When I started with British Aerospace in 1986, I actually took a drop in pay, seeing this as a necessary sacrifice to start my new career, and move away from the uncertainty at Royal Ordnance. I had worked there for eleven years, but I felt that the opportunities at British Aerospace were greater. Within five months of joining British Aerospace, however, the company had bought Royal Ordnance, which was disappointing to me since I had lost my continuous pensionable service. I was still on a good British Aerospace final salary pension, but this was inferior to the Royal Ordnance one I had left. The anticipated opportunities turned out to be true, because within two years, I had received a promotion which took me above my former Royal Ordnance pay. Less than a year later, another promotion was in the bag, and in October 1990, I was promoted once more. Things were looking great, and the world was my oyster. And then things slowed down.
After Geraldine and I lost our baby in 1991, I realised what was important in life, and, looking back, it was clear that I began to focus on home life more than work, and the cycle of promotions abruptly stopped. I can’t remember doing anything differently at work, but once the children were born, I certainly spent less time there as I fitted in collecting children from the childminders, nursery and school. I remained at the same grade for almost 18 years, although I did pick up more responsible jobs over that time.
One additional role that I took was to recruit and manage graduates for my part of the organisation, and I enjoyed this. Later, when working with Sharon, she suggested that we should take on apprentices into the Project Management function. This was something that no-one in PM had done before, although we had always employed graduates. The idea to convert some technical apprentices to work in project management was a novel way of recruiting young talent to the function and since Sharon had the right contacts in the training school, we started four PM apprentices in 2006.
Simultaneously, in another part of the business, some colleagues were hatching a similar but more ambitious plan to directly recruit a number of trainees to become project controllers to address a notorious skill shortage in that area. In early 2007, I heard about the Project Control Foundation Scheme (PCFS), and told my boss that we should get in on the act and recruit similar trainees ourselves. I spoke to the director running this new scheme and asked whether our part of the business could take some of the 20 trainees that he was recruiting, but was told firmly ‘No, you can recruit your own’. So we agreed that we would recruit five new starters and he would still recruit his original twenty, although they would both be managed in the same way. By September, we had identified 23 school leavers who had good A-levels, and we subsequently put them through a series of five annual job placements, whilst sending them to Blackpool and the Fylde College on day release to study for an honours degree in Project Management.
I was still committed to taking on a further four technical apprentices that September, but we stopped any further recruitment from that source, concentrating now on the PCFS. By 2009, the two divisions of the business had merged, so that the PCFS became a single scheme, and Sharon and I were becoming very closely involved with it, especially the recruitment and induction and in guiding its future direction. In 2011, we found ourselves effectively running the scheme and managing everything from recruitment, dealing with the college and finding placements for the seventy-odd students. Sharon suggested that we should hold a completion ceremony for the 2007 intake as they completed the scheme, and between us, we made this happen. This became the pattern of things to come; Sharon would have the good ideas, we’d discuss the practicalities, and then, as a team, we would put things into place, often seeking forgiveness afterwards rather than permission beforehand.
In 2013, during a re-organisation, my boss moved to another area, leaving me alone to run the PCFS, which by now had become a formal apprenticeship. The move to become an apprenticeship had happened in 2012 and was done to offset the huge rise in tuition fees imposed by the government. We hoped to claw back some of the additional money we were paying the college for university fees through claiming apprenticeship funding. We successfully claimed the funds, but the increase in administrative workload to deliver and effectively govern the scheme to the satisfaction of the auditing bodies was so great that it cost us far more than we were receiving in funding. By now, we were stuck, since there was no way back, so we organised ourselves to meet all the governance requirements including always being prepared for a possible audit inspection by Ofsted or similar. Gradually, more and more of our time was required to manage the scheme which by then was taking on twenty apprentices per year. In 2015, following another re-organisation, I was appointed Early Careers Manager, responsible for the PM apprentice and graduate schemes. I loved the work and the responsibility, and would often work 45 hours a week and regularly take my laptop and work unpaid from home.
Each year that passed, brought on more responsibilities and, un-noticed by me, more stress. During the summer of 2016, I realised that I was no longer enjoying the work, and I resented other managers who left work at sensible times and only attended for the required 37 hours. I tried to cut back on my hours, leaving work earlier, but this put me under greater stress, since I found that I was becoming anxious about the workload whilst at home. Monday mornings became unhappy times, and although by Friday, I had cheered up, colleagues noticed that I wasn’t my usual self.
In late September, just 24 hours before I was due to go on holiday, I awoke at 05:30 with a strange sensation in my forearms. It wasn’t painful, just uncomfortable. I realised that something was wrong, so I called NHS 111, the non-emergency medical service. After answering a few questions, the operator told me that he was calling an ambulance for me. I tried to protest, but he simply said that the paramedic would decide the best course of action. Within fifteen minutes, I was providing blood samples, was wired up to an electrocardiogram and having my blood pressure taken. Then another ambulance arrived with two paramedics who had come to take me to hospital. This was rather worrying since I was feeling quite well apart from some slight discomfort in my arms. By now, however, I was becoming aware of a slight tension in my chest, so I was beginning to expect the worst.
During a morning of blood tests, a chest X-ray, almost constant heart rate and blood pressure monitoring, I was feeling fine, but then after lunch I felt a bit sick so I lied down for a couple of hours and I may have fallen asleep. At 4pm, a doctor came round with a long face and delivered the news I was upset to hear: she confirmed that I had undergone a heart attack, and they would be admitting me that night.
I was transferred to a cardiac ward, and the next day at 10:30, I was sent for an angiogram, where radioactive dye was pumped into my arteries and an X-ray machine examined its flow through my system. In my case, however, the blood’s flow was found to be severely restricted in three arteries, and the doctor reported them to be 95%, 90% and 75% blocked! How on earth had I survived so long with that level of blockage? I then received two stents which were applied to clear the worst two blockages. The third, unfortunately, could not be cured by a stent, and it was suggested that I may need a bypass operation. The bad news was coming thick and fast by now, but I was growing used to it. I returned to the cardiac ward, expecting to be discharged soon, but with it being weekend, I had to wait until Monday, having been admitted on the previous Thursday. I was sent home with six different types of pill which need to be taken every day, and many of them for life. I was also told not to drive for a month, and that I’d be off work for up to 12 weeks. Over the weekend, Sharon had called round to confiscate my laptop and BlackBerry to prevent me from working and increasing my anxiety. My life had changed entirely in just four days.
Whilst in hospital, Emily asked how I intended to fill my time during my recuperation. She knew that I wouldn’t be satisfied watching daytime TV, so I replied that I would just read and carry out whatever exercise I was allowed. She then suggested that I should write my life story, which I thought was an excellent idea, even if no-one but she reads it. Hence, during my first five weeks at home, I spent six or more hours per day at the computer typing away and re-living old memories. When Gee came home each evening, it felt very odd, since I’d spent all day in the 1970s and 1980s, and to be thrust back into 2016 was quite a shock.
I am now preparing myself to return to work prior to the heart bypass operation, and then decide how I’m going to fill my time recovering from open heart surgery. I also need to re-evaluate my work-life balance in the future. I loved my job, but lately it had become rather too much. It hurts me to admit this, but I think it must be true that I couldn’t cope with the demands of the work. I don’t think I want to retire just yet, so I need to adjust the job so that I still get satisfaction from it, without it causing me anxiety.
I am now on the waiting list for surgery, and I’ve been informed that the operation will be in less than 18 weeks (i.e. prior to 9th March 2017), but could possibly be as early as December. I’m really hoping that it’s before Christmas; I just want it over with. Am I worried about the procedure? Surprisingly not. I have a concern that I’ll be in pain afterwards, but I know that this will only improve over time, and I’m confident that pain relief will be carefully managed. There are risks to the operation, which are far greater than I’d like, but really, this will only affect those left behind. Is this the end of my biography? I sincerely hope not. I’m hoping to be writing the second instalment in many years time.
Bernard Kellett November 2016