The Writer's Promised Land

Having just finished reading, and being inspired by, Ashley Lima's Top Story, it reminded me of my own education experience.

In my case, I was totally failed by my secondary education which taught me nothing except how to survive a physically brutal regime. Upon my arrival, on the very first day, they placed me in a remedial class. The love of writing I had developed at my junior school was totally squashed out of existence. I hated the place with such a passion I would have loved to have burnt the whole place down. I wasn't alone. On bonfire night we used to sing out loud.

Build a bonfire, build a bonfire

Put the teachers on the top

Put the prefects in the middle

And burn the bloody lot

Finally, in 1969 I left that hell hole without a single qualification and ended up as factory fodder.

***

Twelve years later, I spent three years attending after-work, evening classes just to get qualifications to go to university in Manchester, England. Finally, at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, I got accepted for a humanities degree in combined studies of English, Art and Design History, and Economic and Social History.

Although I was what is called a Mature Student, I still got financial assistance from the government. They paid all my university fees, (which did not cover the dozens of books I would need to buy) and they gave me a grant of 3,500 English pounds a year, paid on a termly basis.

I do know, from my own three children, and now Ashley Lima, who had to take out loans, what a big leg up I had been given. However, The grant was only half of the annual average wage for dead-end-job manual workers. In other words, the lowest rung on the pay scale ladder. It paid a lot less than begging on the streets.

What this meant was that I would have to work whenever I wasn't in lectures or seminars. It also meant I could not participate in any extracurricular social/student activities, like going to see a gig at the Student Union Hall.

To generate enough money to pay my bills I had to work as a HGV (Heavy Goods Truck) driver. So in fact, I was both studying and working full-time! It was truly exhausting. But I fell in love with studying, and recovering a lost childhood education, and I had my mind set on playing the long game. I was done with low-paying dead-end, factory fodder work and was determined to rise above it. How? Good question.

***

During my three years studying and working, I rekindled my childhood love of writing. However, I didn't have a clue how I was going to make that work. After graduating with an excellent degree result, I went to the university careers office. They were about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. I was told by the Careers Officer...

"Ralph, if you had a science degree and had no moral objection to making nuclear bombs, I could get you a job right here and now. I'm sorry, but with a degree in English and Art History, as good as your result is, I can do nothing for you. Have a nice day. Bye" Great, thanks for nothing. Bye.

Out of the blue, I got a lucky break, one which changed my life forever, right up to what I am, doing right now. A neighbor and friend told me about a position at the advertising agency where he worked, they were looking for a Trainee TV Producer. That sounded very exciting to me, and so off I went.

At the agency, I was interviewed by the Creative Director, Tom Reddy. Tom said the TV producer vacancy had been filled, but how would I like to be a copywriter? I must be honest, I had no idea what that was and so asked him. When he told me it involved writing the words for newsprint media, radio, and TV advertising, I said no and got up to walk out. Tom stopped me.

"Whoa boy, where are you going?"

"I'm sorry, it's the Capitalist Devil's work, not interested."

(Oh, what an ideological, leftwing leaning, morally upstanding socialist, self-righteous idiot, I was in those days!). Tom said...

"You haven't heard what I'll pay you, yet!"

"Go on, I'm sure it won't be enough to sell my soul to you."

"I will pay you for a day what your last job paid you for a week!" I sat back down. The Devil pays good wages.

After that, I made very rapid progress and was headhunted three times, each time for more money. In the end, after only one year, I went freelance and started to earn in just one hour what I had previously been paid for an entire seven-day week! The money was pouring in and I was making so much money we ended up living in a house worth a fortune. We had nice cars, family holidays, a live-in Nanny, the whole kit, and caboodle.

***

Then in 1990, there was a devastating economic recession that wiped out the advertising industry and I lost my business, career, house, cars, family, and children, the whole lot went down the pan. To this day I have three children who don't speak to me because they have been brought up to believe that our downfall was all my fault. "Dad? Oh, he's just a loser."

In 1992-94 I did what I am sometimes inclined to call my second degree, again at Manchester University. It was a full-time Post Graduate Certificate of Education course that actually involved twice the amount of written coursework than my degree!

To be accepted I had to have a full-time job doing a minimum of 23 teaching hours a week. And for every teaching hour, I had to put in an hour of preparation work. The one saving grace was that again, the government paid my fees. And for this course, there were very few books to buy.

In 1996 I met my second wife and in 2003 moved to live in the south of Spain. Sadly, two years later my second acrimonious divorce happened and I got well and truly fleeced and lost everything all over again. Two businesses, two cars, and houses, and in 2014 I lost my son to that awful woman when she disappeared taking him with her. Never heard from him since. Oh well.

***

I am very philosophical about the bad events of the past these days. One thing I try to do is not let it define who I am. What does define me is the education I was finally able to acquire. Of course, I didn't have any student loans to worry about, but I did have to work my ass off. It was worth it because without it I would have still been doing shitty waiting on jobs for peanuts at somewhere like McTucky's.

Well, here I am, retired but in fact still incredibly busy writing full-time, chasing the ace, a hole-in-one, that will set me up for life, and having an enormous amount of fun doing it. And the one thing I have learned is that you never know what lies in wait for you just around the next corner.

***

These last three years I have been very prolific and I have loved every single minute of it. Last week, in just six days I wrote my thirteenth book, 'In Pursuit Of The American Dream,' along with quite a few poems and a good many articles about all manner of subjects.

Have I earned any money writing online? Hell yeah, though it didn't happen overnight. However, I have always played the long game, knowing that if I stick at it long enough, all will be well in the end. What else can I do? It took me a lifetime to reach this point, I am not going to suddenly come over all impatient on the final winning stretch and spoil the sheer joy of having got this far, all the way to the top of the mountain, to see the beautiful vista of the writer's promised land stretching out before me.