curriculum vitae

 

I can scarcely believe that I stopped paid work nearly 17 years ago. My father had devoted 41 years to Portsmouth Dockyard, and sadly only enjoyed 14 years of retirement; half of those in poor health.  He rarely spoke of his work other than to say how relieved he was to be away from “that God-forsaken place”. I know nothing of his demons, but mine are largely exorcised now. A few fester in the background, and I largely look back on mine with wry amusement: the absent mindedness, never really knowing what I was doing, always feeling an imposter but somehow getting away with it. A student said, at the end of a lecture, “Mark, I think you’re full of bullshit”, and earned much respect from me for saying so. I worked with many memorable and inspirational people, and quite a few ogres. Working in the mental health field, I was sometimes asked if I knew some dangerous individuals. My reply was invariably that the most dangerous ones were usually colleagues or managers. 

At risk of overgeneralisation, I’ve noticed that northwest Cymru, where I’ve lived for twelve years, is a more egalitarian place than the southeast of England. Rose-tinted varifocals maybe. People here seem less status conscious, and neither as obsessed with what others do/did for a living, nor with their financial situation. Maybe it’s partly due to the real lack of career opportunities here, or that life has other priorities. Happiness perhaps. Bearing all that in mind, I’ll be brief, and try to distill my own employment history into as few words as possible, to have done with it.

Shop assistant, factory porter, Christmas postie, music student, bakery assistant, clerk, computer operator, nursing student, hotel organist, silver-service waiter, Staff Nurse, Charge Nurse, Tutor, hospice volunteer, voluntary local news columnist. Time spent in each varied from twenty years for the longest to one night for the shortest, while retirement comes a close second for now.  Until three years’ time. Looking at this short list in retrospect, it doesn’t seem much. It doesn’t matter a jot. Perhaps work is not so important after all. I like to think I helped a few people along the way, while my major period as a university tutor has been erased from history. Courses are rewritten, modules forgotten, and individuals removed from the record in almost Stalinist fashion. Such is the ephemeral nature of the internet. If you don’t believe me, if you ever had a media presence, try “googling” yourself from 25 years ago. 

Retirement has given me a new home, a new language, new interests and new people added to the list of friends. And a life partner who is still with me after forty years, with whom to share all this. Less compulsion to travel, as I can revisit places in the mind’s eye. And freedom to think, and to write just for my own amusement. Occasionally it may amuse you too, but no matter. 

LINKS

Wander & Ponder with Bill & Friends - Retirement Reflections
In absentia?
A life of new meaning
the invisible man
What's the secret?