Joseph Mawle

I found school quite tough, but Saturday night was movie night, and I started to empathise with the characters on screen. I started to get more involved with what these people were experiencing. Film inspired me to do better.

I grew up in a farming family. I hated cleaning out the chickens but loved hatching them and feeding the new born sheep. The smell of hot milk still has a special resonance for me. Harvest was back-breaking work, though... Where do you think Jesus got his biceps from?

I didn't do plays at school, because I didn't have the confidence. At 14, I was at boarding school in Devon and I suffered from dyslexia quite badly, but they had a very good department there which specialised in it.

I had an instinctive feeling that the people who have little or no school training should have something coming into their homes weekly which dealt with their problems in a simple, helpful way... so I wrote in a plain, common-sense way on the things that concerned our people.