Life choices

Firstly I have to apologise for the adverts that appear on my blog. It seems I have no control on what rubbish they put up and I certainly don't get paid for it. I really must try to get some control of that.

Control - interesting word.

How much control do I actually have over anything? 

When I left education I wanted to be a writer or an artist. My father pushed me towards secretarial work, as to him, money was more important than ambition. He filled in forms for me and got me an interview with the Civil Service Registry of Business names. 

In my innocence I had been writing to apply for jobs with large newspapers, and advertising agencies my degree was Fine Art. Not really relevant to either, but with no other guidance I wrote on my little typewriter to people at the top. Not the personnel departments!

I have a lovely letter from Marjorie Proops who replied to the letter I wrote asking for a job at the Daily Mirror. She told me I'd have to do at least a year or more on a local paper, to get some experience. Then apply for junior jobs as they were advertised.

I was disappointed, there was no way I wanted to work for The Hackney Gazette for two years. 

So I wrote to the CEO of a huge London Advertising agency, who when he'd finished laughing at the gall of a young woman straight out of Uni, phoned to say that there were more artists than jobs for them and to give up that line of enquiry.

I kept writing, had romances published in Jackie, Woman, and Woman's Own. I also illustrated other peoples articles and books, I sold paintings on a sell or return basis to an artists supply shop in Oxford Street.  Apparently my innocent views of the Irish countryside where we used to holiday, were bought by quite a few Americans.

All money I earned had to go to my Mum and Dad. His reasoning being he'd kept me all these years, so now it was time to pay back. I told him I didn't ask to be born.  Wow! Boy, that was a mistake, I think you could have heard his explosion in Australia!

So I worked for the Civil Service and hated it. Even applied for the Diplomatic Service, unfortunately my father's political views were unacceptable to the interview committee.

One day I saw a job in the Guardian for a job at ITN, applied and got it. Helped out in the newsroom and in the graphics department and had a great time learning the ropes. I wanted to move on, but ITN was a small company based in Wells Street in the West End, and there was no-where that was a "fit" for me. 

However BBC Broadcasting House was just around the corner in Portland Place, I had an interview and worked for them in Staff Training, where I learnt heaps, doing a camera and radio course alongside the other trainees, after I had set up the equipment for them.

I found that in the BBC and my writing and artistic skills were appreciated through the camerawork and early computer generating caption machines.Even though in the BBC in the 80s a great deal of lipwork was given to equalities, if you were a woman, it really wasn't easy.  It was the best and worst time of my life.

So here I am now. I have worked in the Tourist and Museum Industry for over 15 years after my BBC redundancy. I have been lucky that whoever had the control over what I did next had my best interests at heart (thank you Guardians/Angels/Universe). At times I have felt I have been in a bumper car on the Dodgems at the fair, crashing into this and that.

Now, I am actually doing what I love. Writing. History. Cooking. Making historical clothing.
So I got there in the end. I have the control.

Have a great weekend everybody. Much love.