A SALISBURY man is looking forward to reading Dr Who novels after completing a literacy course with a charity.

Jamie Bowden, who is now the fifth South and East Wiltshire Read Easy graduate, could previously read short words but always struggled with longer ones.

He attended Exeter House special school before leaving for the then-called Salisbury College to study maths and English, but still found he struggled with more complex words.

Jamie volunteered as a porter at Salisbury District Hospital after leaving college before taking up a job as a cleaner at Waitrose.

This was around the same time that he was introduced to his learning coach at Read Easy, Nick Brewer.

“I was unemployed at the time and found out about Read Easy from the Job Centre,” said Jamie.

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Nick said: “We started in April last year and went through the first two manuals very quickly, but things started to get a little more difficult on manual three when we started moving onto three or four syllable words.”

The fifth and last manual, understandably, took three or four months, in part because of the level of difficulty but also because Nick started introducing external resources like the Salisbury Journal.

Jeremy, who dropped in on sessions from time to time, noticed an increase in Jamie’s confidence.

Being able to read better has helped him at work because he is able to read documents like time sheets – but he is also really looking forward to reading Dr Who books.

“I’ve seen the TV programmes but never read the books,” Jamie said.

And he will be able to buy his first with the book token he received from Read Easy, along with a certificate.

Read Easy provides free one-to-one tuition for people who cannot read. Anyone who knows someone who cannot read or would like to volunteer, call 07942 382318 or email sewrecruiter@readeasy.org.uk