Thursday 5 September 2013

The Right Age!

View of a courtyard with table and yellow umbrella, seen through a square hole in a steel doorI'm used to being the wrong age.

Most recently, I've been the wrong age for a career in research.  I've spent years doing it, but historically research has not been a career.  Rather it was an apprenticeship that had to be served by anyone wishing to be an academic. In the last few years efforts have been made to help researchers in the early stages of their careers, but I dropped out of all qualifying categories for "Early Career Researcher" a long time ago.

I'm also the wrong age for a lot of business advice and help.  Much of it is targeted at entrepreneurs under 30, and I passed that milestone a couple of decades ago.

I was therefore delighted when, one morning in May 2012, I heard an interview on Radio 4's Today Programme with a man who made cases for musical instruments. Rod Boyes set up Pinegrove Leather after he was made redundant at the age of 50 (an experience I was shortly to share).  He had been helped by the Prince's Initiative for Mature Enterprise. PRIME was established in 1999 to support prospective entrepreneurs over 50 who were threatened with unemployment.  Finally, unlike Neelam (a mere stripling in her 40s) I was the Right Age.



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