LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
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STAR LETTER
Toilet roll tales
I started writing at the age of six when I became the family’s toilet paper organiser. There was none to be had at all during WW2 and newspapers were the only alternative.
Several times a week I would cut squares out of the Sunday People and Daily Express – while carefully avoiding the Rupert Bear section, because I pasted each day’s episode into a scrap book. Then I threaded string through holes in the corners and hung them on a hook in the outdoor toilet.
Children weren’t allowed to read the papers except when parents wanted to show off their reading ability to visitors. However, my involvement in loo paper gave me the chance to head for the back yard and read the disjointed narratives, for which I would imagine beginnings, ends and either sides.
This really sharpened my imagination and I began to churn out tales to such an extent that my teacher was inspired to appoint me school storyteller for which my duties involved entertaining the children when a teacher was summoned by the headmistress.