Jay Blades: Learning To Read At 51

BBC1, 9pm

He’s one of the best-loved TV personalities of recent years. But what the public won’t have known until now is that The Repair Shop star Jay Blades (right) has been struggling with reading all his life.

Aged 51, he has the literacy ability of a child 40 years younger, but somehow he has managed to succeed in spite of the obstacles that might have got in the way of a less determined person.

Now he’s set himself a new goal: being able to read a story to his teenage daughter Zola before she turns 16, and he’s only got a few months to catch up on all the learning that he missed out on at school first time around.

As we see Blades going through lessons in this powerful and inspirational documentary, we also discover how similar literacy problems afflict millions of other adults in this country. )))))