I am a nurse. How I became one is a long story. The sort of story that needs a campfire, a few tankards of ale and a duck on a spit revolving over a fire. I haven’t got them to hand at the moment as they are all out of campfire’s at Asda (though I have the ale and the ‘duck on a spit’ – buy one get one free), so I’ll tell you anyway.

Cast your mind back to 2001. Just seven years ago. The Berlin Wall had been knocked down and Hitler was still dead. Scientists in Iceland had discovered that it was too cold and were asking to be relocated to Florida, and the Madagascan Lemur was discovered in Madagascar.

At the time I was working in a clock shop. It wasn’t a jewellers. It was a clock shop. I would repair all sorts of time pieces - grandfather clocks, pocket watches, digital clock radios and just about everything really. I was sat at my desk one morning when my manager came in.
“What time do you call this?” he said, pointing at his watch.
I looked at it. “Is it broke?” I asked.
“It’s nine forty-five. You were due in at nine.”
I waved my hand at the two hundred assorted clocks and watches in front of me, and raised an eyebrow.
“Well according to all these it’s either midnight or just before two o’clock BC” I said.

That afternoon I was in the job centre. I hadn’t been in a job centre since the mid eighties and a lot had changed.
There were jobs, for a start.
I walked up and down the aisles. It was funny how they had categorised them. There were fifteen job cards underneath the ‘Retail’ section but only two under ‘NASA’ and as both of them involved going into space and I hadn’t passed my driving test yet, I skipped over those.
I came to the ‘Medical & Healthcare’ section and looked through the adverts. These looked interesting…

Four days later I was sitting in a small room facing three hospital managers. I answered all the questions with ease, especially the one about “Would you like biscuits with your tea” and I think I impressed them with my height and my encyclopaedic knowledge of other tall people.
“John Cleese, Peter Cook, Stephen Fry, Graham Chapman and Douglas Adams were all over six foot too as well, you know”
“That’s interesting,” they said. “Tell me, how would you deal with the following scenario. You walk into a communal room and two patients are on the floor fighting.”
“Easy,” I began. “I’ve dealt with this before. I’d erect a fence around them and put a kiosk at the door. I wouldn’t charge much to get in. Two pounds fifty.”
I noticed by the way they were looking at me that I had given the wrong answer.
“One pound fifty?” I suggested hopefully.

And so here I am, seven years later, caring for people with mental health problems. It’s a good job and I enjoy it, but maybe in a few years when I have saved up a bit, I may open up my own clock shop. I’ll call it ‘Time For A Repair’ or ‘Saving Time’.


Or ‘Uncle Fester’s Naked Goldfish Emporium’

Something like that.