I used the ticket to go and see a football match instead. British Rail sent me a rail ticket to London to attend an interview. I was invited to interview for an apprenticeship at British Leyland – I didn’t go. I found none in the then heavily-industrialised streets though I’ve since developed a great liking for post-industrial landscapes. I spent hours wandering around Birmingham trying to find inspiration. Perhaps if I’d aimed lower, if I’d been advised where to aim, then my career might have been very different. Anyway, though I loved my sport I wasn’t considered good enough at it to tempt those bastions. I even went up to Carnegie in Leeds but recall nothing of the college or interview. I wrote (this was well before internet days of course) to the elite PE colleges of the day, Loughborough and Carnegie. I had no plan and no one to turn to really. I was so miserable in the office there that I pushed my resignation letter under the manager’s door, walked out of the building and never heard from them again. Yeah, I did six weeks at Eagle Star Insurance on the Hagley Road, since airbrushed from any subsequent CV. I think any of us that went to see him got the same takeaways – try Banking or Insurance.
He had no more clue than me, which is why he was a teacher I suppose. I recall one interview with a disinterested careers teacher, the task probably an unwanted add-on to his normal job. All you were doing there was damaging their statistics by drifting away into the general world of work. I didn’t have a clue what to do next.Īt St Philip’s, once you had signified you had no interest in going on to university you became a non-person. I left St Philip’s Grammar School, Birmingham in the early summer of 1971.
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