Who I am…
Who am I? Well, I’d better get the obvious thing out of the way first. There’s no denying it: I’m on the mature side/have been around a bit/am no spring chicken; without doubt the oldest student in the group, possibly on the whole course. Maybe not in the entire university itself, but from what I can see there aren’t many others with this much on the clock.
I’ve been married to the same bloke for about a hundred years and we live in Whitstable with our old golden retriever, where we’ve been since the 1980s (so long before it became trendy, something we take no credit for whatsoever). We have one daughter who lives and teaches in Ashford and is currently doing an MA in Special Educational Needs here at CCCU (we registered at the same time last year, I’m not sure if she’s ever recovered from the experience). Exceptionally pretty, witty and clever, she’s clearly some kind of genetic throwback.
Like the number six bus from Whitstable to Canterbury, I’ve taken an unfeasibly long way around to arrive at this point. After nearly four decades of managing bookshops in the arts and academic sectors, and setting up businesses (mostly in the book trade but also garden centres, fruit tree nurseries, artisan cider production and shops selling books, gifts and the demon drink) I’ve finally managed to throw off the shackles of full-time work and do something I’d been threatening to do since my twenties.
This time two years ago we decided to sell the family business. It had grown from the one I’d started twenty years before with the intention that, once established, someone else could run it while I went off to learn how to be a published writer. (This was already twenty years after I’d aborted my first degree before it even started, when circumstances forced me to get a job instead, but that’s another story). Once we’d found a buyer my other half started plotting his semi-retirement, I began looking around for a writing course as close as possible to home, and friends and relatives started looking at me with their heads cocked sympathetically on one side. ‘Ooh, how brave!’ they said, ‘can’t imagine anything worse than starting a degree at your age! You must be mad!’. Thanks for the vote of confidence guys. But this is more than an indulgence, a diversion, a hobby, ‘something I’m doing for myself’ as some have suggested. This is my stab at an alternative pension plan, a gamble in a very uncertain future, one that hangs on whether my jottings can become good enough to be exchanged for hard cash. Considerably riskier — but a lot more fun — than sticking our modest savings pot in a buy-to-let ex-miner’s cottage in County Durham.
I can’t pretend it was an easy transition from being in charge to being the newbie. I thought I was pretty IT-savvy until it came to grappling with timetable apps and portals and blackboards, and my much-bragged-about sense of direction failed me on several occasions while trying to navigate my way around campus. I started catching the bus again after decades of driving everywhere (thank the lord for podcasts and audio books) and bought my first pencil case in over forty years. Despite all that I can honestly say I loved every minute of the first year. After sixteen years based on a farm, meaning a lot of time spent in the open air or in draughty barns, I got to sit in dry, warm rooms watching film and play clips, drinking coffee and talking about books and authors with sparky, intelligent people who, despite the warnings of my nearest and dearest, treated me like an equal and not some aged aunt who has to be humoured. What’s not to like?
So, hurray for year two. If I’ve one hope for this year, other than the obvious one of making it out the other end with an acceptable set of marks, it’s that just occasionally there is someone older than me in the same room at the same time, just so that, for once, I’m not the only one who gets the lecturer’s references to Mike and Bernie Winters.
