The Freedom Years

After completing all the necessary application procedures, including an aptitude test which surprisingly identified a hidden talent for technical things, my plan to join up as a MT Driver (because I would get to take my driving test)went out the window when the Chief Petty Officer decided the WRNS needed me as an Aircraft Engineering Mechanic - or WAEM as we were known. Have to admit it had a lovely ring to it when I went home to tell my parents and friends what I was going to be doing. "Hello, what do you do for a living?" "Oh I'm a Naval Aircraft Engineering Mechanic" See what I mean? Especially when you're a seventeen year old blonde girl! Then it all went pear shaped. I received a letter telling me I had passed the recruitment process for WAEM but unfortunately there were no places available at present and if in 6 months time I still wished to continue then I should contact the careers office. My world crashed. I was terribly disappointed. I'd expect...

The trouble with school is that you never fully appreciate it until you no longer have it. It was around this time that I realised I probably wasted a good few years of valuable time and education looking out of windows at the playing fields, thinking about boys and having fun with my friends. "Easily distracted" and "Doesn't realise her potential" were words frequently written on my reports. Oh well, what to do now? The option of going to art college was fading as another idea formed. No matter that I had spent the last two years building a portfolio of artwork, the new idea seemed much more exciting. It all started in the last few weeks before study leave. I found myself in the 'careers corner'. Definitely a corner, and also under the stairs to the first floor. Not exactly a place I'd spent much time, as I thought I knew where my future lay. To this day I do not know why I picked it up, it was one of those times when a book leaps out at you. 'R...