another blog in the wall....THE SUNDAY ITEMS: # 20 WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?

The 1950s were rather drab, to start with. Everything was still rationed so people were simply rather hungry, and poorly-dressed, mostly from parents’ or cousins’ cast-offs. And everywhere was grey or black-and-white, colour not arriving till the 1960s. To add insult to injury, the electorate had punished the Labour Government for introducing the National Health Service, the Welfare State and much else besides by kicking them out. We were now ruled again by the usual crew of nicotine-stained, dandruff-strewn old Tory grandees with their clubs, call-girls and comfortable cars. A Land Fit for Heroes, indeed.

Things started to change with the advent of family car ownership. People began to drive around, particularly on a Sunday, and go visiting. There was a snag in this: for the last fifteen years people had only talked about The War, understandably, but in the process they had lost the art of conversation, if they had ever had it. Many a time I can remember a strained atmosphere that arrived with the visitors, when the only sound was the chink of tea-cups punctuated by some tentative enquiry about some more Victoria Sponge. My mother’s cakes and flans were legendary and may have been the main reason for the visit.

At this point I would wait for the inevitable, all the while considering my options; sure enough, it would come, my mind-numbing appearance in the spotlight:

“Now young David, what are you going to be when you grow up?” said in a kindly voice, which would have changed rapidly had he known what I wanted to do with the cake-knife and his trousers. I would go through the motions of thinking about the question, as though it had caught me in the middle of a raging debate within my mind. In reality I knew there
were only three viable answers – not things I actually wanted to be, you understand, but things which would be acceptable to the adults, while finishing and burying the topic so deeply that two JCBs and the CrossRail boring machine would never excavate them again. Why not give him all three and kill the topic for once and for all?

“Well, sir, I have thought about being an engine driver. I am a devoted fan of Thomas the Tank Engine and other books of the Rev. Awdry and I play with my Hornby double-0 train set at every opportunity. But I must say I do have a reservation. It seems to me that a real driver is very vulnerable and any head-on crash will result in him being mashed up into a bloody pulp. Sorry, I got carried away”.

“My second choice would be an Astronaut, which haven’t been invented yet but I’m sure they will soon. Apparently, it will cost a great deal of money to train and equip them so I would be happy with the much cheaper economy version, to be called the Asdanaut, I gather. This follows from my keen interest in the adventures of Dan Dare and The Mekon in Eagle comic and some science fiction books I found under my parents’ bed. I don’t think I was supposed to read them, particularly the one called Twin Peaks on Venus, with the pictures of ladies who must have been a bit chilly.”

“Finally, there is the possibility that I could follow my father into his business. The name Milner & Son displayed over a chain of chemist’s shops in North London, would make us all very proud, continue the family tradition in pharmacy and look after us all should anything ever happen to him. So it would be a sensible choice, were it not for the fact that I have no interest whatsoever in disposable nappies, sanitary napkins, shampoo, hair products, cough lozenges, creams for athlete’s foot, piles or eczema or indeed anything I can think of that a chemist shop sells. Sorry.” Though now I remember his own-brand cough mixture, Corbrosan, one of whose ingredients was abbreviated to ‘Morph’. I liked that.

Now it would be different: today’s child, confronted with the age-old question, could simply snap ‘Priest’ or ‘Disc-jockey’ and the curtain would instantly fall on the show.

Through my teens I dispatched any number of occupations as I started to think seriously about what I might actually do with my life. There was a brief flirtation with architecture, principally because a careers strip in The Eagle said they could earn over £1000 a year which seemed like riches at the time. Being a Footballer soon got kicked into touch (little knowing that a glittering amateur career awaited me: see FESS); Rock Star took a little longer to be jeered off the stage.

Weirdly, around 15 there was a renaissance of Pharmacist. I think it was because I had worked very hard and just done really well in Chemistry and come 2nd in the class. It didn’t last: one look through the British Pharmaceutical Society publicity leaflet did for it: the College it depicted had nasty 50s modernist buildings, with nothing happening of any interest except a collection of supposedly interesting and attractive students standing around a Bunsen burner simply looking at it. The word ‘nerd’ hadn’t been invented then but it’s quite likely that this lot gave someone the idea.

Then I had the idea of medicine (very popular at home). I chose science A-levels but halfway through became profoundly allergic to Chemistry and Physics in particular – and very depressed when I realised that I had to succeed in these awful subjects in order to get to university and change direction. And I began to be distracted by politics and by a girl, though not necessarily in that order. I still went to the medical school interviews I had scheduled, for the experience. The problem was that there was just a tiny possibility that I might get in: then I’d have to lie to everyone while covertly turning it down.

My father unwittingly handed me the answer in absolutely forbidding me to wear my CND badge, but I left the house with it in my pocket rather than on my lapel. It was clear that every member of each interview panel noticed it, possibly because I had chosen one that was nearer the size of a small dinner plate than your average badge. It was remarked on frequently and I made intelligent comments verging on the impertinent but straight-faced, about how the NHS might be a little overstretched in the event of a nuclear holocaust and I’d like to be able to help out. I had already firmly decided against medicine (a decision I’ve sometimes regretted) but any lingering doubts would have been settled by the array of reactionary old buffers who interviewed me. A bit like a Tory constituency candidate selection panel though a bit further to the Right. One of them had blood pressure that was off the scale, or at least he did when I answered his question about my CND badge. Another seemed to be trying to escape any more of my ‘communist propaganda’ by inducing some kind of seizure. I noticed that none of his colleagues went to his assistance, working on the ‘Physician, heal thyself’ principle, I suppose. I’ve never felt more comforted by rejection letters than the inevitable ones that came, all together, and – believe it or not - landed on the doormat in the unmistakeable configuration of a swastika. Having said that, our postman at the time was as struggling part-time magician by the name of Daniels.

As I had been getting political, social sciences loomed up as my alternative career direction. I got some books out of the library, and fell asleep over the Sociology texts. I took this to be a sign from the Great Careers Advisor in the Sky. A skim through the Psychology book told me that it was 100 times more interesting than Physics, or indeed Sociology. So that’s what I applied for through UCCA (combined with Economics – heavily counselled by my father, so I’d be able to get a job). There were few Universities which offered this combination then, but Cardiff did, and after interview, they wanted me for a sunbeam. Within a term of University, Economics joined Chemistry and Physics, in the bin. Who was it called economics ‘the dismal science’? Whoever it was, he or she was a Grand Master of understatement. So I became a single honours Psychology student and for the first time, became genuinely happy with my studies, and – no coincidence – did very well in the Year I exams. The perennial question had been answered: clearly, I was going to be a Psychologist. The rest, as Freud might have remarked, is hysteria.

As you may know, I have been hired as a creative consultant to a Senior Citizens’ fashion house (‘Mushroom is the New Black, Inc.’) at a salary of £40k p.a. As I don’t know shit about the job and have terrible taste in clothes myself, I’ve hired an advisor, for £5k per year. Thus I have all the stress of sitting on my arse doing nothing for £35k a year. So I really can’t criticise SamCam for following my lead into fashion consultancy recently, because the principle she has followed is the same. I wonder how well-qualified she is for this role though? I must have missed her at the shows and can't recall her photoshoot in Vogue. The only slight differences with my role are that you have to multiply her figures by a factor of 10 (i.e £ 400k!), her consultant is being paid from the public purse, and her family’s net worth is estimated at £40million. And her job/advisor are real whereas mine are not. The gravy train rolls on.