all very interesting, though! I first became interested when my mother, having more time to herself now that all four of us were at school all day, decided to educate herself more. She went to the Library and asked the Librarians where she should start. They recommended reading about Tutankhamen's tomb and I, being a reader of anything with words on, read it too! Also, my mother was enthusiastic about what she was reading.
I blame my primary school teacher.
As ten year olds, our class was deemed able to choose personal projects to pursue.
Given the date - 1970 - I chose space flight. My teacher - still a close personal friend - suggested I choose something different....so I chose Egypt, because that hellish film, "The Egyptians", a Hollywood sword-and-sandal hokum, had just been on the telly.
The rest was, as they say, history.
I was hooked...and by the time I was in first year secondary school, I'd taught myself rudimentary hieroglyphs.
At that time, I could use a bog standard magnifying glass - though nowadays my sight's a lot worse, and I use a Humanware explore 5 handheld electronic job for outdoors, and a prodigy desktop electronic magnifier for indoor reading.
