‘Ha,’ said the son recently, responding to something I had said, ‘there speaks someone with one foot out of the door.’ And dammit, he was right. The son is pulling me up and re-orientating me more and more frequently these days. Clearly the onset of my dementia is further advanced than I had thought.
He was, of course, referring to my almost imminent departure from the British Council, which will happen in ten weeks, three days and twenty hours at the time of writing (not that I am counting, of course). It has made me think about other departures and other times, of course, because I’m of an age when there is a great deal more time behind me than in front of me and so, like everyone else, I tend to dwell on where time is more generous. In my youth, time was what we all had in front of us and we looked to the future with a mixture of courage and fear (which are actually the same thing in different packages anyway) but mainly anticipation. Now, though, I’m at that point when decrepitude starts to wave its gnarled stick and when the future has a shorter attraction (though attraction there is) and the past seems lovingly enticing, golden and warm. Yes, I know it’s an illusion. Don’t spoil the story with facts.
Being positive (for a change) it is possible to see each departure as an arrival. When you leave something you obviously move onto something else, which ought to be an encouraging way of seeing how you’ve grown and developed and moved on from where you were to where you are, or where you’re going to be. Here I’m thinking about moving on from one job to another – there are lots of other departures and arrivals that I shall leave for a grisly autobiography which will be written only when I’m terribly old, bitter and cynical (clearly a long way away yet). Yet looking back on ‘jobs I have left’ the most fun ones were the temporary ones – as a student or filling-in time – but that is probably because I knew they were temporary at the time. For example, being a bus conductor and then a bus driver with Eastern Counties in Cambridge was one great hoot, and I particularly like the Thursday afternoon run on the 102 from somewhere in Chesterton into town when a large gaggle of old ladies would get on the bus and I employed my professional role as a conductor to lead them in community singing. This was not approved of by the Inspector who once got on the bus during one of these riotous occasions, but he was harangued off the bus – a mighty double-decker full of singing septaganians – by the old dears in sensible shoes and don’t -mess-with-me hats. It didn’t do my job prospects much good, that incident, and that Inspector then took it upon himself to track me down in all my misdeeds from then on (though my last memory of him was him stepping backwards off the rear, open platform of the 1960’s bus – as we all did in shows of bravado and stupidity – while the bus was still moving, only to descend into a lake-like puddle that had formed in the road, just as the back wheels of the bus splooshed out a rather large quantity of muddy rain water, soaking him from head to foot.)
I’m not sure, but I think I have had something like twenty temporary jobs, or jobs without proper contracts, but the job on the buses was amongst the best, topping the list along with being temporary ASM with Ballet Rambert and working at in Abbey Road recording studios in a variety of guises, including adjusting the sliders on the mixer desk during some of the recording of the Beatles ‘White’ album.
But none of that was engaging in departures and arrival: it was all about building experience or filling in time. The big changes were the things that appear on my CV, which makes a jumbled reading. My CV has caused me problems. Too many changes, too many jobs. Until more recently, that is. It used to be the case that you were expected to be more or less faithful to a career, or even a company, for very long periods of time, and redefining your career in your own image was not an acceptable way to carry on. Not unless you were some kind of hippie or, even worse, artist. Well, I aspired to being an artist: I had the training, I had some talent, I had some of the temperament: I didn’t spend three years at the Royal College of Music for nothing. To me, the course of my ‘career’ has been a very connected process; it’s just that it doesn’t fit into the career path view of most industry managers (as all bosses seem to be these days). It’s all a matter of perspective. From a narrow point of view I have jumped all over the place – a state school teacher, an FE Lecturer, a Special Education teacher, an education project manager, a peripatetic music teacher, a children’s play organiser (when Adventure Playgrounds were THE thing), a materials writer, a community education worker, a voluntary community services manager, an ELT teacher and the rest. But from a broader point of view, of course, it all fits neatly into two categories that help each other to grow: education and the arts.
In this respect, though I have worked my way through many farewell dinners, or drinks down the local pub, almost everything I have done has led to the next learning stage so I am in the odd situation of finding myself with more arrivals than departures. It seems I keep arriving somewhere new, but I don’t really seem to have left the somewhere old. It would appear, then, that although the son might well be accurate about his old man having one foot out of the door, from my point of view I suspect that what I really have is one step inside the (next) door. Time will tell, as always, but in this case that is only, oh, let me see, ten weeks, three days and nineteen hours now. Not that I’m counting, of course.
Know what you mean, mate! At the ripe old age of 65, I’m now in a phase of semi-retirement, but with no intention of giving up work completely as long as I still have most of my marbles. My best temporary job was working as a “relief rep” for Cadburys while the old lags were away on summer hols. Great pay, company car, 6-hour day, and all the chocolate I could eat – takes some beating, I can tell you!
Toodle pip!
Bob in Brazil
Hi Cap’n Bob – I always thought one of your finest attributes was the constant search for lost marbles! Semi-retirement sounds better than semi-comatose, which is the current state of those still working for the old firm!