Describe one positive change you have made in your life.
I have to admit that the positive thinking of the title is very much comparative! As people who know me will attest, the idea of me and positivity really doesn’t go together. I have generally got a negative view of human nature, a negative view of my own abilities and achievements and a negative view of the ebbs and flows of life. It comes from an upbringing where inside and outside the house negativity was the default setting. Over the last few years this had got worse and when I decided that I was going to finish full time work I realised that this had to change. I couldn’t go into a completely new stage of life expecting things to get worse. That would defeat the whole object of the early semi-retirement because I would have been subjecting myself to a narrowed approach to life which would have ended up making me miserable. So, I decided to look for new things to do, new approaches to take and new skills to develop. Am I finding each day a new and wonderful experience? No, I am not 😂😂! Am I looking forward to the future with more optimism? Generally yes. I have given regular updates on life after full time work on this blog and the reflection on my month just gone has been very useful in pinpointing areas that are improving and those that still need to improve. I am a work in progress and I always will be, but I feel like that progress is better now than it has been for many years in terms of my attitude to life.
That was the long answer. The short answer is that the most positive change I ever made was to marry Janet 35 years ago. Everything good in my life has come from that decision and I will never stop being grateful even if I don’t always express it in my approach to life!
What’s the most fun way to exercise?
When I was a child, going out for a bike ride was the most fun way of exercising. It got you out with your friends. As a younger teenager, hiking was the most fun. I could leave my problems at school behind and just enjoy the countryside. As a 19 year old going for a run was the most fun. I could see progress very quickly and I really enjoyed getting up, getting my tracksuit on and challenging myself. By the time I joined the RAF I was in fantastic condition, fitness wise although I had no muscles 🤣🤣. When I was in my twenties, it was badminton which Janet and I played at Adult Education classes, back in the days when councils could afford those things and central government wasn’t trying to make our lives as narrow and miserable as possible. In my thirties I rediscovered cycling in Japan and loved being in a country that made it safe and enjoyable. I got back to the UK and that was the end of that! In my late forties I was at St George’s University and they had a gym that I used regularly for three years. Then the centre was closed down with hardly any warning and weights, rowing machines and treadmills disappeared from my life. Now, in my sixties I am using dumbbells and yoga to repair the effect of working in London and neglecting my fitness. It is having a significant impact already and as with my running all those years ago I do it in the morning and it’s a great start to the day. Actually, truth be told, it’s not as soon as I get out of bed but it’s definitely before I have breakfast!
What book could you read over and over again?
I have a number of books that I can happily return to, however many times I read them. In this short post I will share my top choices and briefly explain why.
A Christmas Carol – My favourite ever book and one I try to reread every Christmas. No other book encapsulates my favourite time of year better.
A Week in December – A state of the nation novel by Sebastian Faulks that seems to become more relevant every year. I read it as a precursor to my Christmas books every year and have done since it was published.
To Serve Them All My Days – A book I wrote about yesterday. It informed the type of teacher I wanted to become and, although I know every twist and turn of the story, it still makes me feel emotional and lifts my spirits.
The History Man – A satire by Malcolm Bradbury featuring Howard Kirk, a self serving and unpleasant sociology professor who demands personal loyalty from all around him whilst showing none himself. I first read this during my A Level English and my viewpoint about the characters changes at each stage of my life.
The Chronicles of Narnia – Mainly, it must be said, the first two, The Magician’s Nephew and The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe. They are marvellous comfort reads that take me right back to my childhood and I can’t wait to see the new Greta Gerwig film later this year.
Merry Christmas Sleepover Club – This was a book I read to my children every year and it holds precious memories of the joy of sharing books. I have my own copy now and I read it every year to remind me of some of my favourite times of being a parent.
Happy rereading everyone!
A true story from this morning in verse form. Thank you to all the artists mentioned for making me feel better.
Waking up this morning
A bad mood hung about
For everything annoyed me
I was truly wrong side out
I was anxious, I was angry
And frustrated with my mind
What could I do to change things?
What might help me unwind?
I did some music challenges
I just went through the motions
Then the songs began to work
Upon my mood like lotions
It started with Marc Almond
Then Welsh firebrands The Alarm
Then Toni Basil Ringo Starr
Those songs worked like a charm
I rediscovered Karmaa
With her passion and her power
Then I shifted on to Cats in Space
My good mood starts to flower
There's magic in the music
It works upon your mind
It had its usual impact
I had left my mood behind
The next time you are feeling low
And you want an end to gloom
Give music therapy a go
You'll see your good mood bloom
If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why?
One of my favourite books is To Serve Them All My Days by R. F. Delderfield. It is about a young man called David Powlett-Jones from a small mining community in Wales. After being injured in the First World War he is offered a post at a small public school in Devon called Bamfylde. The novel then follows his life over the next twenty years or so through happiness, tragedy, triumph and disaster. It is an incredible piece of writing that I first found as a teenager. It was the first long novel I ever read and I was completely lost in it for days on end. When I had read it for the first time I thought, quite hypothetically, that if I ever became a teacher I wanted to be like him, charismatic, caring, humorous and wise. At that point I had no hope of becoming a teacher. I was struggling at school with the bullying of 90% of the students and at least half of the teachers, and the last thing I wanted to do was go back to that as a career.
Well, life has a funny way of working out and I ended up back in the classroom but at the front of the class. I tried to model myself on David Powlett-Jones with all of his positive qualities and his chatty style in class. Real life being what it is, I fell a long way short, but I am certain that I became a better teacher because of that book and that character. So, not only did I want to become a character in a book, to all intents and purposes I did.
David Pearce - Popular Culture and Personal Passions 