“Reading Force has very much helped my children get through this very long deployment”

We need to talk about Mr Stink!

Nicky has been a military wife for 17 years and has three daughters aged 3, 5 and 7. Her husband, Dan, is in the Royal Navy and is deployed for long stretches of time. He has been away from home for most of the last two years, on HMS Portland. When their oldest daughter, Olivia, used to speak with her Dad on the phone she would get upset and angry, and so she refused to speak to him at all.

Just before his last deployment, Nicky was given a deployment pack with a Reading Force scrapbook in it, and feeling strongly that it wasn’t ok for Olivia and her Dad to not communicate, she thought she’d give Reading Force a try and see if it helped Olivia to speak with her Daddy.

It worked! Olivia and Dan both read David Walliams’ Mr Stink and then they talked about it on the phone. Reading the same book and talking about it, enabled Olivia and her Dad to talk freely, and broke the pattern of difficult phone calls.

“Reading Force has very much helped my children get through this very long deployment, so thank you very much.”

Nicky has gone on to set up the HMS Heroes group in her children’s school and will be giving them Reading Force scrapbooks so they can take part with their own families.

You can also watch the Broome family’s Reading Force story on BBC Spotlight South West.

Location: Plymouth, Devon   Service: Royal Navy