The respect and appreciation have been a long time in coming, considering that as a schoolboy growing up in 1960’s Birmingham, England, he was ridiculed by teachers and peers alike for not being able to read. No one talked about dyslexia in those days, and so young Willard’s learning problems went undiagnosed, and his teachers told him that he was stupid and would never amount to anything. They paraded him in front of the classroom, and when he could not do the work, one of his teachers pointed to him and explained to the class that, “Willard is an example of failure.”