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What Did You Want To Be

I always wanted to be a nurse .but my dreams were shattered when i was told to leave school at 15 "and start earning some money to put in the house keeping " you did as you were told in those days .so i ended up working in an office .boring or what but i did meet my best friend and dance partner there .after i was married i worked part time in hospitals as an auxilary nurse so i got halfway there ...
 
I was nine when the war started, and seeing everyone in uniform and so on, I just wanted to get in the army, I joined the Army Cadets at Cateswell House.When I was 14 I got all the papers to join up, and my Dad, he was wounded three times in the Great War, wouldnt sign them, so I had to wait until I was seventeen and a half when
I signed on for 5+7 in the Coldstream Guards, Bernard
 
I didn’t want to be anything in particular, I just wanted to be old enough to get a job and earn enough money to get myself out of the poverty we lived in. Well said Phil ... I never really thought about what i wanted to be ..left school at 14 ..Had to wait a month till I was 15 to start work .... had a twenty second interview with a careers officer and was told you can work for the G.P.O ..or do shop work

 
I never had any real ambitions - when my friends wanted to be train drivers, I wanted to be a bus driver - which I did later! When the time came to choose a real career, I opted for an electrical apprenticeship at the Metro-Cammell, Washwood Heath, but hated factory life.
I haven't had a high-flying career but I've enjoyed what I have done (in the main), the money isn't everything I believe. Poor but happy has been my byword.
 
lloyd
I feel that if a man can truly say that he has had a happy and contented life what matters ambition, or great wealth, I have known some dreadfuly unhappy people who had wealth and some unambitious (my Dad) who were very contented and happy. I have been amazed at your skill with photographs.
paul
 
After i got over the fact i couldn't be Calamity Jane,i wanted to be a hairdresser,i couldn't do that,health reasons, so i mostly done shop work/office work,until i had my son then i done the most important job you can do i became a full time parent
 
I have truly enjoyed my life as a driver starting on small van, private hire, intermingled with door work and other things, then on to HGV, Midland Red, WMPTE, finally Hackney Carriage. The chnges were due to an arthritic condition that got worse as I grew older. I must have had bad days at work but I do not recall them as bad. I believe someone famous once said that happiness brings success more often than success brings happiness.
 
I couldn't wit to leave school - worked in offices (boring) - I wanted to move to London - it seemed exciting in the late 1950's. I wanted to be like Doris Day instead I got married at 19 and had my first child at 20. It wasn't until I was in my 30's that I realised that I was actually quite ambitious. But life didn't quite work out to fulfil that. But I have a lovely family for which I am grateful.
Sheri
 
Well I always wanted to be an engine driver. Not in the superficial, imaginative way of fellow schoolboys, but in the “it’s in my blood” tradition which had developed on both sides of my family. My maternal grandfather, Harry Worthington, took the “Cambrian Coast Express” between Aberystwyth and Shrewsbury for many years. His train was headed by a sparkling, lightweight, Collett-designed, 78** Manor Class locomotive.
My great grandfather on my father’s side, James, lived in Llandinam, in central Wales. With the completion of the Machynlleth-Aberystwyth railway line in 1864, together with his brother, Edward, he moved to Aberystwyth. On 22nd July of that year, he brought the very first train into the newly opened Aberystwyth station. db84124
 
My secondary school in Shrewsbury overlooked the rail line along which the Cambrian Coast Express ran.Even in the last days of steam The Manors and Halls looked much better kept than the local Black Fives and Ivatts. The class rooms overlooked farmland and off to the welsh hillsides.Now its surrouned by buildings.
In the 60s secondary mod. kids were fodder for the factories, shops and lowgrade office jobs. Most parents wanted you out of school and into a job asap. Many of my contempories however bucked the trend by joining the Forces,getting further education and better jobs as a result. A chief Inspector of Police, University Lecturer in Aeronautics, two Chief Engineers on Criuse Liners and one practioner of holistic remedies ( just dont ask ! ).A few went into teaching and social work attaining positions of distinction. Some of the girls who " had to leave early" went on to get degrees and good jobs. Not a bad effort allround. OH ! then there is me after the Police force screwed up my nerves I spent thirty years in a factory. So much for early dreams of joining the RAF.
 

As a kid in the 1950's my big passion was aircraft and my N° 1 ambition was to be a pilot in the RAF.

At the age of 13 I joined the ATC (Air Training Corps), 492 Squadron based at Hall Green and a year later I was given a 3 day scrutiny at RAF Halton where I was found suitable to start in the RAF as an apprentice instrument fitter. That was the best day of my life and I was sent home to Brum with a load of papers for my mother to sign. Mom did her nut refusing to sign saying that I'd have to leave school straight away and start working to bring in some money for my upkeep.

Now I knew that my mom hated anything to do with the military but it was only years later that I realized just how painful it would have been for her to see me in uniform. She had after all lost her dad in WWI, he was with the King's Royal Rifle Corps and her husband in WWII, Royal Tank Regiment, and he was killed at the battle of El Alamein. But to this day I can't forgive my mom for not letting my join the RAF thus forcing me to become one of those "factory fodder kids" that Arkrite mentions above.

So then I had to turn my sights to my N° 2 ambition, to become a professional racing cyclist. The rest is as they say history. I was cycling world road race champion in 1967 and turned professional for a French cycling team but I would have gladly traded my world cycling title in for a career with the RAF. I guess maybe my mom was worried that I too would die in some senseless military conflict, but I'd have preferred living my N° 1 dream to dying of old age!

Graham.
 
I can remember all the kids in class being asked this at the age of 7. I proudly said I wanted to be a spaceman, and wondered why everybody laughed. There were no such things as astronauts then and I guess people didn't think there was much chance of anybody going into space.

I think I was born before my time. If I was 7 now, could probably say I wanted to be an astronaut, and nobody would think it too fanciful. In fact if I was to say it at age 15, they would probably get a careers' guidance teacher to tell me what i needed to do if I wanted to pursue that career.

Anyway, the nearest I got to being a 'spaceman' was always having my head in the clouds.
 
Obviously very ahead of your time Blacksmith. When you did see an astronaut did they look how you imagined they would?
polly
 
All I ever wanted to be was a wife and mother. As a child playing with my sister we always pretended to be grown up, I had a little girl called Cindy and a boxer dog. I intended to be a shorthand typist to fill the gap leaving school to getting married. I did work in an office, I got married at 22, left work to have my first son at 23. My best friend now is Cindy and my son and his wife have had 2 boxer dogs. So I did most of what I wanted to do with my life. I had 3 sons, and now I have 3 grandaughters.
 
Blacksmith said:
What a wonderful set of coincidences, pamhol. Isn't it strange how things turn out.
Click to expand...
life is certainly wonderfully weired. Not all the years have been happy, like everyonbe else I have had my share of problems, but on the whole good, and as you say, lots of wonderful coincidences.
 
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