Have you ever had those days when you feel your whole life-axis tilt, and set you on a new path, within a new story?
It was the summer of 1982 and I was twenty and tanned.
I was newly back from my Inter-rail holiday around Italy:-
staying in youth hostels that had once been medieval monasteries or Renaissance palaces, with frescoes on the bathroom walls and the dorm ceilings.
My simple orange rucksack was always much smaller and lighter than everyone else’s. Because of all the lower back problems I had had in my teens, I was wary of carrying too much.
It was one of those golden summer evenings, when light seems to melt and pour around everything. My mother and I had gone for a walk down to the river, as we had done so many times before.
She knew that I was in a state of limbo. A 2nd year music student who didn’t want to be a musician once I had graduated, but with no idea what I DID want to do.
hence the slightly fed-up and bolshie expression in this photo from around then . . . [see above]
I remember exactly where we were when my life changed. We were outside the house of some neighbours with whom we had shared the school run when we were younger. She said – ‘oh wait a moment, I’ve got something to show you’.
We stopped while she rummaged in her pockets and found a little newspaper cutting, maybe 1 inch by 2 inches if that.
It was an announcement that Barclays Bank was introducing one of the very first student loan schemes for students at the British School of Osteopathy [BSO].
***
And that was it.
I stood stock still.
Hit by the light on the road to Damascus.
Struck by a thunderbolt from the Gods.
Even now I can remember the feeling in my brain, as if tumblers to a complicated lock were falling into place.
And Click, a physical feeling inside me that all was right in my world.
‘I can become an osteopath!’ I gasped, first silently, and then out loud. My mother looked at me with one of her wise smiles.
***
Since my teens in the mid-70s I had been seeing a local osteopath, first for my headaches [his treatments had been life-saving, but that’s another story], and then for my assorted teenage slipped discs and lower back pain.
Knowing that I was going to London to study music, he had recommended that I go to the BSO, where he had trained back in the 60s. There I would be treated by students, under the supervision of qualified and more experienced osteopaths.
Plus they had extra cheap rates for students.
And that’s where I had been going for the last couple of years whenever I needed some loosening up or putting back together again.
***
With all my years of experience as a patient I had had a go at massaging friends’ backs and necks and shoulders and knew I was good at it. It had just never occurred to me that it was something that I could do myself, as job, as a profession.
And now, it looked as if I could!
The very next day I wrote to the school, explaining my situation and asking what qualifications I needed to study there.
A week or so later a white envelope from the BSO landed on the doormat– and:
‘A’ levels in Chemistry and Biology was their reply.
‘Ah, I’ve got ‘A’ levels in Music, History and Latin….’ .
***
Mmm, what to do now?
I decided to finish my degree. After all I had done 2 years of it. It seemed a shame to abandon it, to walk away leaving it incomplete.
The summer of 1983 I duly got my degree, my B.Mus., feeling much happier about life knowing my direction.
see this smiling photo of me studying for my finals!
And that September went off to evening classes in Biology and Chemistry.
Then my Story changed again – because in December 1983 I was in a bad car accident.
My spine was broken in two places and my pelvis was broken in five places. But that too is another story.
Enough to say that it took me a bit longer to get my ‘A’ levels than originally planned.
And then Barclays had stopped the loan scheme . . .
However, there’s a circularity to all of this, because although various godmothers helped with the money I needed, there was only enough for the first three years, and some of the compensation money from the accident paid for my final year!
***
With all the delays from the accident, from deciding to become an osteopath to starting the course was 4 years.
And it was then a 4-year course, extremely full-time.
So, from that moment of reading the newspaper clipping to qualifying was 8 years.
And this year marks 32 years since I qualified.
Which means that this summer marks 40 years since that fateful decision – and I have never once regretted it.
That’s quite something – to have the experience of doing something I absolutely love for 40 years. Two thirds of my life.
What a blessing, a blessing of joy.
***
If you have aches and pains that don’t go away, and if you are in or near Baldock, SG7, in North Herts; or Bromley, BR1 in SE London, then text me (or call me) on 07535 350 343 to book an appointment.
I look forward to helping you!