My Dyslexia Story: Nick Jaye AKA Bald Chef Nick

This is my story

I can't remember getting diagnosed formerly or in detail but I did go to see various people when I was younger and at some point my Mum said that id been diagnosed as dyslexic but I don't have or own anything in writing.

I can't remember getting diagnosed formerly or in detail but I did go to see various people when I was younger and at some point my Mum said that I'd been diagnosed as dyslexic but I don't have or own anything in writing.

In the early years, I was defeated by the challenges of basic communication in school, reading, writing, punctuation, telling the time, and spelling and I was unable to show people that I was not stupid.

However, as I got older, I began to adapt and find my own ways of managing. While I didn’t achieve formal qualifications, I had many other strengths—I just wasn’t given the opportunity to show them.

In my adult life, I was able to thrive without being noticed or seen as dyslexic and I have realised, like many others, that I hid my dyslexia; instead, I used it to solve problems in the property world using my designing, planning and practical skills.

When things started to change

I could always cook and I did with family. I would do recipes that were not too word-filled, but I learnt practically mainly.

Although my parents tried to get me to read they just placed books in front of me and thought somehow, I’d be able to read, which still amuses me this day!

I was a painfully shy boy until I was 12 and realised I wanted more friends.

So I made myself more sociable and talked and laughed a lot. I loved to cook, I wanted to be a chef, but I was not confident and had been told over and over and over again that I could not do anything without good exam results..

The dream...

I fell into my first job as an office boy in an estate agency. Almost 40 years later, after raising a family and providing all I could, I had the opportunity to study to become a chef.

I was in fact a kickboxing and kung fu instructor years ago. I thought that the incompleteness in my life may change when I got my black sash but of course it did not - nothing changed.

Being a chef and studying to get a qualification was very good for me but there was still something missing…the answer came...

It was being a dyslexic chef
Being a dyslexic author
Being a dyslexic Dad,
Being a dyslexic husband
A dyslexic friend

It had taken sixty years of battles with myself, but now at last I was proud to be Dyslexic, proud to let people know and now I want to tell the world.

If I can change the path of one shy, dyslexic individual, who may not think they are special, then it will change both our lives.

Being proud to be dyslexic completes me; it is, after all, who and what I am.

I am proud to be dyslexic, I am so happy to be complete at last, I regret nothing.

My advice to others

I recently spoke with a client whose son was diagnosed and I said to her please let him know his dyslexia is a gift and if he looks for it, he will find that gift and make the world a better place. Be proud of it.

Dyslexia is not just a complex word for being stupid

Do not judge a dyslexic difference because it frustrates you, but be patient and welcome it, as soon as you recognise it, then we can learn to celebrate it.