London - the secret mission

04/02/09 - London - the secret mission

Right I am sitting in the middle of Convent Gardens listening to Mozart being played live and I am smiling to myself. (And it is not because I am eating a chocolate muffin.) I have just finished my secret mission - interviewing for a copywriter position with Scope (I suppose I should say that Scope is a charity who support and fights for the equality of disable people, with a particular focus on people who have cerebral palsy.) Although most of you know about Scope due to a little walk that I did in South Africa. Will I get the job - it’s 50/50. In some respects my life would be easier if I don’t get it. But it is has vindicated me as when I left Realise, one of the reasons was to explore the opportunities of becoming a paid writer and within a month of leaving, I have secured this interview. Why would it be easier if I don’t get it? The job is in London, not Edinburgh, which would mean moving to the big smoke for four months and everything that goes along with making that kind of move I would have to deal with, i.e. dealing with my old demises, the tube train. It is almost like I am Doctor Who and the tube trains are my very own Daleks.

The feud between us started when I was a young girl and I probably used to scream the tube station down every time I had to go on one. To a small girl, who was (and still is) scared of heights, tube trains were big, noisy, busy and deep underground. Thinking about it now, my dad must have found this odd as he is a Londoner and tube trains would have been a way of life for him. Anyway my fear continued into my late teens and it wasn’t helped by the Kings Cross fire in the late 1980s and the fact that my dad & sister talked about it all the way to my Grandparents’ house, the first time we were in London after the fire. I remember that was the Easter holiday that I wouldn’t go to Convent Garden and my family had to perform magic to get me to see Starlight Express. I think my poor Grandpa had to drive us into Kings Cross to get the train home (lovely child, wasn’t I?). It wasn’t until university, did I start fighting back on my phobia. It was the London Book fair that eventually saw me and my Daleks start to have a more friendly relationship.

The London Book Fair is one of the most important dates in the publishing world’s calender. For a final year publishing student writing a dissertation on the demise of territorial rights due to growth of the online bookseller, the opportunity to interview some publishers and listen to speaks talk about the demons of online bookselling, was more important than staying above ground. Now this is where I have to be honest, if I could have been driven to Earls Court everyday, I would have been happier, but there was no way my aunty would have entertained this request, so I did venture down underground and somehow the old tube trains didn’t feel quite as menacing as they were in my youth.

I am afraid though that my moments of braveness for the book fair didn’t make me a fan of the tube train, and I continually battle with the idea of the tube every time I have to cross London. Now I am not stupid, or made of money, and I know that if I was to live in London that I would need to be at ease with the tube system so today wasn’t just about the interview, it was about being able to explore London by tube. From arriving at Kings Cross today, immediately, I thought, shit, I am going to be stuck at Kings Cross all day and perhaps I could take a taxi to Scope’s office. But no, I thought to myself, I want to go into Convent Gardens and come back to Edinburgh with some money so I went to get my day rover around the tube. Scope’s offices are just off Caledonian Road in Market Street. Caledonian Road is the first station on the Piccadilly line, if you are heading to Cockfosters, so familiar territory for me! The journey is nothing to speak about, because there is nothing in it. Five minutes, or less, to get there. Okay, tube trains are still noisy, smelly and underground but, for me, they aren’t as scary as they once were.

I remember one of the episodes in Doctor Who, the Daleks, they are in captivity and you see their vulnerability, and even although they’ll always be the Doctor Who baddie that you hid behind the sofa when you were a child, you know that their goal is to protect what they believe in, just like the Doctor. Tube trains are the just the transport of London and they aren’t there to terrorise people, but to give them an alternative way to travel. I realise now that I am in sitting in Convent Gardens, enjoying this lovely music that I could live in this city and enjoy the different aspects of living that London could offer. I wouldn’t choose lightly to come to London but the opportunity at Scope could make me tackle my Daleks on a day-to-day bases, and I am grateful that this opportunity has made me think outside of my comfort zone.

So what about the job - I think it goes without saying what it would mean to me to be able to write everyday for a charity who’s mission and brand I can fully get behind. One of my questions I was asked in the interview was what are the challenges when writing for the audience of Scope, and I think my answer was that you would show empathy, not sympathy in your writing, and for me, I would need to be carefully that my own voice and experiences didn’t cloud what I was writing. I would need to control my passion because whatever else I have learnt about being disable, is that no two disabled people will have the same experiences in life. What scares me is that my style in writing still needs to be worked on. One of the beautiful things about being creative is that you never stop learning new techniques and new ways to improve your own skills. They are looking for someone to come in for four months and to be able to write all the different materials. I know deep down I could do it, but I know that I would have to submerge myself into the job 200% and I probably would be in a Scope bubble for the next four months of my life, which is something I could do. New challenges and opportunities, it is all exciting, especially when you realise that you are willing to flip your whole life 180 degree to make something happen. It has remind me of how much this girl enjoys the adventure and journey of life, especially when it throws up a curve ball that could take you away from everything that you know to do a job, which embodies everything you believe in.

I would love to sit around and talk some more, but I am going to meet a friend at St. Pancras’ station. He had said to meet him at the statue on the first floor. I have no idea what this statue is off and by meeting on the first floor, it means that I will have to go upstairs - yet another challenge for me - I am really enjoying my secret mission. I am also thinking that I may spent a lot of time in Convent Gardens if I am successful in getting this job. In fact, there is lots I can see myself doing, if I end up in London...