Four years ago I lost my voice after overworking teaching clients to sing, and it was the most awful experience. I'd read somewhere that the actress Julie Andrews had once lost her voice and underwent grief counselling, which I'd thought was ridiculous at that time. But then it happened to me, and I can't put into words the feeling of loss.
From a young age I was musical and that was nurtured, despite the disruption of attending quite a few schools in Britain in the 1980s.
My first school was the smallest in Warwickshire and it had less than 30 students. Being Church of England, it was next to the local church. Attending a religious school was my parents' choice.
I also remember reading out loud to the class because I was quite advanced for my age. However, I couldn't do my times tables and still can't to this day, despite my father being a maths teacher. In the end dad wasn't happy about the maths teaching, so I was sent to another school. There, we had to design a machine to weigh an elephant. I was only seven, and I think that was brilliant. I designed something akin to a big stable on a spring with food at one end to encourage the elephant in and at the other was a big flap that you could pull up.
I believe these kinds of activities engage children.
I then went to another school a kilometre or so from home. Mr Pickford was the class teacher and he was inspiring. He wrote poetry and would share it with us, and he was also into animal rights.