Maths, Fourth Time Round

I failed GCSE maths at 16, again at 17, and again at 29 when I needed it for a job I didn't end up getting. After the third time I gave up and started saying "I'm just not a numbers person" in a jokey voice, as if I'd chosen it.

At 41 I was helping my daughter with her fractions, and she looked up and said, very kindly, "Mum, it's okay, I'll ask Miss." I went upstairs and had a little cry in the airing cupboard. Then I signed up for an evening class.

The room was full of people like me, all making the same joke. There was a roofer who could do any angle in his head but froze the moment you wrote it down. There was a grandad doing it because he'd promised someone. None of us wanted the others to see our marks, for about a fortnight.

I got a grade 4 the following summer. That's a pass, and only just. I've still got the slip, and I may have laminated it.

My daughter did better than me in hers, of course. She told me so at some length. I've never been so happy to lose at anything.

Sample story, written by the Bloody Loser team to show the kind of thing we love to read. Share your own.