David Goulding

I am mature. That is certain. If not in character then at least in years. However, I only tell my age to very casual, passing acquaintances and not if I expect to have any dealings with them again; and as I hope you will continue with us I will not now divulge that information.

After running a legal practice for a long time I then spent a few years in the murky world of commercial consultancy. As with most jobs novelty turned into routine and excitement into drudgery with a touch of stress thrown in. I thought my mind needed waking up. I therefore looked for possible university courses. My first port of call was the Open University. Please remember that this is purely my own personal account and definitely not a general comment on the institution. History had always been an interest and I had sometimes carried the chip around that I should have done that instead of law anyway. I checked out the subject areas and as Nineteenth Century Europe had been part of my A level studies I plumped for a BA course in exactly that. I actually signed up and started, but I was even less impressed with my tutor’s treatment of my first essay than he was with my work.

I looked again, and this time for a course requiring attendance and social involvement. This may seem strange but I also upped my sights from BA to MA level. In fact I guessed, rightly this time, that the combination of greater depth of study and more freedom to express, would suit me better. I also was lucky enough to find a hybrid course that involved literary and historical interest.

I was not put off by having to write a test essay. After all, having been out of the academic world for so long, I needed to know as much as they did, whether I was still capable. Well, actually, I had not been so completely out of it for as long as it looked at first glance. I’ll whisper this, but some years ago I started a part time MA course in social medieval history. I got through one year reasonably, but I had to pull out half way through. The reasons are very good illustrations of some points made in the article “Questions to Ask Yourself”. I had not made sufficient allowance for the effect of combining a demanding course with running a business; and in particular I had not asked deeply enough about peripheral skills needed to complete the course. I would have realised that having a workable knowledge of scripts in medieval English, French and Latin could only have been obtained by retiring…and then I would not have been able to pay the fees.

Second time my judgment was better, and being an individual consultant was rather more flexible than running a practice. I did get a pre-reading list. I went berserk and bought too many, tried to read and assimilate too many, and spent far too much time struggling with ultra-modern theories. I found out later that even where these were not entirely discredited, dismissed, disliked or ignored they were at best treated as adding another possible dimension to the subject and worthy of discussion. They were not the expressions of the one and only faith.

This article could well be continued but I will end with the first day. I turned up for the first tutorial not having any idea of the make-up of the group. I was genuinely put off by finding that I was one male out of twenty. This merely added to the trauma (over-used word) of starting a new project with new people and being conscious of going back into a world where I expected youth to predominate. I am not sure on reflection whether it made things better or worse, but there was another disaster at the last minute. A commercial transaction that I had control of came apart at the seams half an hour before the tutorial was due to begin. I had to explain to the tutor that I would have to miss the first half hour at least to sort it out. It must have looked as if I were running away. I did join after a while, and, again, it might have appeared that, not being content with being the only man, I wanted to make a dramatic entrance. Nothing was further from the truth. But, perhaps, not completely without precedence, being late helped compensate for a sexual imbalance.

Sometimes things start out so well that they cannot possibly continue in that vein. Well, in my case, from this unpromising beginning things turned out pretty well. I found the course challenging but awakening. I made good friends within the group and found that age, sex and cultures were soon very secondary to the common ground supplied by the demands of the course. All in all it was one the better decisions I have made. I completed the two years and attained a creditable result. I now feel that I can help others choose and cope by using the combination of experiences I have.