A BAFTA award winner who forged a career as a successful comedy writer, despite being dyslexic, paid a visit to the school which drove him to success.

James Lamont, 30, dropped in at the Avon House Dyslexia Centre in High Road, Woodford Green to help mark the start of Dyslexia Awareness Week.

Mr Lamont, of Little Pluckett’s Way in Buckhurst Hill, showed children the BAFTA which he won for co-writing the animated children’s comedy 'The Amazing World of Gumball' in 2011.

He said: “I hope that by seeing the BAFTA and hearing what I was able to achieve I can help inspire some of the kids at the centre and encourage them to do what they want with their lives.

“The centre at Avon House is a fantastic place. Without the support which they gave me I don’t think I could have achieved what I have.”

Mr Lamont, who also co-wrote the hit ‘Armstrong and Miller Show’ and Channel 4’s '10 O’clock Live', is currently working on projects for Disney and a new sitcom for Channel 4.

Both he and his elder brother are dyslexic, and he says he would never have got his start without the help he received at Avon House as a child.

“They gave me a view that dyslexia was a positive thing and not something that would hold me back in life,” he said.

“I was lucky that I was at school in the mid 1980s when understanding of dyslexia was beginning to increase.

“It was starting to be seen as something that could be handled, instead of just saying ‘Oh that kid is stupid.’

The centre recently celebrated its 30th anniversary, and head teacher Fay Cookson, was delighted to welcome one of her former pupils back.

She said: “A lot of dyslexic children have the capabilities to be writers but they don’t always have the tools to let that side of themselves out.

“It can be frustrating to not be able to get your ideas onto paper, but we provide them with the skills they need to put that creativity into action.

"James is proof of just how much dyslexic children can achieve”

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