He taught me everything with patience and kindness
When I was about 30, I left a well-paying corporate career to devote all of my time and attention to running a family farm. I had successfully been selling my organic apples for about a year when I thought I really want to start keeping honey bees. I sat down and wrote a letter to my neighbour who kept bees, asking for his help, but by some cosmic wackiness, before I could mail the envelope he pulled into my driveway in his old blue pickup truck. We hit it off immediately and he suggested he keep some bees on my land before I even had the chance. That began a 20-year relationship that has been one of the closest of my life..
He is now 80-years-old and has patiently taught me everything about bees and bee-keeping with such patience and kindness that it still amazes me. His no-nonsense attitude and positive outlook has given me much strength over the years. He is truly what a mentor should be and I am so fortunate to know this magnificent person. I am still learning things from him every day. chickentina
She calmly took back the knife without ever raising her voice
Death threats and arson attacks were all in a day’s work for my mentor. She wasn’t a policewoman or a soldier, just a middle-aged lady in twinset and court shoes. I worked with the formidable Miss K in a family group home, taking care of 13 children aged between 4- and 15-years-old. Miss K provided love and security in spades, but she wasn’t a pushover; she believed in structure and discipline. The first piece of advice she gave me was: “It’s easy enough to make the children like you, but it’s a lot harder to make them respect you.” Another of her maxims was to never turn a child away. As supervisor she could have had difficult children moved on to another establishment if she wanted, but she never did. She believed that love could turn a troubled child’s life around.
She also proved herself capable of demonstrating true grace under pressure. We were on duty together one night when she answered the door, to be confronted by an irate mother wielding a knife and threatening to stab her. I rushed all the children away to safety then hurried back to help, but by that time Miss K had calmed the woman down and confiscated the knife without so much as raising her voice. She taught me that, when emotions are raw, people may become threatening, insulting and aggressive, but you must never rise to it, you have to stay calm and cool and professional.
Whatever the day brought Miss K took it all in her stride. She was a truly inspirational woman. grandeprix
Meeting him was like winning the lottery
When I was 24, I managed to blag my way into a job at Bloomsbury children’s books as one of the three original members of the team. Previously I had taken creative writing as part of my degree but was told by my tutor that I was basically useless and couldn’t write. So I dropped it. Writing was never something I had thought about as a career until one day Barry Cunningham [the editor who published the first Harry Potter book], sat me down and told me I could write – he loved my back-cover blurbs. He encouraged me to write more and when they needed a joke book on the list, he asked me to write it. It was a success – our biggest seller (until Harry Potter!). He treated me with such respect and fondness that I really felt like we were family. I absolutely loved working with him.
Barry gave me the writing bug and I couldn’t ignore the itch. Over the years I wrote books for him at Chicken House and lots of other publishers and more recently, I have adopted a pen name and write for Oxford University Press as Jess Bright. I will never forget Barry telling me I was good at writing and giving me chance to prove it – it was like winning the lottery. Janet Hoggarth
I have an older student to thank for my 20-year career
At 16 I decided I wanted to be a barrister, however I kept hearing how difficult it was to succeed – it was so competitive and the financial rewards so paltry at first, that I decided there was no way I would ever establish myself. Then, in my first week at university I attended a garden party organised by the Law Society. I found myself engaged in a slightly slurred conversation with Kevin, a law student in the final year of his degree. He asked me which branch of the profession I was heading for and I told him of my abandoned ambitions to become a barrister. He immediately challenged me, insisting that if I really wanted to be a barrister I should settle for nothing less. He himself had faced the same quandary and decided to pursue his dream.
I was so impressed by his determination that I reverted to my former ambition. Two years later I attended a criminal set in Manchester for a pupillage interview – I was accepted, and then taken out for a celebratory drink with members of chambers. It was there that I saw Kevin, who quite by chance was a junior member of the same chambers. I told him over a beer of the pivotal role he had played in my career. Twenty-three years later, I am still at the Bar and cannot imagine anything I would rather be doing with my life. I have Kevin to thank for that. Nick Tucker
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