Stepping off the path

One minute I’m live on air, the next minute, I’m selling hats!

This was in the summer of 1992, when I was 24, and I was living my dream. I was one member of a small team that was producing a London-wide music festival in partnership with Sol beer and BBC Radio One. I’d been interviewed as a guest on Nicky Campbell’s nighttime Radio One show. I’d been backstage at the Hammersmith Odeon.

And just a few months later - I was selling hats and scarves in the women’s accessory store, Accessorize!

Looking back over my career, I see how many times things rarely go to plan.

On this occasion, the events company folded and I was suddenly out of work. After a couple of unsuccessful job applications, a friend of mine phoned me up and asked if I wanted to help out in the shop she managed. It was December and they needed someone to cover lunch shifts in the busy pre-Christmas period.

So that is how I ended up working shifts at Accessorize in Kingston-upon-Thames. That certainly hadn’t been on my grand life plan. But it speaks to the crazy chaos of life. It was like a sign from above: before you get too full of yourself working in TV and live events, come back down to earth: literally, get onto the (shop) floor.

And, I really enjoyed the experience. You learn a lot from serving customers. It was busy and it was great to chat to everyone who came in.

My next job after Accessorize? It was seven years at Unique Broadcasting, one of the best companies and roles I have ever had! That was an opportunity worth waiting for. So I’m glad I didn’t dive into a new role earlier. Maybe selling hats and scarves gave me a chance to pause and find my feet again. Without that step off the path, perhaps I wouldn’t have got my role at Unique.

I’ve not told this story before. It’s such a small diversion on my overall career path that it wasn’t worth telling. Yet, everything we do in life has value in some shape. It’s only sometimes when we look back we see the bigger pattern.