Learning is a lifelong joy

‘I love learning about things’ (Amelia, aged nine). Not all children do, but many who have not experienced the pleasure of learning early come to see the point of it in later life. Like most writers, I loved books from childhood, and learned favourite pages simply by re-reading. When Thomas Hardy came along for A-level, I was so passionate about his novels that I learned whole pages by heart. But like Amelia, I also loved learning about things – places, cultures, weather, insects, trees, how coal was mined and steel made and glass blown. Ladybird Books were a great source of interest and information, and still are, though when I glanced into The Ladybird Book of the Computer I realised it is now historical and of no practical use.

As life trundles on, through work and parenthood and social responsibilities, we still learn as we go, though we mostly acquire skills which are essential, but not enriching or character-forming in quite the same way as history and literature, biblical studies and classical languages. The mind works tirelessly, whether we are paying attention or not – if it didn’t we would not survive for long. But apart from rote stuff, like times tables, spelling and historical dates, I think we mainly learn by a process of osmosis, absorbing information as we grow up and coming to understand how life works by experience. We learn by our mistakes, too, of course – indeed, I often think that is the only way we do learn everything apart from straightforward facts.

It was not until my sixties that I began to feel a sort of hollow where learning had been, just at the time when my children had left home (if only in the physical sense).