I recently came across these gems among my sixth-form reports:

“I should like to see a minimum of 15 hours study per week at home to begin with; then a greater commitment to the detail of his subjects and less reliance on his natural flair. If he exerts himself next year, the reward could be some very good grades.”

“Lloyd has clearly not put enough work in for this element of his course. He must accept that, at this level, innate ability is simply not enough to secure a satisfactory grade in the public examinations.”

“There has been some progress in Latin, but what of the rest? I cannot believe that a boy of his ability and potential is going to let himself down. We recommend at least 15 hours per week of study at home. Is he doing even this minimum?”

This is all forty years ago, but it still hangs in my psyche. I still think that, no matter what I might have achieved, the only truly valuable things are those that are the result of great exertion, that my “natural flair” and “innate ability” are never enough.

And yet, for most of that time, I’ve continued to find that exertion harder to exercise than most, while my flair and ability have gained me attention and love, I’ve seen less of whatever today’s equivalent is of “a satisfactory grade in the public examinations”

Maybe it will always be this way, that I’ll never be satisfied with my own efforts. But my diagnosis with ADHD nearly four years ago also sheds some light on “How do you solve a problem like Lloyd?” By the time I showed up for the Sixth Form, I’d lost a driving interest in my subjects. I got cornered into three language A-levels when my stubbornness came head to head with the titanium-plated wall of the school timetable, so the only variety in my attention was the fairly tame difference between translating Catullus or Camus or Kafka.

Plus, I had the exhaustion of executive function that characterises my experience of ADHD. Relief came from the variety between school and not-school – and “not-school” was a no-contest between home (TV, food, bed) and everything else that catches the fancy of an eighteen year old “boy”. There simply weren’t another fifteen hours.