If I had known then what I know now!!

The importance of having a plan

In my day, there was no Careers Department in my grammar school and no advice for planning a future. The only thing I knew was that I was expected to go to University. What I was meant to study and what I would do with my degree afterwards was never discussed.

My parents had not gone to University. My mother was evacuated during the war and left school at 16. She worked in a department store in central London but stopped working when she married at 21. My father went to war young and never bothered to carry on his studies on his return. He went straight to work. So, guidance about careers from home was absent also. My parents wanted me to do well – and especially my grandfather, who helped support my education – but what I did was left to me, even though my mother desperately wanted me to fulfil her own ambition to become a doctor, which I didn’t want to do.

French was the only subject I loved and was good at and so I did that at University without a clear plan as to where the degree would lead. My school couldn’t even advise me which Universities were good to apply to and I was so naive that I didn’t realise that you could get prospectuses and visit Universities to see which to choose. So, I randomly chose my Universities not realising that each of them wanted you to put them first on the list or they wouldn’t accept you. I put two down which included Law as well as French – there were only a couple of courses that combined two subjects in those days – so I had wasted choices because I decided that I don’t have a good enough memory for Law. In the end I did an exam to get in to University College London to read French without ever having seen a past paper and was fortunate enough to be one of only 30 students in the country accepted.

Having got my degree, again I had no plan, as the University offered no guidance on Careers either. Taking a gap year was not an option in those days, so I decided to do a PGCE and go into teaching, as I had no idea what else to do. I figured that it was only a year long so I could change my mind after that but I would always have teaching to fall back on if necessary.

After you did your PGCE, you had to do a year’s probation in a school to get your qualification. So, I got a job in a girls’ grammar school, which I didn’t even know was top of the league tables and completed my year with flying colours. I was good at teaching and so, after my first year was complete, I almost inevitably settled and teaching became my career.

When I left my first school, I got a job in another leading school – this time back home in London. Yet again, I didn’t plan it. It came up and I went for it without any other reason than I wanted to come back to London to work. I had just started, when I got engaged to my now husband and we married 9 months later. There was a promotion on offer during my time at the school, which I should have easily got; but the then High Mistress, as they called the Head Teacher, made it very clear to me that she didn’t give me the job because I was married and would go and have children – she wouldn’t get away with that these days!!! She employed a colleague, who was single, instead of me.

The High Mistress wasn’t wrong. I did want to have children; and I did get pregnant. I left the school as it was still frowned upon to go back to work and a year’s maternity leave was not an option then. So, I raised my children happily before resuming work, part-time, when my younger daughter was 3. Having had a few years gap and then going back part-time, meant that I didn’t rise in the ranks or earn a high salary. It also meant that my pension was low. I did go back full-time when the girls were older but I left on a salary that teacher begin on now and my pension is insufficient for me to retire if I want a comfortable retirement.

What I never realised that the London school I had worked in was a passport to bigger and better things. I had no idea how influential the school was and where it could have taken me until many years later when I got a job because of having worked there. We can’t regret our choices – we do the best we can at the time; but I can’t help regretting that I was so naive.

I don’t want to retire because I love my work; but my lack of strategy in my life means that I feel that I can’t retire and have the life I would like. It is very hard financially for my girls too; and I want to help them as much as I can. Getting on the house ladder was much harder for them and they had to pay for University, which I didn’t. Planning is ever more important for young people if they want to lead a reasonably comfortable life.

If I have anything to advise the young people I see in my counselling room, it is to have some vision for their future, so that when they finally retire, they can enjoy the rest of their life without the burden of worrying about money. I have the choice to retire if I want to, even if my pension is low; but it is getting much harder to retire now and young people will soon have to work until the age of 75. They may not have a state pension at all in the future, so financial planning is essential now more than ever.

I can’t change my own choices. We are the product of our generation and of our environment; but I can help young people to find a clearer vision for themselves, so that they can relax after a lifetime of work.