Going back to school

Fifty-five isn't too old to start again

I’m conscious I haven’t written a post on Substack for a little while. My St Hugh’s project came to an end and I was busy writing the final report and thanking everyone at the Foundation for the opportunity. And it turns out it is an opportunity which has quite literally changed my life.

Finally having time and space for my creative practice made me realise that I wanted to take the research and writing stories of the Isle of Axholme further and that I didn’t want to go back to my work as a Family Mediator.- not yet and perhaps not ever. And so I dusted off the draft Research proposal I had been working at, on and off, for the last two and a half years and sent it to potential supervisors at my two preferred Universities. I had favourable replies from both but circumstances led to me making an application for a place on the PhD Creative Writing programme at Lincoln.

Over the summer I had an online interview which I thought I’d messed up but it couldn’t have been too bad because I was offered a place, starting in October. And last Wednesday I enrolled as a fulltime PGR student at the lovely Brayford Pool campus – at the age of 55.

It has been a long road which led me here. One involving thirty years of working as a solicitor – a job in which I felt like a square peg in a round hole and which led to my finally burning out in summer 2020, at the same time my husband almost died from a Pulmonary Embolism. Three years of self employment as a family mediator followed but the urge was always there to spend my time more creatively, to have space in my life for my writing and to make it the focus of my work.

Time and space for creativity seemed a distant dream. I made unsuccessful bids for Arts Council DYCP funding, toyed with having time off to write but never quite bringing myself to take the plunge. And then I applied for the St Hugh’s Foundation for the Arts Artists Respond bursary and nothing has been the same since.

The last few months feel unreal. This time last year I couldn’t have imagined that I would have been able to take four months off work to focus on writing and researching the stories of Axholme. I certainly would never have believed that I would finally have written that research proposal and applied for a PhD programme.

Which brings me to last Wednesday and enrolling as a student again. I’m still not sure how it’s happened. In some ways I feel as though it has come to be without me making any conscious decisions – though that sounds a bit bonkers when I write it.

I’m scared and excited and, as someone with zero self-confidence, am consumed by imposters syndrome. I have no idea if I can do this, mentally, academically, creatively, financially.  All I know is I have to try. The PhD is an itch I need to scratch. I’m hoping it’s a decision I have cause to celebrate.

I will do my very best to chart my journey into this unfamiliar but enticing world.