FIRST PERSON: Usk ex-headteacher Peter McGowan

My first job was with 3M in central London where I became the administrator for one of their major product lines – Microfilm Systems for commercial use.

I became very interested in microfilm and its applications and persuaded the national sales manager to let me sell the product. So at 21, I became their youngest ever salesman of these very expensive and sophisticated systems. I met Julie around the same time and soon we became engaged and set the wedding date to coincide with the end of Julie’s nursing course.

I was now earning a lot of money but felt there was more to life than that and, five months before our wedding, decided to go to university to become a teacher. So I gave up my well-paid job and company car and started a teaching degree in Durham, two months before our wedding. I became a kept man with Julie working as a nurse and then as a health visitor.

Four years later, my first teaching job was as an English teacher in a large boy’s comprehensive in Chichester, Sussex. We moved to a house right on the coast in Selsey which is quite a way from Durham, where we had our first child, Daniel. However, I really disliked the school and was very despondent because I had changed my career to go into teaching and it was not turning out to be what I was hoping it would be.

Through chance, I got another job teaching English at an independent school in Surrey. It had 300 pupils, many of whom were borders, and was part of the group that includes Gordonstoun where Prince Charles was a pupil. Julie and I lived on the grounds and we had our second child, Catherine, whilst there.

The school ran a whole series of formal activities that all pupils had to attend after school. At the end of my first year I was promoted to Head of Sixth Form and Director of Activities and became a member of the Senior Management Team.

After four years at the school, I became, aged 32, Principal of an independent school in Lincolnshire. It was during this time that Julie gave birth to our third child, Robert.

I did a huge amount to improve the school, numbers went up dramatically, exam pass rates improved and I introduced a sixth form. However, there were problems outside my control and, having done all I could, I left to take up a headship on the Hertfordshire/Essex border where Julie gave birth to our fourth child, Elizabeth.

It was a very challenging role – difficult parents and an out-of-touch board of governors. After the usual four years we considered leaving, which included thinking about our lifestyle, with four children under the age of nine and each born in a different part of England. After considerable deliberation, we decided that we would choose where we lived and that I would pick another career if I couldn’t continue in education. As Julie had been born and raised in Blaenavon and we both liked South Wales, we chose to move to this area and settled on Usk, where we have been for the past 23 years.

Once again, I gave up a well-paid job with a company house, resigning before I had anything else to go to, as I had to give two full terms’ notice.

In April I happened to see an ad by a large international consultancy looking for people who had senior management experience in education. The company focuses on executive level recruitment and senior level development, including coaching and team development. Having applied successfully, I was ironically based in their London office and so commuted weekly for nearly two years. I became involved in a huge number of companies and projects, including the recruitment, on both sides of the Channel, of everyone for the fledgling Euro Tunnel company.

After a couple of years I had enough experience to be able to re-open the company’s Bristol office and thus became Regional Director for the South West and Wales. I worked across Europe as well as the UK and built up a team in Bristol.

However, as time went on I was having to spend a lot of time in London dealing with large clients on large projects and got fed up with the travelling and being away from home. In 2004 I therefore decided to set up my own company and have been running it ever since.

As a consultant I help businesses improve their performance by helping key individuals/teams to improve theirs. This means that I work closely with the company and have to understand its business, culture, demands and challenges and then I have to understand the individuals, which is now a core expertise. The coaching that I do varies enormously but usually means meeting someone for two to three hours every few weeks and going through what they are doing in their job and working out with them how they can do it differently. I also work with management teams and I help clients to make important selection decisions.

I’ve never got up in the morning thinking I’ve cracked this. It’s always a challenge.

Aside from this, I spent 18 months as the Vocational Skills Champion for Wales, reporting directly to Jane Davidson, the-then Minister for Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills. The aim of the role was to raise the standing and up-take of vocationally based education, which I am particularly passionate about. I was on the committee for MENCAP Cymru for a number of years; I currently sit on the International Advisory Panel for Cardiff Business School; and I am the Chair of Judges for the Institute of Directors Wales, Director of the Year Awards.

In Usk, Julie and I have been heavily involved in amateur dramatics at the Memorial Hall for 20 years. The hall had fallen into disrepair so a group was formed to raise funds to repair it. One of the ways they did this was to put on shows. Julie was a writer for the Argus grassroots column and I went along with her to the hall when she reported on a variety show being performed.

Julie has always been involved in drama and, as an English teacher, I had been involved in school productions. We volunteered to join the cast for their second pantomime – Cinderella. At the first rehearsal, the producers, Ann and Alan Wilkinson, asked us to take over ‘temporarily’ since the director/musical director had had to pull out. That ‘temporarily’ had lasted more than 20 years.

After the first show and from previous experience, we realised that we didn’t like conventional pantomime so Julie, being a writer, suggested writing our own and that has what has happened ever since. Anne, Alan, Julie and I get together each year to talk about what ideas we have .We usually take a conventional panto and turn it on its head, working out the main plot and characters and then Julie writes it. We both act in them while Julie also looks after the music and I direct. Catherine, our daughter, is a really good choreographer and dancer so she now takes charge of the dance routines.

We now do the panto for three nights each year and every other spring do a one-night, variety type of show that features songs, dance routines and sketches. Around 650 people come to see the panto each year and it’s great fun. We’ve got great people looking after the props, costumes, lighting and backing tracks and it works brilliantly.

There are so many highlights. Every year the audience says it is the best one ever and we are virtually sold out each night. Our productions have included Beauty Is a Beast, Princess (a version of Sleeping Beauty) and A Tale of One Kitty (a version of Dick Whittington).

Luckily, we’ve never had a real problem on any of our performances. Rehearsals are tricky for me as I combine acting with directing and I am usually the last one to learn my lines. The closer we get to the performance the more I need to be on stage rather than watching. It’s the same for Julie doing the music. But, because we have a very steady cast of people they know what to do. Twenty years on and we are still enjoying it.

I find a lot of what I do professionally rubs shoulders with what I do as director. A lot of the coaching I do with senior people is around effective communication, which includes body language in its various forms, intonation, speed, and clarity – just like acting.

By the time we get to the performance we are always apprehensive – has everyone got the props they need, will we all remember our lines? We are only an amateur group but we try and behave as professionally as we can.

I really enjoy all aspects of it and it gives me a chance to be really silly, which is something I certainly can’t do professionally. I have been a cat, a fairy dressed in a pink tutu and hobnail boots, Skeletor and even Adolf Hitler.

Through fundraising, match-funding and profits from people using the hall, we have spent over £200,000 on extensions and refurbishments and it is now a real centre of Usk life.