Find something that you love to do and never work a day in your life

, "No book has yet been written in praise of a woman who let her husband and children starve or suffer while she invented even the most useful things, or wrote books, or expressed herself in art, or evolved philosophic systems."

Woman's Share in Social Culture, 1912

Imagine for one moment that you are sat in the middle of a vast room, the ceiling ornately plastered and gilded, the heady scent of the flowers on the mantelpiece drifting through your nostrils, the sunlight glinting on the silver and throwing reflections around the room, and music gently entering your consciousness from the grand piano sat proudly in the corner. Imagine then, that you are sat together with a hundred or so other shuffling, sniveling teenagers, all impatient to leave the assembly and get on with something a little more interesting and you can pretty much imagine the Sixth Form Assembly Room of my school. Think Hogwarts and you won't go pretty far wrong. But, this was no school for aspiring witches and wizards, but merely an ordinary state Comprehensive, or extraordinary state Comprehensive, dependent upon your view.

But, this isn't the story of my schooling, but my recollections of my first few jobs. I say jobs, because like most working class children of my generation, I had quite a few, that enabled me to do things that I wanted, have the clothes that I craved and still carry on with my education. Being a part of Hinchingbrooke School Sixth Form, was like living in two parallel worlds. 1970s student by day, surrounded by the paraphernalia that 70s teenagers had, disco or punk dependent upon your tastes, musky smelling PE bags and the lingering odour of soggy cabbage and immersed in a world of old world sophistication, expensive perfumes, the smell of candles, and the experience of culture and glamour by night. Because I spent my sixth form years being educated in Hinchingbrooke House, the ancestral home of the Earls of Sandwich, yes, one family member invented the sandwich, and prior to that the Cromwell Family, I had the opportunity to take guided tours around the house at weekends and during the summer holidays. I also worked at the banquets held there in the evening. I wasn't paid any money for doing these things, but earned service points which could be spent on any of the evening entertainment provided by the school, with any surplus points at the end of your education, being converted into book tokens.


Look into the photo above. To the right of the central door, hidden from view is a door that opens up into a cupboard under the stairs. Whilst the house was being converted from a family home to a school, the builders discovered two stone coffins with the skeletal remains of two nuns, who were, presumably some of the original inhabitants of the nunnery that existed there prior to Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries and his granting the property to the Cromwell family. The coffins still remain there, covered over by glass to preserve them. Further coffins, this time empty, can still be found in the grounds. It was quite strange being in the house late at night, when most others had gone home and all was quiet. There are many accounts of ghosts and poltergeists, and I think I could at times almost imagine seeing them myself, but usually it was just a trick of the light or a stray shadow.

During the summer holidays, I always used to work as an administrator at the school, helping to compile the timetables for all the pupils. Since there were over 1600 pupils, this took a fair amount of time and effort, but was well paid and pleasant work. My friend Susan and I used to work at this with two of the Senior Teachers and we had the luxury and being able to stroll around the grounds, the rose garden, the woods, use the tennis courts, crochet lawns or swimming pool during our lunch breaks.


Unfortunately, all these jobs were not sufficient to keep me in the manner that my richer friends took for granted, and so after school every evening and at weekends I used to work in a coffee bar. I have to say that I absolutely hated this job, and the summer of 1976 was so hot, remember it was the year of the drought, that it was practically unbearable working in a confined space with urns, cookers and water heating equipment. There was no air conditioning in those days in England, and generally speaking no need. The day I handed my notice into the coffee bar, it was like a weight was lifted from my shoulders and I spent the next few months, much poorer, I didn't receive any pocket money, but happier.

As if all these jobs weren't enough, I'd use my holidays from the coffee bar to go pea picking. Yes, this was in the days when it was all done manually and you were paid piecemeal. No foreign migrants as cheap labour when I was young, only the students of working class parents and often the parents themselves, during their annual holiday from work, my own mother included. Pea picking was hard work. You sat in damp, muddy conditions, hunched over buckets pulling the pea pods from the plants which you then discarded. By the end of the day, your back was breaking, your feet were damp and sore and your hands ripped to shreds, cracked and bleeding. But, somehow I drove myself onwards, striving each day to beat the number of bags I'd picked the previous day and earn a little bit more.

They say that our formative years are what make us the people we are. Certainly mine instilled in me a work ethic that I have never lost. Even today, when I no longer officially work, I still find myself filling my days with things that others would be paid for, writing press releases for community groups, advising parents on autism provision and the Council work that I do. I have been really lucky to have had the opportunity to try many different things during my working life and each thing that I have tried has developed me a bit more as a person.

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