When BBC TV and radio researchers came looking for a union perspective on the saving of Quick Reads, Usdaw ULR coordinator Sean Dixon offered himself to talk about the impact of the publishing initiative.

Sean’s track record in using Quick Reads at the Castleford Learning Centre made him an ideal candidate to explain why unions and unionlearn had joined the chorus of approval when best-selling author Jojo Moyes announced she would fund the programme for three years earlier this year.

For the past three years, Sean has been using Quick Reads to run Reading Ahead book clubs for each of the six different operational teams at the Argos Castleford Distribution Centre (DC) in Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

To help participants read and review six books, poems, magazines or websites, they each get three of the latest Quick Reads and then choose the remaining three titles themselves.

Sean said:

The logistics mean that participants don't know which Quick Reads they will get, but that means they often read books in genres or by authors they wouldn’t pick if left to their own devices.”

I don't know what they're going to end up reading and they don't know what they're going to end up reading.”

A couple of years ago, a few of the groups read A Baby at the Beach Café by Lucy Diamond and they said, ‘This never would have been a book I picked up but I really enjoyed reading it,’ and this year, I didn’t think I’d like Fern Britton’s Quick Read but it was a really good story when you go into it!”

After being driven from his home to the BBC studios in Leeds at 6 o’clock one morning in May, Sean first spoke about the value of Quick Reads to workplace learning on Radio 4’s flagship news programme Today; this also featured an interview with Jojo herself about her support.

Sean said:

They wanted to know how we used them so I talked about the book clubs and how we really see the benefit of using the Quick Reads titles every year.”

Once the radio interview was done, Sean had a couple of hours to wait before his appearance on BBC 2’s Victoria Derbyshire current affairs programme – time he spent reading Paris for One, the Quick Read Jojo herself wrote in 2015, which he had missed out on at the time.

Sean added:

On Victoria Derbyshire, I spoke about how finishing things boosts your confidence it you’ve got out of the habit of reading – because the chapters are short, they're easier to finish, and then you're completing the whole book.”

As Jojo said, Quick Reads are like a gateway drug because they take people on to other things and that’s what they are: I wouldn’t be without them, I’m really glad she stepped in to save them.”