‘I’m proud my sons won’t go to university’
Her boys have poor A-level results but forged their own paths to success, says Candida Crewe
Amonth ago, my son walked into a top London restaurant and asked if he could have a word with the head chef. Erskine has been working in a good restaurant in Belfast, initially as an apprentice on about £3.50 an hour, then as a commis chef on £5 or so. His reality is 13-hour days, sometimes nine days on the trot. At school he frittered away his academic potential but then, via being a waiter, he stumbled upon his passion – cooking. He has done his time for more than a year in the intense heat of the Belfast kitchen – “it’s not about chasing money at this point, Mama”, but he never lost his dream of landing a job at a top restaurant in London.
It was his 20th birthday in July and he came home to celebrate. The day after his hangover lifted, he walked to his chosen top restaurant, carefully timing his entrance for 10am, not too close to service. Handing his CV to the rather surprised fellow at the door, he asked if he could meet the head chef. The head chef was in a meeting.
Erskine had one shot; his flight back to Belfast was the next day. He returned half an hour later. The gatekeeper told him it was “not the ideal time, just before service”, when my son spotted the chef beckoning to him. He asked what other restaurants he was targeting. Erskine replied “none”; this was the one he had set his sights on. Would he be able to commit for two years? “At least!”
Their 20-minute conversation ended in the offer a two-day trial, for which he borrowed money and flew back from Belfast 10 days later. And, at the end of it, a dream job. He moves to London to start in the new kitchen any day now.
I tell this story not entirely in the spirit of smugness. My context is one in which smugness was never allowed much rein. A few months ago, my ex-husband and I looked at each other in despair. Not one of our three children has done well at school and none was heading to a university. Our middle son, Caspar, 18, was offered a job at a tech company in the Shard in London before he sat his A-levels, so he took his foot off the academic pedal and concentrated more on computer coding than on his studies. Result: full-time employment but shameful A-level results. Our youngest, Conor, 16, has just done GCSEs and is more inclined to an apprenticeship than A-levels. But where we live they are an anomaly. They were brought up in west London and north Oxford, places where A*s and Ucas triumphs come as standard.
My children never did any extracurricular stuff; no pillar-to-post violin or tennis or ballet. They showed no interest. We fretted about it, but then decided to give them the space to breathe and experience the horrors – and joys – of abject boredom. It was a white-knuckle ride against the tide, but I couldn’t be a total hypocrite. I didn’t go to university even though I got close to Oxford. I was offered a place, but when I didn’t get the required A-level grades, instead of trying again, my headstrong 18-yearold self thought, “I’ll show ’em!” and I wrote a book instead. Miraculously, it was published and I was on my way.
My brilliant ex-husband also flunked his exams – today he’s a university professor. So, for all our academic ambitions – resoundingly thwarted – for our children, we both knew there were other ways of getting on in life other than getting into top universities.
Yet there was always a gnawing anxiety that, in the current febrile atmosphere, they would be at a disadvantage. One boy I know had two A-grade GCSE marks queried because they should have been A*s – like his other 11. One father lost his rag with a head of college when his child failed to get into Oxford. How on earth would children like ours fare against this sense of entitlement?
Which is why my eldest son’s recent good fortune has given me hope. So, too, did the story I spotted on the BBC website last week, of a young man from the East End whose – literal – door-knocking changed his life. Reggie Nelson asked himself what he could do to change his circumstances in a way no one else would have thought of. He wanted a job in the City, so took the incredibly brave step of deciding to knock on the doors of grand houses in Kensington and Chelsea – the richest borough in the land – to find out how the owners had amassed their wealth. Elizabeth Price, the wife of Quintin Price, the head of Alpha Strategies at Black Rock, answered the door and let him in. Her husband was so impressed by the audacious Reggie that he arranged an internship for him at the firm. Reggie flourished and, in turn, was inspired to go to university. He now has a full-time job in the City and is also busy giving talks encouraging other young black people to apply.
Of course, walk-ins off the street are no guarantee of a job and are rare because they require a lot of courage and luck. But Emma Bridgewater, founder of Bridgewater, says she too remembers “a very proactive” young man coming to see her, offering his services in a significant role. “I turned him down because I didn’t think he had enough experience,” she says. “But he was very persistent and charming and showed determination. He’d done his research and wanted to work very specifically for us. So I gave him the job and he turned out to be wonderful and worked for us for 10 years.” Sending out CVs willy-nilly and middle-class claims of “My mum is a friend of yours”, are, she says, “deadly.”
Mark Pougatch, the sports broadcaster, who covered the World Cup for ITV, agrees. He says people sidle up to his wife, Victoria, all the time, asking if their son can speak to him about work experience. Her stock answer is that the child would be better off calling Mark himself.
The ones most likely to impress are those like the son of his neighbour “who approached me for advice – aged 11! He was so focused and is now 23, in the business and making his way. He’s going to be very successful, no question.”
He also remembers a couple of years ago, in Tesco in Weybridge, a young man followed him around the vegetable section and eventually approached him. He said, “Do you mind my asking you if I am wise to do a football journalism course at a college in Derby?” Pougatch says he loved that initiative and told him to go for it. He has no idea what became of him but believes that kind of nous will ensure he’ll go far.
And hearing the A-level results this week and the despair of some parents and children I know, I can only say, try it. Standing on your own two feet could be the greatest lesson of all.
‘Where we live, our children are very much an anomaly – A*s come as standard’