Sunday 20 March 2016

Give us a job


It is not just since I hit 60 that I sometimes sit down and contemplate all the things I will never do, but these things do tend to mount up, the older one gets.

I must have been about 25 when I finally understood that I would never solo-pilot a jet-fighter, especially since I had never joined the RAF as a boy-entrant, let alone the ATC.

Of course, there are many things that I would have never been able to do no matter how young I started - I am thinking about singing that aria from Mozart's 'The Magic Flute' in particular. My pre-pubescent voice would never have had the volume to reach the back stalls even if I could have hit the top notes.

Here's something that you may not have known: My paternal grandfather was once a Strong-Man in a travelling circus. I bet there are not many people in the world who can boast of that. I am not sure how strong he was, but all the males on that side of the family were big. I am the smallest at 6' 3" and 14 stone.

When I left art school, I wanted to be a sculptor, and although I sort of now am (it is my self-designated job-description to avoid being called a mason or worse) I am by no means a Fine Artist, and that's fine by me.

When I stopped wanting to be a sculptor, I wanted to be a film director, but could not be bothered to enter the industry as a runner - or worse - so that dream was quickly and pragmatically forgotten.

Having spent the last 35 years enduring hard, physical work, I did have a notion of earning enough money to subsist when my body inevitably fails me, by being some sort of writer.

Most writers who earn just enough money to cover a mortgage begin as journalists on small-town newspapers before enrolling on a creative writing course run by a well-established writer, but the fact that well-established writers have to supplement their incomes by working for universities should be a bit of a clue about how hard it is to make any money by sitting at a keyboard all day. It isn't getting any easier, either. Ask Sarah.

In the halcyon days before the austerity cut-backs, when newspapers were made of real paper and did not depend solely on advertising, I knew quite a few Fleet-Street type journos who did very well out of scribbling.

One of them (Kate Wharton, now sadly dead) proudly showed me a piece she had written for one of the Sunday supplements, saying that it was one of the best things she had ever written. I read it, and thought it was shit from beginning to end. Thankfully, I did not tell her what I thought about it.

I could not understand why she was so pleased with this lengthy article, but then I understood.

Kate's thing ticked all the editorial boxes. Aside from being well-constructed, it spoke with the political voice of the newspaper (sotto voce), and she had taken great pains not to burden any of the readership with any well thought out and well presented opinions of her own. It had a beginning, a middle and an end - all of which fitted nicely into the word-count allowance. Jeremy Clarkson got away with it for about 10 years longer than anyone had predicted.

I now know my place, and spend most of my time trying to prevent others from invading it. I suppose that this is what most people do right the way through their careers, but - up until now - I have never had to. Keep Sundays special.


22 comments:

  1. Sundays have a habit of making you remember the past!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes - if you like what you remember, it is called 'taking stock'.

      Delete
  2. There's only money in money. I wonder how they spend Sunday's?

    ReplyDelete
  3. When I grow up....oh wait, I'm way past that point: I'm just waiting for the inevitable.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Have you identified in what form it will arrive?

      Delete
  4. John Major's dad was a trapeze artist; my mother drove a steam engine in the 1930s and I wanted to be like Marianne Faithfull. I never thought it through as a career though. I ended up in London at 17 in a bedsit with only a cold tap and worked in an office. I never got to being like Marianne Faithfull.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wasn't very keen on Mars bars.

      Delete
    2. Marianne Faithful spent a few years sleeping rough in the streets of London - after she was famous. Good job you didn't go down that route. I think the Mars Bars thing was a myth, but it may have boosted sales.

      Delete
    3. I thought if I didn't say it someone would. Glad you're such a good mood

      Delete
  5. I wanted to be a writer when I was young but was never good enough (incidentally Katherine Whitehorn was one I admired). I became a teacher instead and years later took some kind of rubbish test to ascertain which job would be my ideal, fulfilling job - and it turned out to be teacher!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am a terrible teacher - the opposite of H.I.

      Delete
  6. When I got over my dream of being a ballet dancer, I wanted to be a scholar, and for a long time I regretted not having finished my PhD. I gave up when I acknowledged that I lacked the necessary single-minded motivation. After that I wanted to be a poet. Actually what I really wanted was to be the poet Elizabeth Bishop.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When did you stop wanting to be a ballet dancer?

      Delete
    2. That's wrong. 1967 was when I realized I was not going to be a dancer.

      Delete
    3. Oh. I thought you might say, "When I was 43."

      Delete
  7. My late friend Jock (a Hack of note) was often asked for career advice by aspiring scribblers. His reply was usually 'don't learn shorthand, and don't learn to drive'.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is probably more relevant now than when he said it.

      Delete
  8. I was lucky to realise "a bit" of most of my dream jobs into my life. On a smaller scale then I would have wished, but nevertheless, so I can say "Je ne regrette rien."
    Having no circus-people among my ancestors I yet feel like a traveller.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You can say it, but please don't sing it.

      Delete
    2. I never look behind -- "When I loohoohook inta the mirra, trallalla"

      Delete