When Johnathan Hartley sat down to read Cinderella to his little girl, it seemed like a scene from any family home.
But, for Johnathan, age 35, it was a memory he will cherish forever.
Until a few months ago, Johnathan couldn't read a word.
He left school without GCSEs, with the warning that he would 'never amount to anything' ringing in his ears, and spent years standing by, feeling powerless, unable to read to his own six kids.
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He changed his life with the help of a project in Wythenshawe - the brightest chapter in a lifelong story of disappointment and frustration with the education system.
While Johnathan, who has ADHD and dyslexia, struggled as a child at Woodside Primary School in Wythenshawe, there was one ray of hope.
"I had one teacher who always believed in me," he says.
"She said I was going to struggle through life but she would not give up on me."
But as a secondary pupil at Roundwood in Northenden, which closed in 2006, Jonathan says he fell further behind.
"I would get frustrated, I would get upset, I would sit on the cold steps next to the office and get angry with the teachers because they would make out I did not want to do anything but I wanted to try," he recalls.
"I was sent home for a week at a time for cooling off, came back for one week and they would send me back to my mum again.
"I could not do the work in class, I did not understand it."
Johnathan says a low point was when one teacher told him: "You will never amount to anything."
He says: "My mum was very, very angry about it.
"I wanted to be more but never got the opportunities."
Johnathan was moved to another school, for children with behavioural difficulties, aged 14. But he left without doing GCSEs, told he wasn't up to doing them, and, unable to read or write, was unable to find work.
A lifeline came last year when a member of a parent support group at Baguley Hall school, where two of his children were pupils, suggested Johnathan join the free service Read Easy in Wythenshawe.
He found the courage to contact them and he was set up with a reading coach.
He says: "I did it online and via Zoom meetings.
"My reading coach took me back to the beginning.
"She said I was doing very well and I felt I had never had an achievement before.
"But as I got on I realised I was learning to read more.
"I would push myself until I broke down a word."
It took 12 months for Johnathan to feel confident in his reading - making sitting down to read to his five-year-old daughter Evelyn a huge moment.
"I used to sit there and listen to mum reading to her," Jonathan said.
"She would ask me to read to her and I wanted to do it but I did not have the confidence.
"So, it was a big achievement.
"I read to her in funny voices and she said 'you're so funny daddy!'
"I have kept all the certificates and I even bought some frames for them.
"I have never had anything like that before."
Now Johnathan is hoping he will be able to find fulfilling work.
"It's made me want to do more, my confidence is a bit better and I would like to do some police work," he says.
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