It is a scandal that more than half of our country’s children do not read in their spare time - Sarah Todd

It goes without saying that they have been on a steep downward spiral since coronavirus; when online screens formally became the official educator and babysitter of the next generation.

This report coincided with sorting through some old books that had belonged to my late grandmother. She died aged 100 and this was one of several attempts over the past couple of years to thin out the tomes that had meant so much to her. There were books presented by her village school, Sunday School and on milestones (most with an inscription in the front giving the date and occasion) during her long lifetime. None of them can be parted with; especially not the encyclopaedia (gifted upon leaving school) that she used throughout her long life to look things up. Places in the world that family and friends visited and items mentioned on the news that she wanted to learn more about.

It goes without saying that it’s children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds that have the lowest reading levels. It’s a national disgrace that among those pupils who receive free school meals a massive 60 per cent say they do not enjoy reading in their free time.

Why not? Every charity shop the length and breadth of the country has beautiful children’s books for as little as 50 pence or £1. This is going to go down like a lead balloon, but parents (and grandparents) seem to be able to find money for tattoos, scratch cards, piercings, smoking, vaping, mobile phones and television streaming packages.

They should hang their heads in shame if, whatever their circumstances, they can’t find far less than the cost of a packet of fags for a few books.

Having a world of adventure and possibilities opened up to them through reading should be every child’s basic human right. Children need the escapism of books that transport them into another world of hope. If they don’t get it through books in early childhood they will surely become statistics; solitarily slouching teenagers gobbling up goodness-knows-what rubbish via the internet.

Our nanny state has created a world where everything is always somebody else’s responsibility. While this writer has no natural affinity whatsoever with teachers, it shouldn’t be entirely their responsibility to get children reading.

Apparently, an ever-increasing number of youngsters are arriving on their first day at school not toilet trained and unable to hold a knife and fork properly. Suppose the thinking is that somebody at the school will sort them out. If we don’t, somebody else will.

The Son took some getting into reading for himself, rather than simply listening to books being read to him. He was taken to the library, so it wasn’t through lack of trying. As an aside, the threshold of our local library hadn’t been stepped over for years, but the other day it was ventured into for some photocopying.

What a sorry state of affairs. The staff looked fed up on their reduced hours and the shelves had dog-eared books still recognised from all those years ago when our offspring were young. The once vibrant and enticing children’s corner was a shadow of its former self.

Anyway, back to the point. However many books were pushed under his nose, nothing ever quite captured the then little lad’s imagination. In the end, it was good old Dennis the Menace that turned him into a reader.

It spoiled the flow of the antics of Dennis and his Bash Street chums when he had to wait for somebody else to read the speech bubbles. A deal was struck that when he could read a whole comic by himself a subscription to the Beano would be bought.

Within a cat’s whisker the comic was arriving weekly through the post and they all ended up in the best ever form of recycling; being read by others. For years and years they went to the doctor’s surgery and then, when a friend’s daughter was having cancer treatment, they were sent along to the children’s hospital.

Blessed coronavirus has killed all that. Now doctor’s waiting rooms are barren without books; full of children being told to keep quiet and play a game on a mobile phone. If that’s progress you can keep it.