Follow That Dream

Linda Powell

Description

This lively memoir by Linda Powell takes us from the swinging 60s to the present day. We hear of her challenges, successes and escapades over this 50-year period and we meet some inspirational people who are doing extraordinary things to improve the lives of others and to create a better world. Their stories deserve to be told. Linda was described by The Times newspaper as "humorous and unassuming" and her story starts in Jamaica, where she worked as a volunteer teacher. From there we travel to Haiti, the United States of America, the East End of London, Eastern Europe, Africa, Central America, India and Cambodia. Her narratives range from humorous and entertaining to moving and heart-wrenching. They weave together to form a personal portrait of a life spent learning from passionate, motivational people. Throughout, we are presented with a clear picture of the political situation of the day and its impact on Linda and those around her.Among her wide range of experiences, we hear about her role as a teacher and headteacher in large secondary schools in London; her voluntary work in Jamaica, South Africa, Ghana and Uganda; her direct action against injustice; and her tangles with the military in a number of countries. This book is a tribute to human-kind, a social history of the time, and an amusing and informative read for all who enjoy travel.All proceeds from the sale of this book will go directly to three charity organisations concerned with empowering girls and women and improving the provision of education in Africa and South East Asia. Details about these organisations are given on the final page of the book.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Memoir

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 novembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800468351
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2020 Linda Powell

The moral right of the author has been asserted.


Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.


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ISBN 978 1800468 351

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.


Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

For Haydn
Contents
Foreword
Introduction
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Little was I to know that 1966 would be the year that would change my life forever!
As an eighteen-year-old in my first week away at Manchester University, I went along to a Geography Society party. There was nothing unusual about such an evening until, by chance, I noticed Linda standing on the other side of the record player. Elvis Presley was playing and this had acted like a magnet to both of us. I was conscious of her presence, but I pretended to be calm, confident and cool. As we looked at each other, I was taken by her lively, sparkling eyes. I held my breath as she leant towards me and lowered her voice to a whisper: “Would you like to go out with my roommate? She isn’t with anyone tonight – and she has a car.”
Several months later, we finally got together and our relationship developed. I soon recognised a challenge that Linda has never conquered: her sense of direction is abysmal. I first realised this when she asked me if my hometown of Birmingham was north or south of Manchester. However, she has never looked back and it is all the more enchanting that she has been the driving force behind most of our travels. Linda has taught me all I know about biology and I have tried to teach her about geography. Such a combination of biology and geography has stood us in good stead, and has enhanced our travels and adventures as we have grown together.
Linda throws herself completely into everything she tackles. The values by which she lives – justice, equality and the importance of education – are fundamental to her very being. Our travels and our learning are always enhanced by her sense of humour and infectious laughter, as well as her innate ability to build trust and empathy with people of all nations and cultures.
Linda’s career in education has been extensive. It has taken her to headships of secondary schools in Waltham Forest, Haringey and Newham. From there she has moved into school inspection, coaching and leadership and management training in the UK and abroad.
An article in The Times newspaper described Linda as “humorous and unassuming”. Her leadership was described by OFSTED as “simply excellent”. These descriptions have pinpoint accuracy, and I would add that she is totally fearless, especially when she is fighting for a cause in which she truly believes. There is one exception to this fearlessness. She turns into a ball of jelly at the sight of an aeroplane, tall building, high mountain or any other great height that she has to ascend. Over the years, and in numerous locations, I have taken pictures from my commanding position at the top of some tall structure. Through a telescopic lens, Linda can be seen as a tiny speck in the distance waving up at me. As you read through the following pages, you will also learn that she has little patience with gun-toting, uniform-wearing men who are twice her size. I will leave you to discover more about this aspect of her character…
In the following pages, Linda recalls the adventures that we have shared over the years. We travel to Jamaica, the East End of London, Africa, India, Cambodia, the United States, Russia and Central America. Her stories describe the challenges we have faced and they paint a vivid picture of the political situations that have formed a backdrop to our work and travel over the last half-century. The main focus of these writings is the joy of meeting, and learning from, enthusiastic, passionate people who support and motivate others. These people are not likely to be recorded in history but, bit by bit, they bring about positive, incremental change in their communities and sphere of influence. This book is a celebration of these people.
As I read and relive our experiences, at times I find myself laughing out loud. Sometimes I am moved to tears. Enjoy, reflect and be inspired to travel with us and meet real people who are out there achieving amazing things.
And, by the way, Linda still has wonderful, sparkling eyes and life continues to be an adventure.

Haydn Powell
Introduction
I have never really had any desire to write a book.
I have always been an avid reader and adore the poetic writing of Maya Angelou and Ali Smith, the raw and understated emotion of Tara Westover, the detailed characters and visual images of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, and the vivid sense of place and history of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. There are books that are as real and vital as they were when I read them years ago. There are books that changed my whole perspective on life. There are books that made me read the final pages as slowly as possible, because I didn’t want them to end, and when I finally closed the book, I was in a state of satisfied bereavement. I love the feel of a book, the smell of a book and even that musty aroma that rises up from dust-laden books in ancient bookshops.
However, my writing has always consisted of such things as scientific reports, lesson plans, schemes of learning, evaluations, inspection reports, training materials for educationalists and so on. I believe that the last writing I did about anything that could be called vaguely creative was my English examination in 1964 when I had to write about a view from a high hill, and my English literature exam when I had to analyse the meeting between Elizabeth Bennett and Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice .
Then, a couple of summers ago, I was sprawled across a camping chair in the South of France, having completed a long, hot cycle ride. I was somewhere in that warm, friendly space between daydreaming and unconsciousness, and I found myself thinking about people from the past – some I worked closely with and some I got to know briefly on my travels.
Suddenly and unexpectedly, I felt the need to write about them and about their influence on me. I set up the laptop on a very dodgy, unstable camping table and started to type. And I just carried on typing. This was something I had never done before. I was still typing as it became darker. I was still typing as the background chatter and sounds of plastic cutlery on plastic plates gradually subsided and the smell of one-pot casseroles slowly diffused into the languid summer air.
I carried on typing until a cloud of moths and other flying insects shrouded the small camping light at my shoulder, the laptop and my whole body, and I could see very little of what I was writing. I didn’t exactly have a room of my own, as advised by Virginia Woolf, but I felt as if I had the whole campsite to myself.
As I snuggled down into my sleeping bag sometime in the early hours, I felt as if some great mutation had occurred in my brain and I wasn’t quite sure who I really was. But, I felt excited and wanted to write more. On reflection, I definitely didn’t make any conscious decision to start writing. Writing inexplicably came to me.
I felt encouraged when I later read George Orwell’s account of why people write, including: an enthusiasm for the beauty of words or the beauty of the world; the desire to share invaluable experiences; the historical impulse of searching for truth and preserving it; and the political purpose of promoting the kind of society that we should strive for. I can closely identify with all these reasons.
An important step for me was learning to backtrack through all those neural connections and re-engage with the floating islands of memory and the people and events that have had such an impact on me. I have enjoyed re-sorting and re-ordering my disorganised pile of mental snapshots, occasionally unearthing a little gem of a memory that I didn’t know existed.
I have tried to honestly sort out these memories and disregard what I have learned since. I have been aided in this task by the diaries produced by my husband, Haydn. He has written a diary every single day of his life since the age of fourteen and we have shared nearly all the experiences recounted in this book. At this point, my guilty conscience rises up. I really should not have teased him about his diary-writing over the years. His diaries have been invaluable in checking out facts, times, dates and places – and in re-living our shared experiences. (He is the “we” and “us” in the writing that follows.)
Over time, I discovered I love the process of writing. In fact, once I start writing I find that I stop noticing what’s going on around me. I forget everything that is not part of what I am writing and I surround myself with an invisible, isolating screen.
I admit that I am very self-conscious about my writing and it has taken a lot of