The Repair Shop’s Jay Blades says his dyslexia is so bad he can’t read the BBC scripts
THE Repair Shop hunk Jay Blade says his dyslexia is so bad he cannot read the BBC show’s scripts.
The star, 50, instead is told who is appearing on the programme and ad-libs in one take.
He said: “I am heavily dyslexic and if they send me a script I can't read it.
“They tell me who is coming on and we do it one take.
“We have formed as a family (work shop staff) and you take the Mickey out of each other so you do what a family does. That is what the production company has done.”
Jay has previously opened up about the condition and being the victim of racism when growing up in Hackney, East London.
Jay was put into a class with other “disruptive” boys, the majority of whom were black.
He said: “There was racism too. I was spat on and beaten up at school.
“I haven’t done bad considering I was deemed thick. Nobody realised I had dyslexia.
“Later in life I realised it was institutional racism. As a black kid you were painted with the same brush: you are dumb, so you don’t want to learn.”
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The restorer says he eventually went to university at the age of 30 when “they found out that I had the reading ability of an 11-year-old”.
He added: “I would say at least 80-90% of us were dyslexic, but none of us were told that we were.
"When I found out at university, the amount of support I got was unbelievable. I was, like, why did no one do this before?”
The Repair Shop airs on BBC One and is available on BBC iPlayer.