Not many people know that I used to work in stockbroking. I kind of fell into it because I had no idea what else to do when I left school. I didn’t fancy going to university to carry on learning French or German – languages were always ‘my thing’ – so I wrote dozens of application letters to companies in London, and a week before my eighteenth birthday started work at the most boring job in the entire universe. I promise you, that’s no exaggeration. I was working in the Back Office of S G Warburg, which basically means ensuring the correct amount of money and shares are exchanged on time, and sorting out any discrepancies. Like I said, b-o-o-oring!
I drove my Dad to Moorfields Eye hospital last week and while I waited for him, went for a wander around a very deserted City. I hadn’t realised how close to Liverpool Street I was, but places and street names began to look familiar and suddenly I found myself standing in front of 1 Finsbury Avenue (by happy coincidence there’s now a Vietnamese restaurant next door – we’ll get to that later!).
I stood looking at the doors that I walked through so many times more than twenty years ago, feeling as though it was years and years of my life. In reality it was only two years at Warburg, plus another two at Banque Nationale de Paris, but let me assure you, it felt like much longer! The work and City life were stifling. I had a deep sense of purpose that was being suppressed, and I hated every minute of everyday that I worked in London!
After my first day at Warburg I went home feeling completely dazed, thinking, “what was that…?” I remember very clearly writing in my journal that I would just go to work, get through the day, it didn’t matter because at least now I’d have money to have a great social life with my friends, go on holiday, buy a new car and whatever else I wanted. I actually wrote that! How thankful I am to have learned that lesson early, and that it didn’t take too long! Thinking that money and things would make me happy enough to get through mind-numbingly, soul-destroying, boring days in offices without windows.
Funny how the universe works though, because it was at each of these jobs that I met the two people who completely changed the course of my life. On 1 October 1998, barely 22 years old, I went travelling with the friend I had met at BNP, exchanging smart suits, high heels and City bars for a 75 litre backpack (the 20kg baggage allowance didn’t exist then!), flip flops and youth hostels.
Little did I know that I’d spend the next seventeen years living, working, volunteering and yoga training in several countries around the world – including twelve years in Vietnam, which is how I found Conductive Education – or that when I’d eventually come back to live in England, I’d be nearly 40 and have four Vietnamese cats with me, but that’s a whole other story…