A Wirral woman thought her “dreams” would never become a reality because of her dyslexia.
Ruth Parry, from New Brighton, released a novel after believing for many years she wouldn’t be capable of doing so because of her learning difficulty. The 57-year-old’s recent literary success was nothing more than a "pipe dream" during her education years at St Albans Primary School.
After an “embarrassing moment” in front of her class, Ruth, who now lives in Wallasey, discovered she had dyslexia and buried her natural flair for storytelling – having been convinced she wasn’t good enough at spelling to pursue a career in writing.
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The author told the ECHO: “While in primary school, we had a task of standing up in front of the class and pronouncing how words sounded phonetically. When it came to my turn, it was like the letters on the chalkboard had swapped around and I just couldn’t grasp it.
“At the time it felt humiliating and when we discovered I had dyslexia it hurt me because all I wanted was to be a best-selling author. It was a dream of mine.
“I’ve got no problem speaking out loud but when I need to read, I need to proofread it multiple times because as soon as I see certain letters I make assumptions on what the word will be and it turns out it isn’t that word.”
Ruth instead went on to become a carer – a career she takes great pride in – and in 2020 won an award for Services to the NHS during Covid. Becoming an author, however, was very much a renaissance for Ruth thanks to modern technology and online tools such as Grammarly.
She said: “Back in the day, if you had something like dyslexia that was that – becoming a writer was discouraged and seen as an impossibility. I’m the youngest of six so storytelling was always a big part of family life and to be told to not even try at it and get a job in a different sector was something else."
“I’ve always been a natural storyteller with a great imagination but I suppressed any thoughts of becoming a writer until I turned 50. I thought I’d just go for it and make something out of my life. I knew I would rather try and fail than not try at all.”
Ruth writes her novels through her iPad, using a talk-to-type app and Grammarly to assist with spelling, while requiring absolute quiet in order to work.
Ruth’s latest murder mystery novel, Thirty Pieces of Silver, aims to not only do great things in the literary world but also inspire others with dyslexia to defy their learning difficulty. The thriller is set in Lowchester in 1949 and is the first of a trilogy which Ruth hopes to release.
Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty which can cause problems with certain abilities used for learning, such as reading and writing. It’s estimated that up to one in every 10 people in the UK has some degree of the lifelong problem.
The NHS states, unlike a learning disability, “intelligence isn’t affected” and this is something Ruth wants to emphasise as she has often been dismissed as being “thick”.
She added: “I’m hoping it will inspire others with dyslexia and show them that it doesn’t have to define you or hold you back. People think if you have dyslexia you’re stupid but you aren’t because you have to work twice as hard and constantly have to prove yourself.”
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