For the past nine months, Nigel Griffen has spent an hour each Tuesday working with Year 6 pupils at Courtlands special school, Plymouth.
He sits with the youngsters one at a time, prompting them as they read to him. He said that many had come on in “leaps and bounds”, and that he was astonished by their enthusiasm for his visits.
As the author of a children’s adventure story, Central Sphere, he especially values reading, but he believes that volunteers of all kinds would benefit from working in schools.