Welcome

I'm Stephen Peel and my job title is Conservation and Design Officer for the local authority. The biggest mistake I made would probably have been: I did have an artistic side and Art combined with History was really my big passion in life and that's what I should have been doing, rather the maths or the sciences. I was very much pushed in that direction both specifically by my parents and also by the general society around me.

That was in the early 80s in a mining town, so I joined the majority of my school colleagues in signing on for a few months. I was able to get a clerical job, but it wasn't terribly interesting.

My wife qualified as nurse whilst I was able to go university then, and do another degree. I was 40 when I went back and I remember chatting to one of the younger class mates and I said about me being a "mature student" and he rather dryly replied, "Very".

I would say when my current line manager called to say that I actually got the job it was probably one my most exciting moments of my life. At that point, yes, I definitely thought that was a turning point in my life and one which had made all the hard work worth while.