Thinking back to my own upbringing I feel sure that the problem lies elsewhere. All too often I watch my adult friends back away from a simple arithmetical calculation with the words "I never could do maths".

This is not an excuse they would dream of making publicly with regard to reading.

Perhaps, just as we try so hard to instil a love of great writers in successive generations, we should be looking for more stories like that of Ramanujan, to inspire all our young people with a lasting love for the beauty of numbers.