JIm’s job No 1 was as a Volunteer for Service Overseas (VSO) working in the hot and sweaty rain forest of southern Nigeria, planting rubber, cocoa and palm oil trees. Job No 2 was growing and drying hops with his father at Teynham, near Sittingbourne. They didn’t get along, so Jim left the family business and made his way to London to find Job No 3. There he worked for an international bank, confirming and financing international trade between the bank’s West-African clients and their suppliers. Job No 4 required learning to teach English as a foreign language for specific purposes to mature and professional clients. Jim spoke of working with central and eastern European diplomats and civil servants as they prepared their countries for joining the European Union; and he talked of working closely with business people whose companies were reaching out to new markets outside their cultural and linguistic comfort zones.
We didn’t get the details, but Jim gave us to understand that Job No 5 involved cooking, washing up, dusting and so on. “Some people call it retirement,” he said!
Picture: Jim’s job has taken him to several countries. Inset: Jim. Picture credit: Pixabay/ExplorerBob & Jim Gascoyne.
