O/t besides me

[vespabri]

There's a lot of motorway bridges that have safari tans signs tbh.
I've seen a fair few desperate people leaning over the bridges about to jump as I've passed underneath..
Phoned the Police immediately and hopefully they were there in time.
Remember seeing a group of people talking a young lass down from jumping from a bridge in Warrington once..really does make you think how desperate they must be and how precious AND SHORT life is.
I doth my cap to you Scum pal..people like you are few and far between.

[Brin]

Has anyone made a good life for themselves by not having a school exam.
I thought a GCE was a fridge.
Left school at 15 worked down maltby pit as an electrician. Army as telecommunications
Mechanic for 10years.
came out got bus driving licence. Steel works for donkeys years. All menial jobs, but constant work all my life. No mortgage debts ,good pension. So what do qualifications do?

Crash, apologies for the lengthy explanation so stay with me on this but, what you've asked has allowed me to finally get something off my chest as regarding schooling and qualifications. I don't think qualifications get you anywhere now other than recognition that you may present as a bright spark on paper. How many kids are out there today that have degrees and can't get the job they dreamed of doing, for the qualifications they had worked so hard for and proudly own?

For me, it's all about having the confidence to speak, use your intelligence, show maturity in order to showcase yourself and to be ready and willing to learn life skills and hands on training given. This I feel beats paper qualifications any day of the week. Having said that my two children, and I still see them as that, even though they are grown adults as one is almost 40 and the other 26, have achieved amazing qualifications and excelled in their employment roles.

I was an immensely bright child and thrived at Junior school. When I left at 11 years of age I took the set government exam and could read as good as a 16 year old and had a good understanding of both Maths and English by the standards set then. I started my Comprehensive schooling and again I excelled so much, I was taken, mid term, out of the 2nd placed class and put in the top class, that's where it all started to go wrong. To put it blunt I had a b.astard of a teacher and she had it straight in for me, why I'll never know.
One thing I recall about her most was her breath! Ashtray fag stinking with the overtures of strong coffee after the end of the first break, it made me want to gip.

All started one day when she went around the class asking whose parents did what for a living. Finally it was my turn to speak, and as I attempted to explain I was from a single parent family and my mum held down three jobs in order to raise her four kids, she shot me down in flames citing I was the only one in 'her' classroom not to come from a married solid family, I could have curled up and died there and then. The embarrassment was awful as I felt everyone was staring at me and, being only only 14 years of age at the time, I just wanted the ground just to open up and swallow me whole.

Things got even worse when the next day she singled me out for not having a school badge on my council supplied school uniform. I explained that a badge was the price a loaf of bread in our household and, as long as I wore a school tie depicting the Spurley Hey colours, I couldn't see what the problem was. Whoosh! I was frogmarched straight out of the class down to the Deputy Heads room to explain my insolence and disgusting rude behaviour??? I didn't get a word in as she ranted on and on about how she wanted me out of her class, as I wasn't to 'her' standards'. She got her way and I was removed back down to class 2.2.

Sometimes I could not avoid her, as each teacher held certain classes we had to attend. Spanish was her class and whenever there was anything required answering, she always finger pointed me out to answer and when I couldn't give the answer, I was ridiculed for it. Some of my classmates asked why she always picked on me, I sadly couldn't say why. I use to dread knowing that at least twice a week I had to attend her lessons.

All of a sudden I started to hate school, so much so I started to wag it big style. It was so easy to do when you knew that you didn't have your own teacher for any lessons during certain days of the week. I just attended in the morning and got my mark and then just simply walked out of the school gates for the day. Proper disillusioned, this went on for months until one day when I went home my Mum had a screaming duck fit at me as the 'school bobby' as she was known, was also sat there waiting to speak to me. Result was, my poor Mum got a fine for not sending me to school but, she did in all her innocence. I felt bad about that so promised I'd go back and try to buckle down.

I became embroiled in woodwork and metalwork and seemed to excel in both scoring great marks in every lesson, exam etc. The only GCE I left school with was in woodwork, I didn't get my grade for metalwork as I had wagged too many classes! Once again I started not to like attending school. How I got through the last two years I cannot recall other than to say the wagging started again but, and I didn't attend school to take any other exams so was marked as not achieved. Maybe I should have as I was still very bright in English, Science, Geography and Art. I was though there for the last day of leaving and boy did I enjoy that! We had a two day career invitation attendance from the Army, Royal Air Force and Royal Navy along with a few other business people. Some lads signed up but neither was for me.

As we all mingled for the day who do I come across with a lovely teacher beside her but the b.astard witch herself. I can still recall the moment as if it was yesterday. Off she started, 'Mrs Brier do you know this individual, he will amount to nothing', she stood there posturing hands on her hips. I stood there thinking do I smack her in the mouth now and make a run for it?
Mrs Brier being the nice lady she was, expressed she always found me a pleasant young man and couldn't understand what she meant. The look on her face, Mrs Judge was her name, and it f****** well suited her as she thought she was the top dog.

'I don't suppose you will have any employment to go to after leaving school and will just be a drifter?' she sniggered. Boy was I waiting for this moment, I had had took enough s.hit off this bitch for almost 3 years on and off (wagging).

Actually, we were allowed in our last month at school to attend interviews for work but, had to return to school the same day if your interview had been completed and there were still schooling hours left in the day to attend your last lesson, most of us didn't. I had managed by the support of my woodworking teacher, Harry King bless him, to gain employment at Knowles Woodworking on Fitzwilliam Road.

I couldn't contain myself any longer!! In a raised voice off I went, 'Actually I have TWO jobs and I start my Woodworking Apprenticeship on Monday in two days time. My other is a weekend job at DC Cook's tyre and exhaust fitters'. I didn't explain the details to her, this was just menial tasks of fetching stock and making a brew for the staff, sweeping up etc, not bad for a tenner a day though! I'd not finished, 'and while I think about it, you foul smelling fag ash coffee breath stinking witch, you are the one who ruined my school days!'
There, i'd finally got off my chest what I had wanted to say to her and boy did that feel good!

You could have stuffed a golf ball in her gob! I can still recall her bright red mush as I type. She didn't know where to put herself as Mrs Brier smirked looking at the floor, . School, I can honestly say I could have and should have excelled there but for that F****** witch.

Said it was a long story but recalling all of that made me a stronger better person on leaving school. I had a thorough interview for my Apprenticeship and was questioned why I had no more qualifications. I said I had a lot to offer as a young man and was willing to listen, learn and put in to practice what I would been shown. I got the job.

Fast forward my work career.

Left woodworking and went into:

Mens Retail
British Rail
Coalminer
HGV Class 1 driver
Currys as a part time Salesperson. Up the ladder to Assistant Manager then finally becoming a Store Manager with a staff of 25 turning over £3,000,000 a year. Transferred to the Customer Contact Centre as a Team Manager until retiring on 1st Oct 2019.

Mortgae - nil
Debt - nil
Decent savings.
Good enough pension to get by on.
Holiday abroad exceptionally well, when there's no restrictions.

Have I survived and had a great life leaving school without exams? Yes I have!

Times are different nowadays you can't just walk out of one job into another like you could back in the 70's. I really feel for all the hard working t.eenagers out there who have studied extremely hard to achieve the grades they have, well done to all of them.

[Brin]

Spent most of my childhood in care and moved from school to school so never settled. I stopped going at all from about 15 and have never been unemployed

Completed an English Lit degree in 2001 and PGCE - I know run an education budget that is in 7 figures. It's loads of responsibility and I struggle to take things seriously 100% of the time but I seem to be decent at it.

I am also currently training as a Samaritans Volunteer ( There's more to it than I thought)

Jobs include:

FLT Driver
Hotel Porter
Powder Coater
Chemical Plant Engineer
Surface Grinder
Primary School teacher
College Tutor
Behavior specialist
Barman

I'm considering a change of career as a Social Worker. I really want to do it but feel I have left it a bit late.

Buddy, total admiration for your goals towards the Samaritans....you really are a top bloke!

[South Coast Miller]

Spent most of my childhood in care and moved from school to school so never settled. I stopped going at all from about 15 and have never been unemployed

Completed an English Lit degree in 2001 and PGCE - I know run an education budget that is in 7 figures. It's loads of responsibility and I struggle to take things seriously 100% of the time but I seem to be decent at it.

I am also currently training as a Samaritans Volunteer ( There's more to it than I thought)

Jobs include:

FLT Driver
Hotel Porter
Powder Coater
Chemical Plant Engineer
Surface Grinder
Primary School teacher
College Tutor
Behavior specialist
Barman

I'm considering a change of career as a Social Worker. I really want to do it but feel I have left it a bit late.

Go for it. I was one of the so-called clever *******s, IQ off the scale, qualifications as long as your arm including a foreign university and I had no idea what I wanted to be. I drifted into teaching. You know what they say - "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach". I've read all of this thread apart from all of Brin's piece, which was far too long for me, and your contribution hit me in the face. If you have a calling, then follow it. After I became ill and had to give up teaching I went on loads of night school classes where I learnt you're never too old to learn and you must never stop learning. You'll be fine.

[Brin]

Go for it. I was one of the so-called clever *******s, IQ off the scale, qualifications as long as your arm including a foreign university and I had no idea what I wanted to be. I drifted into teaching. You know what they say - "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach". I've read all of this thread apart from all of Brin's piece, which was far too long for me, and your contribution hit me in the face. If you have a calling, then follow it. After I became ill and had to give up teaching I went on loads of night school classes where I learnt you're never too old to learn and you must never stop learning. You'll be fine.

South Coast Miller, apologies for the length of my post, my longest ever, but it was something that scarred me as a young t.eenage lad going through school. A total utter awful experience that I had to take from a bullying b.astard. In those days they got away with it.

I trust you are/were a caring teacher.

[wendun]

As G.B. Shaw said only the English working class glorify ignorance. The rest of the world knows the value of education. Lots of people can mine coal or drive a truck but I suspect that medical and technological advances are made by people with degrees. I doubt very much that a cleaning lady was much use in devising the vaccines against covid. You really are a bunch of numpties.

[CTMilller]

This is an interesting thread. So many different paths taken. It just shows there are many routes to fulfilling your potential and being academically gifted is neither a sure-fire route to success or a particular blessing. Interesting to see new dimensions to familiar faces - Scum and Brin being two cases in point.

Having rather dismissed my own education as a contributing factor to any success I had in my career, I can easily make the point that a mixture of a simmering vocation and bloody hard academic training will also pay dividends - in the case of the younger of my two sons.

Luke is now 31 and did well at an international school in Singapore. He went on to the University of Bristol where he got a First in Politics and Sociology. Having done that he realized he'd been going in the wrong direction and needed to be useful to people rather than an academic (He was a little in the mould of Scum in that he'd volunteered as a crisis counselor for the university - and had actually talked somebody down off a bridge, apparently.)

He really wanted to be a doctor and set about becoming one. We were already living in the US by then and he decided qualifying there rather than the UK would make him happier. He had to bridge the gap academically since he had no real basic education in physics, biology, chemistry etc so went to a college in San Francisco (Mills) where he did a two year Post-Bac Pre-med course to make him eligible for medical school. Hard, hard slog for somebody who had leaned towards the Liberal Arts for most of his education.

He took his MCAT exams, did well and was accepted into the Medical School at the University of San Diego. Another four years of intensely hard slog with regular, life defining exams that could knock you back.

in 2018 he qualified as a Doctor and took a four year residency in Obstetrics and Gynacology (OB/GYN) at the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor. This is really only the beginning since you are the lowest of the low and are still learning, learning, learning.

He's now about to start his fourth year residency, has delivered something like 380 babies and performed 120 C sections and countless other surgical procedures. Doing this during the pandemic with patients in the ICU who had the virus was no joke.

He has about $300,000 of debt for his education and currently earns $56,000 a year. (His peers not in the medical profession would be earning three or four times this much.)

After finishing the residency next year, he plans do to a two year Fellowship which will making him a leading name in at-risk pregnancies. More learning and studying - though he will be creating knowledge as much as learning from others.

To me, this is what education is about and what makes it worthwhile.

[Grumpy King of the West]

As G.B. Shaw said only the English working class glorify ignorance. The rest of the world knows the value of education. Lots of people can mine coal or drive a truck but I suspect that medical and technological advances are made by people with degrees. I doubt very much that a cleaning lady was much use in devising the vaccines against covid. You really are a bunch of numpties.

Whoooaaa, hang on wendun. That's not fair mate. Academia is important and is one measure of intelligence. But that's what it is ONE measure of intelligence. There's some right thick sods who simply know how, get taught how, to pass exams. Look at George Osborne by way of example. If he'd gone to Winfield Comp and not Eton, he wouldn't now be a millionaire. Yet he'd have the same brain.

Some of the brightest, most productive, ingenious, WEALTHIEST people I know hardly have a qualification to their name.

You can't teach common sense!

[South Coast Miller]

South Coast Miller, apologies for the length of my post, my longest ever, but it was something that scarred me as a young t.eenage lad going through school. A total utter awful experience that I had to take from a bullying b.astard. In those days they got away with it.

I trust you are/were a caring teacher.

Sorry, Brin, I've made the effort to read your post now (suffer from poor concentration these days) and I must admit that a teacher can influence your path in many ways, intended or otherwise. No point in my apologising for the excuse of a Spanish teacher you had - I never knew the woman - but I'm sure there are some on here who must have fond memories of a particular teacher. Although I guarantee it won't be me.

[Grist_To_The_Mill]

Mine was very much an academic route.

10 O levels, 4 A levels, Chemistry degree and later a Masters Degree in the same subject.

Straight into a job with the MOD after Uni and 15 or so years with them before I left to join industry.

Never had any problem finding work, most of the time work found me because of the specialist skills I had picked up with the MOD

All of my jobs gave me chance to build up a decent pension.

If I had any advice to those starting out into a job either from school or Uni then don’t think you know it all and are the best thing since sliced bread, you aren’t. If offered any form of training course then go on it even though it sounds boring and irrelevant. Knowledge is king.

Be natural in interviews and don’t be scared to say “ I don’t know” rather than waffle. Also if you have them ditch the piercings and cover up the tattoos.