CHEERS! Here's to your future!

So! The A level results are all in and the number of passes are the highest on record. Great joy for those who got the grades they wanted, or needed, tragedy for those who did not. Of course the cynics are already out in force declaring that the exams are easier these days, others say they are more complicated. I've no idea which opinion is the right one, but this I do know from experience, there are very few exams of any kind that are really easy. They may be so to the greater intellects, but to those of us of a more ordinary level of achievement, any exam causes great anxiety and the thought of failure is very distressing, more so when everyone keeps saying your entire future depends on your performance.

Now the topic of conversation amongst those who have been offered places in higher education is about the subjects they have elected to study and the Uni they are to become part of. Some I hear, are so confident of their own ability to succeed they intend to take a "Gap Year" whatever that is! They would do well to remember that it is said nature abhors a vacuum, and a gap is very definitely a vacuum. If they don't fill it someone else will! No, It sounds to me like an excuse invented before the results were known, voiced in case the required grades were not forthcoming. Who can really afford to give everyone else a year's start and expect to catch up? Besides next year's students may be even cleverer, so the competition could be even harder. But what of those who didn't make it? Is their life over? Should they go back and have another go? Forget all about higher education and find a job? Will they find one without the relevant qualifications? These questions aren’t new, the very same questions were asked in my young days too. The difficulties we faced then seemed no less in importance than they do today, all problems are relevant to the era in which they arise, surely.

This always reminds me of a story I was told a long time back. A boy from the East End of London whose family were very poor never even went to school. He couldn't read or write but he could add up like lightning. From a very young age he worked on a stall in the market and was generally reckoned to be the best salesman there. Then came the war…he couldn't read or write but he quickly became a dead shot and also learned to be a mechanic, he spent most of the war in the desert driving tanks, his mates reckoned that given a couple of screws, a hammer and a few yards of wire he'd make a tank fly. When the war ended he applied for jobs in all sorts of places but since he couldn't read or write properly no one would employ him. Finally he applied to the local council for a job as an attendant in a public toilet in the high street. They turned him down, he couldn't read or write so… Sorry!

Broke, he wondered how would ever earn a living…then he remembered the desert and all those burned out tanks and busted guns and …and…and…all were made of steel and other metals. And what was the big shortage just after the war? Metals, of course. Somehow he raised enough money to recover a shipload of broken armaments, brought them back to this country and sold them as scrap metal at a huge profit. He did the same thing time and again and eventually many years later was the head of a string of companies all reclaiming metals from previous theatres of war and elsewhere, and all making huge profits. He became a millionaire.

He married, lived in a beautiful old house in the country and sent his children to university. They all did well. In due course his son, now with all sorts of degrees in management and business studies, accepted his father's invitation to take over the running of the business and to manage his private affairs. He was astonished to learn that all his father's private wealth was in cash. He had been too embarrassed to approach a bank and ask for an account because he still couldn't read or write properly. The manager of the local bank was equally astonished when the son introduced his father to him, explained the huge amount of cash they were seeking to deposit and asked to open an account. "Can't read or write?" he said incredulously. "I can't believe it! Just imagine what you could have been if you had been able to read and write. " The old man looked at him and smiled slowly. "I know exactly what I would have been," he said. "I'd have been an attendant in the men's public toilet in Walthamstow High Street!"

I mention the old story here, not to knock the idea of going to Uni, that is obviously a wonderful thing to do and a great opportunity for anyone who has a clear idea of what they want to do with their lives. I wish them well and good fortune in all their endeavours. I mention the story to offer encouragement to those who didn't get the grades they wanted or expected. They need not be facing a dead end to their existence and I do know how they must feel because I too, for a number of reasons, missed out on higher education. I often wonder where I would have spent my career if I had gone to a college or university, assuming I could ever have achieved the required grades. Not where and in the way I did, I am sure, and looking back, thinking about all the fascinating people I met, the places I went to and the excitement of being involved with the publishing of newspapers and magazines, I am bound to say I wouldn't change a thing. I loved every minute of it. So I offer this advice to anyone that may find it useful. If you really did do the very best you could, don't worry too much about grades, discover what talents your God gave you and put your entire energy into developing it to the very limit of your capability. Start before anyone else, work harder during the day and finish after everyone else has got tired and gone home. Do this and whatever you are doing you will be successful…..who knows you may even end up employing those who went to university!