Herbie Williams is the latest of our guest bloggers from Sheffield Hallam University. Here he talks about how the Ideas into Action project helped him work out what reading means to him.

Having been born and bred in Sheffield in council estates far from where most of my primary school friends lived, entertainment in my early school years usually consisted of solo activities. Playing with Lego and Star Wars figures and Lego Star Wars: The Video Game were my favourite hobbies in my free time, but the one thing that kept me quiet for countless hours was reading. From the Mr Men and The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Wide Mouthed Frog and Dirty Bertie to The Diary of a Wimpy Kid franchise and their seemingly endless follow-up books that followed me throughout school (and admittedly much later as I picked up my brother’s copy of the newest addition to the series to keep up-to-date with Greg Heffley, the main character). I even went to school for World Book Day as Greg, an intricate costume consisting of jeans and a white t-shirt. Reading influenced and shaped me in more ways than meets the eye.

I have fond memories of using my torch to secretly read past my bedtime under my duvet and quickly pretending to be asleep after hearing footsteps on the stairs. Even when I was rumbled, my mum often didn’t scold me, usually giving a gentle slap on the wrist. This however was very much not the case when I got caught playing Mario Kart after my bedtime. She had always promoted reading as a healthy hobby for me and took a very active interest in making sure I had a steady supply of reading material. If there was a book from a series that I had enjoyed, my mum would scour the internet and local bookshops to find any sequels, prequels, spinoffs or anything in-between.

I’ve never really got into ‘the classics.’ Looking at the list of authors and books that were considered must-reads and realising I had not heard of most of them was quite daunting. Of all the titles in the reading list, only two of them had I read before. I had sometimes considered whether elitism may creep into reading, with some thinking that my motivations and attitudes towards reading may be looked down upon. Since writing this blog however, I came to the conclusion that this project was to get an accurate representation of what reading meant and means to me. It doesn’t matter whether I read for enjoyment or to gain more knowledge about a certain subject, only the journey that reading takes me on matters. It also gave me some level of comfort knowing that some of the Reading Sheffield interviewees held similar views and experiences regarding ‘classics’. The only one that came to mind that I enjoyed was William Golding’s Lord of the Flies when reading and analysing it at school but I never considered pursuing similar titles.

While to my peers at primary school reading was mainly a mandatory task or chore, to me reading was a favourite pastime. I treated my academic assigned reading as a time trial instead of enjoying the book and comprehending it as much as possible. Starting with Biff, Chip and Kipper and their adventures in The Magic Key by Oxford Reading Tree, the shelves of books at school to work through the various reading levels at school never interested me as I was a very picky reader. However, the reward for completing the reading levels was becoming a ‘free reader’. This meant I could read books of my own choosing from my own collection and claim it as my weekly reading homework. Even when I wasn’t reading, I was building up my vocabulary: one of my favourite games was finding new words on my pocket electronic thesaurus at school.

My family were another factor that influenced my reading journey – my grandparents. I went to my granny and grandad’s house at least once a week and indulged in cheese on toast and a very enthusiastic reading of The Tiger Who Came to Tea. A trip to the library where my granny volunteered to collect a new book or two to put me on for a few days was also commonplace.

Although as I entered sixth form and higher education my passion for reading was nowhere near what it once was. During the various lockdowns of 2020/21, I picked up my old Kindle out of boredom and flicked through some of my teenage years favourites: The Knife of Never Letting Go, the Gone series and my all-time favourite book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. It at least reminded me of my love for reading. Today, as other hobbies and commitments have taken priority over reading, I still bring a book with me on public transport or read for an hour or so before going to sleep.

Here is Herbie’s review of Nevil Shute’s novel, On the Beach.