The Hardest Test by Scott Quinnell Page A

position where I had to write on a blackboard during team talks and training sessions. I was fortunate that the other members of the coaching team, Sean Gale, Kevin Williams and Neil Boobyer, were aware of my problems and stepped in for me.
    But as amazing as they were, I guess they were also helping me to hide from my problems.
    Rugby had been my ultimate coping strategy, helping me hide from the reality of my learning difficulties. I’d had the humiliation of fans throwing autographs back in my face when I’d spelt names wrongly. But on the whole, I’d coped pretty well. I’d forged a career for myself despite my problem.
    Now, out of the game, the reality of my learning disabilities came to the fore. I’d relied so much on others, especially Nicola, to deal with the everyday bits and pieces – paper work, filling out forms etc. Right from week one of our relationship I was asking her to do things like write cheques for me.
    I was now pretty much a full-time family man, with all the responsibilities that brings. I was faced with the prospect of making a life for myself and my children outside of rugby. This would involve being invited to make speeches at dinners and presentations, working as a rugby pundit – how many sleepless nights would they bring!? The business world ran on the internet and e-mail – I couldn’t even write notes for school for the kids. Nicola deserved a break, too.
    Worst of all, we both had to face up to the reality that the kids had begun to show signs of learning difficulties.
    The idea that I might be dyslexic had first come about completely by luck. It was back when I was about twenty-one and Nicola, who was an excellent typist, had offered to copy up a handwritten thesis on learning difficulties which her friend had written.
    I remember her calling me into the room as she worked. She began to reel off a list of dyslexia symptoms and, to our amazement, I ticked every box. It was all there. The answer (if not the cure) to what had caused me years suffering at school was contained on this one sheet of A4 paper.
    Had we acted on it then, who knows how my life would have turned out? But I was so focused on my rugby career at the time I didn’t give it much thought. I think deep down, too, there was that fear of being labelled. All the clues were there, but I never allowed myself to be tested for dyslexia officially.
    I had now begun working regularly for Sky television as a rugby pundit. In the TV studio before a match I got talking to fellow pundit and ex-Scotland international Kenny Logan. Someone had brought in a piece of paper and Kenny asked me if I’d read it. “You’re kidding,” I said, “I’m dyslexic.”
    Kenny couldn’t believe it, and began telling me about the problems he’d had with learning difficulties. We realised we had quite a lot in common. He told me of this treatment he’d just gone through called the Dore Programme. His wife Gabby Logan had seen a programme about it on TV and they’d signed up. It sounded bizarre. It involved beanbags and wobble boards, pretty unorthodox stuff. But Kenny sang its praises. I decided there and then to pursue it. Perhaps it was too late for me, but hopefully the kids would benefit. I didn’t want them to go through what I’d gone through at school. I wanted them to have the opportunities to learn and enjoy that I never had. Kenny passed the number of Wynford Dore, the programme’s founder, on to me and I rang him the first chance I got.
    I explained to him that I wanted to put the kids through the programme and I told him about my experience of dyslexia. Wynford suggested that it made sense for me to go through the programme, too. I agreed. If I wanted the kids to progress, the least I could do was show willing and go through it with them. It was time I faced my demons.
    In January 2006, we all went to the Dore Centre in Cardiff to be tested to see if the