Of the Spooners whose literacy was recorded, 80.4% could both read and write, 1.8% could read but not write, and 17.9% could do neither. Men came out slightly ahead, 82.1% reading and writing against 78.6% of women. Bear in mind these figures include young children; the census itself only counted people aged nine and over when calculating illiteracy, on the grounds that it was unfair to label a child illiterate before they'd had a chance to learn.