‘Reading group helped me brave the outdoors’

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Ian Kirby was attacked by an intruder in his home in October 2019, which left him feeling unable to leave his house. He and his mother then shielded together during the Covid-19 pandemic until her death in September 2020.

He eventually braved leaving his Ryton home in August 2021 to join others in Chopwell Woods for Gateshead Libraries' Reading Ramblers group, where he discovered Carrying David, the autobiography of boxer Glenn McCrory.

"I read the whole of the book without stopping and it touched me deeply, the book changed my life," Kirby said.

Kirby picked McCrory's memoir, which is centred around the life of his disabled brother, at his first Reading Ramblers' session after the boxer dedicated the book to his brother, describing him as "the wind beneath my wings".

"That's how my mother used to refer to me," Ian said.

He took early retirement to care for her in August 2016.

The attack in his home and his mother's death in 2020 left him in a "very dark place", he said.

Kirby was still experiencing severe anxiety when he built up the courage to join Reading Ramblers, where members listen to audiobooks or share stories during a guided walk around woods with a ranger from Forestry England.

"Even on the day, I had hundreds of reasons I wasn't going to go," he said.

"It was the most scared I'd been for a long time, but I didn't want to let anyone down."

Three years on and Kirby has joined another book club and started volunteering in a care home.

He said walking through the woods with other readers gave him a "new lease of life".

On Wednesday, he will appear alongside Queen Camilla on BBC Two's The Book That Changed My Life, which sees her explore the power of reading.

"It was lovely," Kirby said of meeting the Queen.

"The Queen's reading room has been doing some research into how reading can boost health, and I'm a prime example of that.

"Doing what I do now, it definitely reduces my anxiety, so to know that it has the Queen's blessing means a lot."

Kirby hopes his appearance on the programme will show others there is hope in their darkest times.

"That particular book really did change my life and over the past few years books have become my friends," he said.

"They're something you can go back and relate to.

"We can take inspiration from them and we can learn from them."

Karen Leggott, of Gateshead Libraries' Reading for Wellbeing team, said she was proud of Kirby and described his story as "incredibly powerful".

"The right book at the right time for the right person can be massively influential," she said.

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