My earliest reading memory
I was eight or so before I was finally able to read. Then I was away. I usually went up to Eason’s in Dún Laoghaire on a Saturday with my pocket money and bought a Puffin book. One was a story about a boy living in London in a cul-de-sac, and there was a poignant subplot about a mother who had been a ballerina. I don’t know who wrote it or what it was called but I would love to be told.
My favourite book growing up
As a little boy I went with my father to see David Lean’s Oliver Twist at the cinema, and I thought it was something real happening in front of me. When Oliver is brought in to see Fagin at the end, and Fagin thinks Oliver can free him – well, I am still not over it. Then, much later, when I was off sick from school in Dublin, I read the actual novel, mesmerised, traumatised.
