I haven’t been a life-long storyteller.     I started work at 16 as a book shop assistant.    I was sacked from that job for refusing to shave off my beard and then became in short order a toy packer, fitter's mate, security guard, ditch digger, farm hand, museum assistant, meat porter, cold store worker, tinned food salesman, accounts clerk, dead chicken picker, exam paper ticker, wine and spirit rep, National Service “soldier”, professional strong man, portrait sculptor, office manager, primary school teacher, casino bouncer, body guard, market trader, life assurance salesman, exhibition organiser, sales trainer, chef, network marketer, sherry taster, insurance broker,  among other things

College

At thirty I went to college and three years later escaped with a certificate allowing me to teach children (DES No:64/10101).      That proved to be a short-lived career, however, as the salary (one increment above basic) was not enough for a married chap with a mortgage and three children who were too young for his wife to get a job.   However, I enjoyed my short time in schools, if I discount the first term when I worked for a head who was a religious fundamentalist.    

School

His initials were KP so ‘Nuts’ was an appropriate nickname for a crackpot who preached that the world had been made in six days and that dinosaurs, which my class was studying, had never existed but had been put in the minds of men by Satan.    I walked out of the assembly in which this memorable pronouncement was made, and shortly thereafter he stormed into my busy classroom yelling “Don’t you ever walk out of my assembly again!”     The weeks of anger boiled over and I threw him out, muttering warnings of dire consequences should he try to return.

Then I phoned the Education Office to tell them to get someone else to look after the kids as I was leaving at the end of the day.     Soon two officials appeared and I knew my teaching career was at an end, but they pleaded with me to stay as the head was well known and they couldn’t get anyone to work in the school.      I stayed for the rest of the term, during which time KP and I carefully avoided each other.

Shortly thereafter I moved to another school where I was put in charge of a bunch of lovely ESN kids.     ESN meant Educationally Sub-Normal, a phrase we wouldn’t use today.   Some of the kids were quite proud of the title and used to challenge their better-endowed colleagues with “I’m educationally sub-normal.   What are you?”

After a year with these great kids, most of whom called me ‘Dad’ as only three out of 21 had one, it was clear that I couldn’t carry on.    While at college I’d supplemented my grant by working as a chucker-out in a gambling club, arriving in the evening and often leaving just in time to catch the early morning train to college.     The demands of teaching were such that I couldn’t combine it with nocturnal work at the club, and eventually we reached the silly situation that while we could manage on my night time income, what I earned during the day wasn’t enough.

Financial Services

So I left teaching and went into life assurance, quadrupling my income in the first year, and continued in that job for many years, until in the Eighties I went to Manchester Poly (now Manchester Metropolitan University) to study for a fine art degree.        After a year I dropped out to go into network marketing (the Micro Diet), losing four stones and making a great deal of money running a large nationwide team.       I would like to have continued with my studies, but reasoned that I must take advantage of this business opportunity and could always return to college.      I never did, however, even when the network marketing job expired, returning instead to life assurance.

Kate Elmitt

I met Kate in 1990, since when life has been good, and has included frequent visits to the Far East and elsewhere, where I tell stories, often under the auspices of the British Council, in schools, zoos, community centres, temples and theatre workshops, while Kate uses her outstanding skills as a musician and teacher.   I still can’t quite believe that this kind, remarkably gifted, beautiful, wise and supremely generous woman actually married me, in January 1995

Singing

In my mid-fifties I discovered that I could sing.   It’s strange how a voice can be lurking inside and you don’t know about it until a good teacher shows how it can be released.    One of my teachers, Nigel Wickens of Cambridge, said “I wish you’d come to me earlier, you could have gone a long way.    Maybe all the way”, which I thought was a nice thing to say.

Back to School

I retired from life assurance when I was 59, and went back to teaching.    This, however, meant that I got caught up in a form of child abuse called the National Curriculum and having once been involved in educating kids, albeit briefly, I wasn’t prepared to do anything less.     People tell me things have improved a bit, but I go into lots of schools where life is still devoted to training kids to jump through hoops, rather than educating them.     A major consequence of this is that children have been deprived of their natural creativity and inventiveness, which should be nurtured in the primary school and can’t be ‘learned’ later in life.     I also hold the (maybe minority) view that the National Curriculum is responsible for much of the increased crime and vandalism we are witnessing these days, in that the inability to pursue an interest and complete an exploration creates deep-seated frustrations in children which need some release later, when there is no-one around to guide them.

The woman who oversaw these heinous crimes, the consequences of which will be felt for generations, will probably be buried with much ceremony and at great public expense in Westminster Abbey.

Storytelling                                           Telling to 1,000 kids in Guangzhou

While wondering what to do I noticed a reference to professional storyteller Helen East in the bibliography of a book.    At that time I didn’t know such people existed.   I wrote to Helen to ask where I could see a professional storyteller in the flesh, and she suggested The Society for Storytelling.

Subsequently I saw storytellers in action and decided it was a job I could do.    I learned and began to tell stories, and was soon asked to do so in the children’s corner of Hitchin Library.    At the end of a long stint the four and five year olds were still there, and even awake.    I’d started a new career, at the age of 60!

Future

This website was made with the (very considerable) help of Chris Dodds, a pal who lives in Arlesey.    After it reached the point at which it needed regular maintenances I was able to 
get back to telling stories, and writing my current best-selling blockbuster novel.   I hope to actually finish this one.