The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Big week as Gordon gets his BA wings
It’s been quite a week in our house. We have been celebrating a big life-changing decision which Gordon made a few months ago.
It all culminated in him having a graduation ceremony this week.
During lockdown, while Gordon was having cancer treatment and when the whole of the music business had virtually closed down, he came to the decision that having a job in the music industry was no longer what he wanted to be doing at his stage of life.
He decided he wanted a ‘real job’ where he got paid every month and didn’t have to take his job home with him.
He didn’t want to turn his back on music completely as he still has some artists he wants to continue to manage, but he decided he wanted to have a proper job in an industry which is his other passion – the travel industry.
Gordon has always been such a fan of seeing as much of the world as he can. But although I also like to see the world, I find the getting there bit quite exhausting or boring.
Not Gordon however, he loves train or air travel and never gets tired of it.
A year ago he applied to work at British Airways and, after working both in Terminal 5 at Heathrow and at British Airways head office, he finally started his training for cabin crew.
The training was so much more challenging than we imagined it would be. He had thought the main emphasis would be on customer service, which is of course very important, but it’s the safety training which is particularly intense.
When I fly I do always try to watch the cabin crew doing their safely demonstration out of respect.
It must be pretty disheartening for them to do it for lots of people just looking down at their mobile phones, when they are taking responsibility for all of our safety.
Now, however, because I understand how hard they have trained, I will be giving them my undivided attention.
I’m away for work at the moment so unfortunately I couldn’t go to Gordon’s “wings ceremony”, but Ollie went to support him.
We were all very proud of Gordon for so many reasons.
It takes a lot of courage to change direction in life, especially at 60 years of age.
It’s also a big deal to start learning again at that age. Gordon is well respected in the music business and has a confidence in what that job entails, which comes from experience.
To step forward and learn about something you know nothing about is quite daunting.
But mainly we are proud of Gordon because after having been ill, it would be easy to sit down and take it easy and perhaps think about retirement.
He, however, has done the absolute opposite. He has pushed himself, sometimes a bit too hard in my opinion, but it has paid off.
He is now qualified cabin crew and is looking forward to his inaugural flight.
I can’t wait to be a passenger on one of his flights and to see him in action. I’m probably totally biased but I think he looks very handsome in his uniform.
In the meantime, I’m off on the road. I’m lucky enough to be on tour again with Lewis Capaldi and his band.
They are such a lovely bunch of people to spend time with and there is never a dull moment with Lewis around.
We are, of course, in Aberdeen on Monday, so I hope you enjoy the show.
It’s quite poignant really to be back in Aberdeen. The gig we did there back in March 2020 was of course the very last time we were together before we went into lockdown.
We said goodbye to each other that night thinking that things would be back to normal in a couple of weeks and little did we know that it would be almost three years before we were back in the Granite City.
By the way, I can’t believe it has taken me until January 21 to mention the dreaded New Year diet!
You know that I’m usually banging on about some regime I’m on in January.
Don’t worry, I am, of course, trying my best to lose a few pounds as usual.
It’s a bit of a challenge to be strict while on the road, but I just wanted to reassure any of you trying to get healthy in January that most of us are in the same boat.
It was Blue Monday this week, the day we are all likely to have given up on our New Year resolutions, but hang in there everyone!
Have a good week,