Making It: How Love, Kindness and Community Helped Me Repair My Life

Product Information

With thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan Bluebird for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review. But it just seemed to me that maybe color had more of an impact on his dating preference, and are we really looking at everyone equally when it comes to love. His upbringing, the lack of a fatherly figure in his life, his romantic choices, and his decisions to deal with bullies and institutionalized racism set the bar to create possibilities for a crime life. He has had a roller coaster of a life, and luckily, when he needed it, there was caring people that helped him out along the way. His youngest, a daughter, is from his first marriage and he has two sons from previous relationships.

Jay Blades announces his new book Life Lessons - Prima Jay Blades announces his new book Life Lessons - Prima

But he was only diagnosed – after much prompting to make an appointment by his now ex-wife – at the age of 31. His path to personal and professional success has been fraught and winding - he ultimately fell into restoration through his activism to educate and empower marginalized youth. I admire him, on how he turned his life around, and how he helped young people to improve their lives. Jay is an inspirational motivator and was the former co-founder of award-winning social enterprises Out of The Dark and Street Dreams.

The more the reader reads, the more they comprehend what it means to be a warm, intelligent, black man simply trying to do his best. Has Jay has shared his story from start to finish, I have gotten to know why I like him and the show so much. The book also shows me how, despite being bought up by a single parent, my white privilege offered inbuilt advantages and multiple chances. My heart went out to the author, particularly because of his dyslexia, and his work with the disadvantaged and displaced made me respect him completely. Our police problems came from the fact that we were from the housing estate, second class citizens and we'd get a go along rather than being charged, must have saved them doing extra office work.

Books — Jay Blades

He dedicated large portions of his adult life to helping poor, troubled young people get out of their difficulties and helping communities and police departments get along much better. His life was full of challenges, and from an early age, he learned what a being person of colour truly means in a world created to give advantage and favour white people. THE BAD: Painful to read about vents that happen decades ago when racism run rampant in many levels of the UK's society. It ranges through an estate-bound but happy childhood and his initial run-in with racism when he enters secondary schooling, on to a troubled and violent adolescence that acts as a prelude to a most remarkable emotional rollercoaster of a life. There are passages in Making It that are violent, brutal and very frequently accompanied by surprising expletives that, far from alienating the reader, draw them in and have the effect of making them love, admire and respect Jay Blades all the more.

In one book, Jay shows the very best and the very worst of society - the amazing impact Gerald and his family have had on Jay, through to his absent father and the horrific racism and prejudices that have sadly followed him throughout his life. Most married folk go through rough patches but having kids help you realise what family bonding is all about you don't runaway because you feel trapped. So many people in similar circumstances would have given up and not even tried to make anything of their lives, but fortunately for Jay (and for us! Blades grew up on a Hackney estate in the 70s – not a great place to be then, he says – and went unsupported at school, leaving without any qualifications.

Jay Blades books and biography | Waterstones

She ran her hands over them and understood immediately what teachers had been trying to tell her for 40 years. Her brain resisted all attempts to unlock the mystery for her, until the teacher realised the student was a kinaesthetic learner and had wooden letters made for her. Making It is an inspirational memoir about beating the odds and turning things around even when it all seems hopeless.Nothing makes it clearer that the difference between literacy and illiteracy is not one of intelligence or ability – it is only education, and Blades’s childhood illustrates the contingency of that.

Jay Blades: Learning to Read at 51 review - The Guardian Jay Blades: Learning to Read at 51 review - The Guardian

Blades left school with no qualifications and nothing to his name than a reputation as a great fighter. Blades was born in Brent, North London [7] and raised in Hackney, East London with his mother and maternal half-brother. I love Jay have watched him since I first saw him on Money for Nothing, there is something very warm, honest and open about him and his presenting style. He grew up in Hackney, which in his childhood was a working class area of Inner London, and now lives in Ironbridge in Shropshire.It was interesting to me that he describes the racial makeup of each of the women he was romantic with. We follow him through six months of online lessons with Emma, a volunteer trained in the phonics method. Originally from Hackney in East London, Jay Blades left school aged fifteen with no qualifications: his severe dyslexia was not diagnosed until he was an adult.