an A.

I might have followed suit in my second year with similar results had my state of mind not taken a turn for the worse. Distressed by social relationships falling apart all around me, I didn’t apply for university then, thinking myself destined to flunk all of my remaining courses.

In the end, I did achieve a B in English, but the rest of my subjects were mediocre Cs. Still, the combined points were sufficient to get me into a decent university when I finally got around to applying, so all was not lost.

Sometimes I wonder how my life might have panned out had I not left school to go to college. Might I have achieved greater things? Might I have been happier? Well, these are all unknowns. All I can really say is that I am immensely grateful to that teacher for encouraging me back then.

I wasn’t actually a good writer then. If anything, my writing was quite atrocious. Nevertheless, she planted a seed of an idea in my mind: that I could be a writer if I put my mind to it. What followed is plain for all to see.