Curriculum Vitae

I’ve had a long and winding career in the fields of work and education. At one time, I was doing quite well, but it all got a bit too much and it’s been a bit of a struggle since.

Which is a shame, because it would have been nice if things had turned out better.

I was never really suited to work. It’s almost always felt like a real imposition, a drag, and a massive downer.

The money was never enough, and most of it went on social and recreational activities, which, looking back, were a means of self-medication.

It’s funny, because I really did try hard to fit in and make a fist of it from the age of twenty-nine to forty-three. A mid-life crisis along with pleurisy, a collapsed lung and an empyema, followed by a thoracotomy, two consecutive nine month long frozen shoulders and that bastard GORD (gastro-oesophageal reflux disease) almost finished me off.

Those fourteen years working in therapeutic activities for older people with dementia, and later in training and employment for with adults with psychotic diagnoses were mostly relatively happy and relatively mostly successful (repeated ultimate catastrophic failures, aside).

I went from wiping arses to leading a rehabilitation centre for some of the most disadvantaged people in society.

Before all of that I’d been completely lost. I never wanted to work, only to play music in a band. My first ever paid work was a paper round, but I regularly mis-delivered whenever there was a change to the round. The best thing about that job was getting to read all the different back page headlines and football stories before anyone else.