When was the last time that your organisation gave its employees the chance to change lives for the better? I am incredibly fortunate to work for a company that values its employees highly and also engages in some fantastic corporate social responsibility projects.

During February and March, there are three teams of Informa Business Information staff travelling out to Thailand, Ecuador and Costa Rica to work on volunteering projects, partnering with the Real Gap Experience. To read the group blog and witness the change in employees’ perspectives, the strong bond they form with each other, their passion, drive and engagement with their host communities is incredible. HR has been well represented in these trips and I can’t wait to hear what my colleagues have learnt and are planning to implement once they return home.

If you are interested, you can take a peek at what the teams have been doing here.

All the volunteers undoubtedly make an impact in the communities that they travel to, but by far the biggest life-changing impact is on the individuals themselves. And that is inspiring to be a part of.

Corporate responsibility may be many things, but soft and fluffy it isn’t. It has the potential to change lives, engage and motivate staff, engender great teamwork and achieve amazing results. Without doubt, it is one of the best opportunities that we offer our staff and has a tangible impact on our culture and environment, which lasts well beyond the duration of the projects. It only takes a few people to believe that anything is possible, to really start to create a sea change within an organisation.

Most of my exec board colleagues climbed Mount Kilimanjaro as a team last year. Another group of employees trekked across the Lunag Massif in Nepal. Several colleagues are running the London Marathon, others are participating in the Edinburgh Moonwalk or cycling from London to Paris, all raising significant funds for charity and challenging themselves and others in the process, sharing their learning and inspiring others around them.

What’s inspiring change in your organisation and culture? I’d love to know.

Does it matter who your role reports to in the organisation? Just how important is it that an HR Director reports into the CEO? Lloyds Banking Group is a recent example of a company that has removed the direct report link between the Group HR Director and Chief Executive and, in their particular case, created a new Group Corporate Functions Director, which will manage HR, Legal and Audit amongst others. Clearly there are issues to be resolved within Lloyds Banking management team and banking generally, yet there are other examples too, such as Marks and Spencer.

So, does it really matter where HR reports to in an organisation? Well, no…and yes.

On the one hand, it seems incredibly outdated to look at thing in purely hierarchical terms; to derive status and importance from the reporting line of one’s function. Just because you report to the CEO does not necessarily mean that are good at your job, listened to, have any more influence or budget than anyone else in the organisation…far from it. For the most part, organisational changes are simply that; a way of reducing the sometimes huge numbers of direct reports that a CEO may have. One’s influence within a Company and ability to drive through change and excel at one’s job should in no way be determined or limited by one’s reporting line and there are lots of examples of people who do this brilliantly and apparently effortlessly, across a wide range of roles and functions.

And yet, whilst all the above is undoubtedly true, I retain a nagging element of scepticism about the value a CEO places on the role of HR, on how committed they are to truly working in partnership and involving HR in their organisational strategy, if they don’t have HR as part of their management team and as their direct report. About what kind of HR role that would be in reality, the emphasis that would be places on different aspects of the HR spectrum. I worry about the dilution of messages, of strategy, of priorities, the ability to effectively challenge and question…and I’m not convinced I would personally wish to work in that environment. 

What do you think? Have you had a different experience that proves me wrong? I’d love to know.

I’m a firm believer that if you commit to doing something, you should do it properly and make the experience as great as it possibly can be. The more of yourself, of your time and your energy you put in; the more tangible results, satisfaction and sense of achievement you and others will get out of it.

So, having agreed to walk a marathon at night (and in my bra) as part of the Moonwalk 2012 team, I have spent much of this week buying some of the basic equipment required to start power-walking, planning how I am going to approach the training and beginning to fundraise. I am hugely grateful of everyone who has sponsored me so far, if you haven’t yet and have been meaning to, the link is here.

I’m very aware that what I have done so far is the easy bit – essentially shopping, starting to walk more and planning. It is not so much the walking that worries me as I am confident that I have plenty of time to build up my stamina and fitnes levels; I am already concerned though with how I will manage walking throughout the night in this way. I have never done anything like this before and I am certainly not a natural ‘night owl’…far from it!

I am keen to raise as much money as I possibly can for Walk The Walk, which is a grant-making charity, not only dedicated to raising funds for vital breast cancer causes but is also passionate about encouraging women and men to become fitter and healthier. I rather imagine I shall become fitter and healthier myself over the next 5 months .

I’ve got a few different ideas for fundraising and would love it if you would be able to support me in any of them -

• I’m willing to open this blog up to advertising over the next 5 months, in return for a generous sponsorship donation. All money raised will go to Walk The Walk and the company logos will appear on the top right hand side of my blog, with a click through to your website
• Would you like me to write a guest blog for you? Happy to do so, in return for some sponsorship!
• I have been dabbling in writing children’s stories lately and if you know a little person who would like a short story written especially for them, complete with illustration, then let me know and let’s talk

Contact me on Twitter @AlisonChisnell, leave me a comment on the blog…I’d love to hear from you if you are interested in any of these options. I’d also love to hear about any fundraising ideas you have tried and what has worked really well.

As the lovely Doug Shaw will attest, what goes around, comes around…and you really do get what you give! I’m determined to put in as much effort and commitment to this challenge as I possibly can…and I would love it if you can help me along the way.

This month so far I have either undertaken, or committed to, two activities that I have never previously done. Saying yes and trying new things has been liberating and empowering and I intend to do more of both as the year progresses.

So what are they? First up, I have been dabbling in creative writing, specifically writing children’s stories. I have loved the process of creating characters, plots, storylines and trying my hand at illustrations…it has been wonderful escapism! My first story is mostly finished, bar a little editing, and I intend to write at least one more in the near future. There is no commercial intent here, merely the sheer joy of creating something for its own sake. Once completely finished, I will be printing it off in book format for my daughters to keep.

I’ve learnt a lot from doing this too: the discipline required to finish the story, the importance of plot (I really ought to have been clearer in my head about this before I started writing it!) and the real pleasure of rediscovering something that I had not attempted since I was at school.

If you are interested, or even just mildly curious, then you can check out the Princess and The Dragon in full here.

The second activity is a commitment that I have made to undertake the Moonwalk 2012 in Edinburgh as part of a team from my organisation. I will be joining an amazing group of women in walking 26 miles throughout the night, all of us wearing our bras, to raise money and awareness for breast cancer charities. I am not a particularly sporty person and have never done anything like this before…but it is a cause that is close to my heart, as both of my grandmothers had breast cancer in their middle age and survived it, at a time when many did not. For this I am truly grateful and I will walk for them, for my Mum, for me and for my daughters.

I am both excited and nervous at the thought of undertaking a marathon, albeit power-walking one rather than actually running it! I would obviously love it if you would consider sponsoring me and you can find my team’s fundraising page here.

I wrote my final post of 2011 acutely aware that I wanted to do at least one amazing thing in 2012…just over half way through January and I now feel certain that I will achieve at least two :)

Go on…do something amazing…it feels great!

So, last month last year, I ran a series of guest posts on the theme of 2011 Highlights and Horrors, which formed an Advent Calendar of blogs. A New Year should undoubtedly be more about looking forward, rather than harking back to what has been…and yet there have been many powerful points of learning for me in the experience of facilitating this experiment, that will influence how I move forward in 2012.

These then are my learnings and my own inspirations from your fantastic contribution of blogs:

Experimentation can result in amazing and unforseen consequences. Approaching tasks differently is immensely powerful and is something I want to do a lot more of, not only in blogging, but also in professional and personal spheres. Making suggestions without fear of failure, trying new ideas without concern for what might go wrong and giving the benefit of the doubt to the best possible outcome can undoubtedly transform everyday thinking and decision processes. That the entire advent calendar series evolved from a single tweet in (very!) late November, asking if anyone would be willing to contribute a guest post, is testament to the power of Twitter and also the wonderful creative force that collaboration can bring.

Openess leads to opportunity. With only a handful of exceptions, I did not ask anyone directly to contribute a guest post; it was truly crowd-sourced and available to anyone who wished to participate. Whilst it felt daunting in the very early days of December to have only a day or two of posts in advance, it undoubtedly led to a richer and more diverse end result. Some of the people who contributed were new connections who I came to know as a result of the experiment; others, like my sister-in-law, I have known for many years.

Collaboration. Asking people for help and inviting them to contribute is a powerful action. Allowing and enabling them to be a part of and influence the end result, undoubtedly enhanced the overall achievement. Together, we become more than the sum of our parts and I’d definitely like to do more of this type of collaboration not only on the blog, but also at work and at home, where asking for help can seem more problematic and difficult…perhaps I am simply more set in my ways in those contexts…;)

Consistency of delivery. It was a great feeling as the month progressed that people started to share links to posts before I had tweeted them. It was very important to me that the posts were similar to an advent calendar, in that they were available to consume and enjoy from early morning onwards. And, now that I have found the scheduling button on my blog, I shall be using it more frequently…which can only be a good thing for ongoing quality control .

The guest posts themselves were varied, diverse and I genuinely enjoyed reading and publishing every single one of them. I am particularly proud that over a quarter of the posts were written by individuals who had never blogged before and felt inspired to share their highs and lows of 2011. To me, that made the experiment extra special and worthwhile.

In terms of the measurables, my blog had its busiest month ever in December, with 3,962 views, more than double my previous monthly record. Below are the ten most read posts of the month, as of 30th December 2011 – impressive again how many new bloggers are in this list.

Title		Views
Day 12: Reflections of an HRD		290
Day 13: An Emotional Rollercoaster		192
Day 15: Failure, Courage and Happy Endings		168
Day 21: A Christmas Carol Concert		165
Day 8: Merry Christmas…A Hindu Perspective		140
Day 6: Sinead Carville’s Highlights and Horrors of 2011		123
Day 10: All Change Please		122
Day 19: It’s Not About The Money, Money, Money…		119
2011 Highlights and Horrors: Guest Post from Kate Griffiths-Lambeth		118
Day 7: Hopes and Fears		104
Day 14: Breakthrough		104

Hosting so many wonderful guest posts has inspired me to keep writing…not necessarily more frequently (daily posting is hard work!) but to grow this blog in terms of high-quality, thought-provoking posts. At the end of 2010, I resolved to blog more and better…I suspect that 2012 may be the year of blogging slightly less and yet better still…continuous improvement is certainly my aim .

I have had a huge amount of positive feedback on the Advent blogs, which I have appreciated hugely. Thanks so much for your part in making it a success!

Writing a post myself for my own blog, now there’s something I haven’t done for a while…

I had anticipated writing this post far earlier in December, although even now, as I emerge from the cosy family cocoon that is Christmas, but not yet in the full, bright lights of the New Year, I am far from clear about what I want to say. That the Highlights and Horrors themed Advent calendar blogs captured your imaginations and produced the wonderful guest posts that it did, is truly a highlight in its own right. And whilst it has undoubtedly raised the bar rather uncomfortably high, it feels rather like cheating to get all of you to tell me yours, without sharing mine.

It would be easy to write purely about work. This year, as no other I have experienced professionally, has been a rollercoaster and has stretched me at times beyond my perceived limits and abilities.  I wrote about my year here and it continued much in the same chaotic vein. The personal and professional learnings have been huge and yet, it has been only in the last months of 2011 that I have even started to understand the impact that I have on my team, the positive and negative shadows that are cast by the leader, both by what is done and what is overlooked and omitted. How blinkered we can be at times in the eye of the storm and how easy it is to place limits on our achievements and potential by self-doubt, preconceptions and lack of confidence.

It would also be straightforward to write about home, about my children and how they have developed and grown throughout 2011, what I have learnt by watching, teaching, nurturing them. Both work and home are only part of the story…or should be. Where I have struggled most this year, is in remembering, finding and listening to the rather neglected part of me that is separate from my work and home identities…and that is simply, me. I don’t believe I am alone in this quandary; it may be more common amongst women than men, but whilst one is so busy just keeping everything going; delivering at work, caring for young children and keeping pace with life itself, it is easy to fall into the trap of defining oneself purely by one’s work and one’s children.

T.S.Eliot wrote that “it is the journey and not the arrival that matters”. As I have started to take small steps to reclaim the ‘me’ part of my identity this year, that gives me reason for hope, optimism and reassurance. Sometimes, just acknowledging the issue is the first big step to starting to solve it. So, I took a couple of international trips this year, which I would previously have declined, I joined a book club with friends and on pretty much every front I’m a work in progress. But that’s OK, I think…at the end of the day, whether we choose to admit it or not, that’s what we all are.

Next year? I’d like to be able to consolidate more, to become better and more skilled at being a leader, at balancing work and home, at continuing to find, safeguard and grow the bit that is really ’me’ outside of the roles of work and home…perhaps to move beyond conscious competence (and at times conscious incompetence!) into something altogether more compelling and brilliant. And I’d like to work out at least one amazing thing that I’d love to achieve, just for me.

So, that’s me. I wish you a last few happy days of 2011 and a wonderful, healthy and prosperous New Year.

Christmas Eve is finally here…how very exciting!

Hard to believe that before this month, Ailsa Suttie was the only person to have guest posted on this blog…and rather a long time ago now at that! I can’t say enough good things about Ailsa, she is a warm and wonderful friend who will always fight your corner, support causes she believes in and get involved to make a difference.

You can find her at @AilsaSuttie…and anywhere where there is a bottle of red around .

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When, asked by Alison to consider writing a guest post for this series, I looked back at the Highlights & Horrors of my HR life 2011 and although I could write about both a different emotion took over when I thought about you all.

If asked to describe it I would have to say the closest thing I could compare it with is that it was, well, ‘Christmassy’. A slow spreading feeling of warmth and well-being, a sense of all things being as they should.

In 2011 I have met some inspirational people, some challenging folk, been helped by some and have helped others. Like any group some don’t see eye to eye and these relationships also serve to strengthen and enrich our community. Life would be pretty bland if we all agreed, right?

I would like to thank the individuals who made my year special, you know who you are. To those I don’t know so well, I look forward to getting to know you better in 2012. I hope that where I have tried to help that I’ve managed to make a difference too.

To those of you who attempted to ruin my liver, I am sending you my bill from the Priory!

So, I am raising a virtual glass of mulled wine to you all, Merry Christmas and here’s to a very happy New Year, you rock!

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So that’s it….or is it? Those of you that have been following the series of guest posts may have noticed that I haven’t written about my highlights and horrors yet…and I have had a couple of wonderful bloggers suggest that they may submit a post over the next few days. This is definitely it for the daily posts (phew!) but there may be one or two overflow posts between now and New Year’s Eve, so watch this space .

All that really remains is to sincerely thank all of you who have written posts, read them and recommended them to others. What began as a fairly random idea has taken shape to be a powerful and wonderful experiment that I have absolutely loved facilitating. Truly, the response has been beyond my wildest dreams or maddest hopes…and that is totally because of you.

I wish you a very, very Merry Christmas!

Flora Marriott was one of the first people I met from the #connectingHR community and her laid back, positive energy and affirming, engaging actions make her such a pleasure to interact with both online and offline. Flora is also a not-so-secret HR and Learning and Development technical geek and is always happy and willing to share her knowledge, collaborate and help others. She is a star…if you don’t know her already, I wholeheartedly recommend that you find and follow her at @FloraMarriott.

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It’s April 2011.  I’m in the frenetic city of Manila.   I’m standing in front of 50 employees.  It’s 5pm and their finish time.  Me and two others have been training this group in the web design principles that we are using in the UK.  I’m wrapping up.  

“That’s all for today folks, you’ve been great. Tomorrow we’ll look at selecting appropriate images for the UK culture….”  

 Blah blah blah.  

All of a sudden, the group of Philippine employees start yelling at me.  

“More, more, more!!!“   

Cue grins all round from the training team.  The employees are really yelling at Sam, not me, and I’m bursting with pride. He’s standing next to me (ok, I’ve changed his name).  I met him in May 2010 when he had a bit of a jack the lad reputation and was a data processor.  Here he is now, having delivered the bulk of the training sessions.  The employees love him.  He’s been up to 1am in the morning for four nights now, finishing off the training materials.  In front of the employees he is so articulate, passionate, confident, knowledgable.   This super group of charming Philippine people clamouring for more training, well, it’s a small incident, but it’s memorable for me as a symbol of the wonderful people that I’ve met and played a part in developing. 

My year kind of starts two years ago.  On January 19th 2010 the CEO of the company I worked for brought together a multidisciplinary team of 6, shut us together in a room and asked us to come up with a detailed plan for changing our company’s UK production to a completely new product.  Websites.  And from a standing start, we began in July 2010, and now, as I type, over 40,000 of these products have been produced. Although we were a subsidiary of a much larger company, this project turned us into a start-up in all but name.  We had to recruit and train hundreds of people, start things like wikis and employer employees to play an active part in the learning process, and we all had to learn very rapidly about the digital marketing world, and get a global production system up and running.  And with any start-up or very rapid change, you see people grow and do things they’d never imagined they’d do.  I can think of many people whose careers are now hugely the better for having been a part of this journey.  For example, graduates who’ve learnt new skills and who’ve now gone off to work at Amazon, Microsoft, and so on.  Altogether, it was enormous fun, very challenging, draining at times, and demanded a great deal of energy.  A proper roller coaster.  But a privilege to be a part of.   

I’ve left that company now – most of the support functions have been disbanded as part of a wider restructure in the parent company.  I’ll be looking for a new desk in the new year.  But I have so many positive emotions about my last year – above all, the amazing people I’ve met, and having been lucky enough to work for a fabulous manager who gave me an environment in which I could do my stuff and perform.  I’ve come away with some friends for life, more skills than I went in with, and the knowledge that the work I did was useful.  What more can a person ask for?!

My low? Oddly enough, it is right before that journey to the Philippines.  I was working crazy hard, stupid hours, living away from home during the week, juggling a lot of projects, and we’d had a few months of operational problems.  (Imagine, an HR team of 3 of which I was one, that is simultaneously having to manage lots of downsizing AND a bring in a whole new workforce.  A ratio of 3 HR folks, to at one point, about 700 employees).  A good friend phoned, the night before I was due to fly out, and I said I couldn’t meet up as I was too busy.  My friend was unimpressed at hearing my stressy voice, and told me how I’d got work right out of perspective in my life.  When I left the company, he said, there would come a time when no one would remember what I had done there.  Later on, I realised he was right.  But keeping life in balance all of the time is hard.  There always are times when we devote a disproportionate amount of energy to one aspect at the expense of another.  I think the important thing is to rectify it and not be lopsided all of the time.  

So I did….I took some time out this summer.  And that provided me with my second high point (Alison, am I allowed 2 high points?!!).  It was exactly a year on from my husband having a heart attack, and he was able to hike up a mountain pass, and achieve things he’d never dreamt possible a year ago.  I wrote about it here.   So now, when I go to work, I give it my all and I do try to be remarkable (a la Neil Morrison’s wise words), but now I never forget how it is people – dear family and cherished friends and the wonderful people I meet through my work - people, who truly enrich my life.

Jose Franca makes me smile . Always ready to engage, help out, offer an opinion, have fun or simply try something new, he’s a real pleasure to know and he brightens up my Twitter stream no end. You can find him at @MrAirmiles…watch out for his ‘interesting’ photos and tales of transporting Christmas trees…….

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As any frequent flyer can tell you, 2011 has been a year of ups and downs, and I don’t mean take-offs and landings. BA Airmiles were, in my opinion, downgraded to Avios, but they redeemed themselves by introducing a new membership layer – bronze, which I got upgraded to (having previously been downgraded from silver)!… but I digress!

When Alison asked me to write a guest blog about my “highlights and horrors of 2011” I thought twice about it, as blogging has been one of my 2011 “downgrade horrors!” Anyway, I gave it a go, wrote a post, last weekend my computer crashed, got it working again, the file had got corrupted and this is my 2nd attempt at re-writing it! An upgrade I hope!

My 2011 started unlike any other year. I woke up on January 1st to find myself jobless, in what was to be a very challenging year for job seekers everywhere, not to mention the doom and gloom of the world economy. A downgrade for sure!

The three months that followed were pretty uneventful. I had decided to take some time off to “rest”, but me being me, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”, as my grandmother used to say. From sleeping, to gardening, DIY and even self-development, I did it all! @MrAirmiles took off on twitter, I launched a blog (short-lived but not entirely dead), ventured into “blogmenting” and focused on expanding my #connectinghr network. Some great personal highlights.

Whilst doing all those lovely things I started my job hunt and that’s when some of 2011’s “horrors” became apparent. Twice as many applicants for every job, recruiters that were more interested in making a quick buck or adding names to their database, and clients who changed their mind about roles as many times as the weather in the London! I was once put forward to an interview without my knowledge (I only found out when the client emailed me directly with the new interview time!). Not all were that bad and I met some great people who really listened to me as a person and as a professional – I’ll always remember you!

The biggest horror (and sadness) of all were some of the interviews themselves. The so-called HR and L&D professionals, with all sorts of letters in front of their name but sadly with poor interviewing skills, no clear vision about for the role, 5 stage interviews lined up (got to 6 once!) and endless psychometrics…trying to cover up their incompetence perhaps? If after the  2nd interview (1st I’d say) you still don’t have a feel if whether or not the candidate is right for the role, you should re-assess your interviewing skills! Oh, and don’t get me started on interview feedback! The best to date: “Jose could have smiled a bit more” (I had a cold, had lost my voice, and was offered no water!). That’s was a downgrade in my books!

Not all was bad and I interviewed with some great professionals! Mostly over a coffee, very informal but challenging and thought-provoking! The kind of interview that left me wanting the job even more. There are some great and genuine HR and L&D Professionals out there. Seriously! Upgrades all around and a pleasure to have met them!

At the end of April I was offered a role (within 48hrs of the interview – I was surprised at the speed!) and on May 3rd was starting the job, only to take the 5th off to attend my 1st #CHRU! Might just as well start in style!

With that new job came a new set of challenges (lots of content for another blog revival no doubt), the birth of the #grumpyoldcommuter hashtag,  and lots of exciting work!

I started on day 100 of the newly merged organization, truly being and feeling like the  “new kid” in town! I was one of the first people hired post merger and trying to remain objective, having to ask the difficult questions, not letting myself being influenced by either side whilst attempting to drive change was not an easy task, and its not over yet! A bit like experiencing turbulence on a flight…!

My grey hair count has gone up significantly… not helped by my downgrade from OneWorld Silver later that month!

The months that followed made 2011 a year of firsts for me (highlights and upgrades all round):

• Canoeing in the Swedish lakes and sleeping in random islands with only wildlife for company

• Camping in Croyde with a lovely bunch of strangers, most of whom I’d never met before (and surviving the hangover to tell the tale)

• Pepe was born (the Welsh had something to do with it…)

• Drinking percy-pig shots (don’t ask!)

• Surfing in Devon (with hangover!)

• Abseiling into the Burn O’Vat in Aberdeenshire (a fair amount of swearing occurred during the descent…)

• Experiencing the jet blast at Maho beach in St Maarten (best birthday ever with my lovely partner, even though we both got massive sunburn)

• The offer of an expat assignment in Rio (flattered but sadly had to turn it down for personal reasons)

• Being invited to be a panelist on CIPD’s Social Media conference (despite only being active on the SM scene for a year – totally honored, thanks to @MrAirmiles of Twitter of course…)

All in all a fairly positive year, despite all the doom and gloom being portrayed in the news, newspapers and internet. 2011 treated me well, despite the shaky start, and I’m grateful for it.

On that note, and 195 tier points short of an upgrade to OneWorld Silver (Avios really make washing machines fly…), I’d like to thank Alison for the invite to guest blog and all those that have made a difference to my life in 2011. Lots of Airmiles to you all, Season’s Greetings and an Olympic 2012 full of joy!

Day 21 already…it’s starting to feel a lot like Christmas!

It’s no secret that I love Kevin Ball’s writing. If he were to write a book, I would absolutely buy it, read it and recommend it. So it’s a huge pleasure and privilege to have Kevin guest blog on here with a very special Christmas-themed post. If you look very carefully, you may find a #connectinghr influence behind the hero of this post…;).

You can connect with Kevin on Twitter (@KevinJBall) or via his slightly neglected, but truly wonderful blog.

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It seems a strange thing to say about anyone, but Eleanora was a woman whose life had been ruined by kindness. Growing up in old-fashioned grandeur, she had sucked a sense of entitlement and superiority from the very air she breathed as a child. From the stern chilliness of boarding school, through the numbing poverty of University and a succession of bafflingly unsuccessful careers, she reached her middle age without every enjoying anything as much as her early years. Unlike her boisterously numerous siblings she’d inherited neither the energy nor the intellect to recreate the privilege of her upbringing and so added bitterness and envy to the less endearing traits of her maturity. She became an angry and thwarted woman quite unlike the adored and sunny child who had basked in the fond neglect of her distracted mother and the distant charm of her seldom seen father.   

Sad to say that by the age of eleven Eleanora’s best years were behind her and by the age of fifty even she was aware of a deep emptiness and disappointment which seemed to colour her every day a tired shade of beige.

Without the wherewithal to live the life of luxury for which she’d been prepared and like generations of well educated but unapplied people before her, teaching was where she finally settled her working life. After a couple of false starts her very good degree and her reserved and chilly air found a perfect home in a small private school of middling reputation at the end of a branch line in the muddy English countryside. Her sensibilities were soothed by the forced courtesy of the pupils and her eccentricities accommodated, perhaps expected, from parents brought up on a diet of Mr. Chips and ‘Malory Towers’. While the twenty first century raged tweets, texts, and nudges around her, she still deputed a member of the lower fifth to manage the video machine and refused to give up her ink pen in favour of on-line marking. With the pupils she obliviously strode the line between respect and fear through sheer disregard; with her peers, her regal politeness won her peace from chatter and nothing close to the friendships that her longevity would have assured in any other woman.

It might have always been the same. The endless stream of cheeky teenagers, geeky Asians and intimidating Russians might have flown through her years like time-lapse film: flirty girls and earnest ones; sporty boys and spotty ones speeding through their rites of passage before her as she paced her classrooms. Each year a little greyer, each year a little stiffer, each year a little less tolerant of the boiling Petri dish of passions before her eyes, she might have seen her time though unchanged, were it not for the most surprising of conversations with the most surprising of men.

The autumn term of 2011 was not like any other new school year for Eleanora. The doe-like fear of the 11 year olds and the accidental lupine menace of the new sixth form boys were familiar enough but the lack in the centre of her had been joined by a lack in her home as the last of her children set sail away from the safe harbour of home and off to University. Her husband had long given up hope of finding comfort in Eleanora. He had pursued his pleasures alone for many years and with her children now at cardinal points of the country her meaning was diminished to the lowest of ebbs. Even the cooking, cleaning and sheep-dogging that she had borne so reluctantly in her maternal role ceased to have purpose. Part of her was pleased at the new quiet in her house; part of her afraid that it meant she’d acquired a new insignificance, and she reached a rare and horrible moment of self-appraisal on her first morning’s commute of the new term as she wondered what on earth she was on the earth for. In their closer years her husband had joked over a birthday dinner about how he now qualified for the newspaper cliché: ‘Middle-aged father of four’ and she  wondered now how the headlines would report her after some crime or tragedy ‘Elderly teacher?’ maybe not yet, but no longer ‘Mother’ surely? That part of her life felt over and it seemed wrong that she, the most reluctant of careerists, should now have to fall on her occupation for the journalist’s shorthand description of her. And of course the school, with the bristling new paint and the bustling of the summer in every ‘hello’ from the staff, was the worst place for her to be. The damned, determined optimism of the place was a constant affront to her isolation and, in the way of these things, drove her further into herself and further away from the world.

One of the comforting aspects of her venerable and part-time status on the teaching staff was the option she had, held close like a UK/EU opt-out, to ignore the dreaded INSET days when they fell outside her normal three day working week. The start of this term had given her the opportunity to exercise this avoidance of the management’s attempts at direction-setting and team-building and she had frostily ignored the agenda and paperwork when they arrived over the summer. So it was that when she arrived on the Thursday of the new term, she arrived on the same day as the pupils. The senior staff, busy directing lost newbugs and settling into new routines, had no time to bother her with their schemes and plots to interfere in her work. She parked her car in the usual place. Left her coat in her usual locker. Drew her usual cup and saucer from the cupboard and sat in her usual place in the staff room before the teaching timetable drew her into the island of her classroom where she could steer through the calm waters of Milton and Wordsworth while the stormier seas of the school raged outside her door.

But while older hands knew enough to leave her for the first few days or weeks the inevitable new teacher, barely older than the students to her jaded eye, sat next to her and so desperately persisted in trying to join her in conversation that she was reluctantly forced into folding the TES and acknowledging his enthusiasm. Joe Marley was soft spoken, red faced and so obviously nice to his core she knew it was only a matter of time before he spoke about how wonderful the ‘young people’ were; knew instantly that the sixth form girls would be a little in love with him and the sixth form boys a little in awe of him. She could imagine his brilliance on the sports field and heroic holiday pursuits. He was bound to have a lovely wife and some adorable toddlers; certain to believe that the school was for the children and not the curriculum or the parents. She was sure that he played the guitar. Where her preconceptions foundered, however, was on his courtesy in calling her by her surname and, when she began to pay attention to his prattling, on his apparent claim to know her from elsewhere. Closer attention revealed a pupil inside the man and with a slight shock of surprise she saw him as he had last been before her: an earnest and diligent student on his way to a good University. While his chatter flowed around her she was transported back the ten years or more that had passed to turn this boy into a man. She saw her classroom and her younger self and saw with some surprise the passion and patience through which she tamed the lower sixth with Chaucer and Shakespeare.  As if he was a ghostly presence in her remembered classroom, she saw the younger Marley rise to her promptings, heard his engagement with her teaching and felt his very soul develop and turn like a sunflower towards the warmth of her own abundant energy. And here came her second surprise: she recognized that the self she saw there was not the same as the one she would have expected to find. This younger version of Eleanora was certainly less stiff, less grey and more tolerant but, more, the younger one had an inner drive, a belief and a certainty that until then she would have believed she had never possessed. She was surprised to find that she was rather a good teacher; rather witty and rather skilled in finding talent in her pupils, even those less clever than the hypnotic young Marley. She saw them stretch to rise to her expectations, heard them grow beyond hesitation and into opinions strongly expressed, felt them bask in the glow of her affection in ways that she had forgotten was in her past.

Of course the rest of the staff room recognized the attraction of Joe Marley but they all found his growing friendship with Eleanora remarkable. No-one really believed the innuendo of the more scandalous gossips but they all struggled to find a plausible explanation for the pair’s increasingly regular lunchtime trysts. Those with longer memories remembered Marley as a bright young student but could remember no particular bond he had with Eleanora and those who had only known her as the determinedly self-contained and rather formidable woman that she was now could see no particular reason that Marley could thaw her more than the other bright young things that had passed through the school over the years. Yet friendship there was. Over instant coffee and lunchbox sandwiches they chattered like old friends. As autumn became winter and the end of year exams marked the beginning of the end of the term, Eleanora could feel herself stretch and rise towards Marley’s energy and attention as she remembered him rising to hers in their shared past.

In years gone by it was now that she began to feel her most weary. Now that the days grew shorter and darker  and the whole school willed itself towards the finish line of the longest term was the time that Eleanora had felt herself the most cynical, the most lonely and the most isolated by the excitement in her classroom. The end of term for the pupils was Christmas: gifts, family, presents. For her it was heavy marking and nagging exam classes about the approaching mocks. But this year Marley had lightened her mood and when he spoke with her about one of the pupils they shared she didn’t bristle but listened, alarmed at what Marley knew that she did not.

Roberts was one of the least inspiring of her uninspiring year eleven set. In what she’d assumed was an act of malice from her head of department she’d been assigned the bottom set to drag unwilling through their GCSE and Roberts was the dullest of the dull. Always late, always with the wrong book, always smelling slightly of rugby field mud, Roberts was the butt of many classroom jokes, not least her own. As the term had gone on she had set her expectations of him low and marveled at how consistently he under achieved them. They hadn’t reached half term before he was spending most of her lessons waiting outside the Headmaster’s office to be reprimanded for some misdemeanor or other. Yet Marley, who taught History to the boy, spoke of a different character altogether. For Marley, Roberts was a story of triumph against parental adversity. There was an unfortunate divorce and an ‘arrangement’ over fees to keep Roberts at the school. Marley had taken him on and he was doing well – rising above the bullies who despised him for his relative lack of wealth and swagger. Doing well, that is, except in English. Eleanora confessed that she knew none of this and wondered how until Marley spoke of the briefings she had missed at the start of the term. Once more entering the almost dream state she found herself in when talking with Marley she saw Roberts as the victim of his tormentors: the stolen books, the hidden towels and the cupboards he had been locked in when the lesson bell rang. She saw herself impatient and too easily steered into hasty judgments, too quick to condemn and too inclined to believe the worst of the unfortunate boy. Blushing with shame she knew the answer before Marley had proposed it and it was  a mark of how far she’d come since September that she found herself volunteering time with Marley and Roberts outside of school hours to make up what her negligence had lost for the boy.

So instead of a trudging retreat to the finish line, the approach of this Christmas for Eleanora held new promise. Roberts’ improvement was slow and hard won but she had time before the summer and, more, she had the confidence that Marley’s revealing of her own past had given her. She knew, deep in the heart of her that what she had done in the past she could do again. She could find the space in her heart and the love and committment to be an inspiration to this boy. To all the boys and girls in her care, to all the boys and girls in the school. Walking fondly with Marley through the evening chill away from her first school Christmas carol concert for many years, where Marley had played the guitar to Roberts’ enthusiastically noisy drumming, she found herself smiling as he gushingly described it as the highlight of his year:

“You know what, Joe?” she said, taking his arm. “I think it might just be mine, as well”.