Jay Blades details emotional moment with daughter that pushed him to learn how to read
express.co.ukJay Blades, star of The Repair Shop, was left illiterate after a traumatising youth involving poverty, rat-infested council flats and subsequent homelessness.
However, despite a careers adviser telling him he would "never amount to anything", Jay succeeded on TV - and then a poignant moment of wanting to get close to his daughter inspired him to turn the tables on his past and learn reading."I’d decided that I wanted to read my daughter a bedtime story," he explained to Zoe Ball on her BBC Radio 2 breakfast show earlier this year."What better way to do it than document that journey that I’m taking?"Consequently he decided to star in a BBC show, Jay Blades: Learning to Read at 51.He admitted that at first it was "unbelievably difficult" and that he'd had to start from the beginning, learning phonics.Jay had set himself the challenge of being able to read a story to his daughter Zola before her 16th birthday - and there was love and pride in his eyes when he finally managed to do it.He spent months learning via Zoom chats with a charity called Read Easy before eventually taking the plunge."Today’s the day, I finally feel ready to read my daughter a bedtime story," he announced to the world.He then connected to a Zoom chat with Zola, who currently lives in Turkey, and read to her from the children's book Olivia.Smiling and clapping, Zola exclaimed: "Well done, that was so good.
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