A few months shy of 50 years ago I was sitting on the roof of a school bike shed with my friend on the day that we both left school without a qualification between us. I have no doubt at all that on reflection the same thoughts were in our heads. What the hell do we do now? From the age of thirteen I had worked as a van lad for a local bakery where my mum had worked. My friend and I had spent the final year of our school life in the art department where we were given free reign of the various resources. Within days of leaving school I was contacted by my now ex-woodwork teacher who had secured me a job labouring in an engineering company. I wasn’t there long before he secured me an apprenticeship at another company just down the road, JJ Hardy Brass Founders and Engineering.
After finishing my apprenticeship I worked in a couple of other Engineering companies before it dawned on me that it simply wasn’t for me. I was heavily into music and all that goes with it so after leaving my last employment as a centre lathe turner decided I wasn’t going back! I was a night watchman for a while for a local building company and I even drove a bread van as a delivery salesman. It was during this period that something happened to change the whole direction of my life. One Saturday evening my Mum returned home from a dance with family friends minus my Dad Bill. I asked where he was and I was told that he was in hospital having collapsed behind the wheel of his car.
Mum told me that he was in the local hospital and she was returning there to be with him the following morning. I immediately threw myself into my car and drove at speed to the hospital. Over the following days my Dad deteriorated and eventually passed away. As you can imagine, I was distraught. Dad was my friend as well as a great hard working role model. It wasn’t the best of days. I had lost my job, lost my Dad and Mum wanted to move out of the family home to another house that I never considered my home. My musical aspirations were going nowhere and I fell off the rails in a dramatic fashion. Sobriety was becoming an issue as I had begun to use alcohol as a crutch. It was in a lightbulb moment that I happened upon a job advert in the local press for an Operating Department Assistant. I had cultured the notion of trying to attain gainful employment in a hospital doing anything I could to help people who were suffering and afraid.
This was born out of witnessing my Dad undergoing an arteriogram and how frightened he became during the process with the loud banging and clattering of the machinery and the effects of the radio opaque dye being pumped through his veins. I was interviewed by a senior nursing officer, the operating theatre sister and a doctor. It was some weeks before I received a letter informing me that I had got the job and would need to complete two years of intensive training and sit and pass exams. This I did and worked hard over the years climbing up the ranks as it were. I achieved many things over the ensuing years for which I am very proud. I met work colleagues who became friends and almost family, many of whom I still stay in touch with. Having left the NHS to pursue a career in private healthcare I met so many great colleagues and until recently worked with yet more wonderful souls.
Like so many other professions though, once disillusion kicks in it is very hard to halt the slippery slope. In recent years I witnessed the effects of greed and how it makes human beings behave towards each other. Epic mistakes made by business minded managers and their attitude to healthcare of both patients and employees’ well-being with little regard for either. So, after forty three years of working in operating theatres it is time to hang up my scrubs and focus on things that I am passionate about. I am proud of the fact that throughout the years and the different roles I have undertaken in the course of my work, I have always remained patient orientated and worked to the best possible standard. It’s going to be strange not being an Operating Theatre Practitioner any more as it is the only work I have done since 1981. However, life is about learning and adapting and that is what I intend to do.
In 2009 I began a website dedicated to progressive music and from that became “The Progmeister” a marque I’ve had ever since. Around eight years ago I decided to take the Progmeister persona further by joining an internet radio station. This extended the remit of my website which, until then, found me writing reviews and blogs such as the one you are reading now. Working with great DJ’s like Paul Baker whose show I listened to every week I could extend my written words into actual presentation and playing the music I had reviewed and also playing new music by upcoming bands and artists. Following my time at ARFM Rock Radio I became a DJ at Progzilla Radio hosting a monthly show entitled “The Progmeister @ Progzilla”. There I have been ever since and just like my main profession met some wonderful people who I feel so at home with. So, in a round about way it may be time to rekindle some of my musical aspirations though it may not be in the direction I was once hoping for. I do sometimes have to pinch myself as I now call some people whose music I listened to and used to travel many miles to see play in concerts, my friends.
Despite not having the resources I had whilst in full time employment, I will have more time to spend as my alter-ego “The Progmeister” and being a more active part of a fantastic music community. Like so many other folks who retire from a lengthy profession I am fearful of being able to manage financially and keep the wolf from the door, yet I am excited too. I have taken my flight off autopilot, steering freehand and that has a fresh feel about it.
There is a well known cringeworthy American management cliché I have quite often made fun of: “There is no such thing as strangers, they are just friends you haven’t met yet”. It may well be time to adopt such a maxim and begin the next chapter of my life as the Progmeister, a Grandad and partner to a lovely lady. I can also boast of the many friends I have made throughout my career in their many guises as they will always have a place in my heart. Though I have a wealth of experience in life and work, I still feel like that troublesome lad sat with his legs dangling from the school bike shed and thinking “what the hell do I do now?”! Time to start following my dreams methinks. Be well my friends.
