steviespain:
From your CV:
Education
10 years university education
Master of Arts degree, Criminology, Leicester University UK 1998
Bachelor of Science degree, Social Science, Open University UK 2004
Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree, Sociology, Leicester University UK 1995 Core subjects: Criminal Justice System - Police studies - Public Health - Statistical analysis - Social Theory
TEFL certified, 40 hours class study and 250 hours voluntary practice, ThailandMight be cut off at 60 in Thailand but not in UK.
Why be a trucker?
Is this thread a social experiment?
No, definitely not a social experiment. A bit of background? I took my HGV test in 1988, started driving and a few years later got the university bug. By the time I finished I was too old to get into the professions and a Ph.D. was too expensive and so I continued driving and paid for those years by driving p/t. I continued by driving f/t and by 2005 I and millions of others could see the writing on the wall as companies began to lay off and downsize and as the recession started, I also left. I trained as a teacher in Thailand, did a bit there and moved to Inner Mongolia on a contract with an American company working for the Chinese government education system. I missed the great recession. The plan was to stay in China until my state pension kicked in and so I let my licence expire, but the company I worked for lost its government contract and so I and a few others were made redundant. Back to Thailand, living on savings with no job, no welfare and the immigration authorities breathing down my neck because I’ve no income coming in. That’s the situation I’m now in.
Now, if you can get a Local Authority in the UK to fund a 64 year old for a professional British teaching qualification (PGCE), or point me to a vacancy for a near retirement age probation officer I’m all ears, but it isn’t going to happen. I can batter your ears all day with the intricacies of English grammar, or bore you to death explaining Marxist dialectics, but in Asia at 64 that will no longer earn me a living.
My Thai wife and I own our own home here and she has a small business that gives her enough to live on for the next few years. It’s now time to move elsewhere and earn some shekels so that later I can return. It’s been an adventure and my claim to fame is that I’d be the only one here whose last Manager’s title was ‘Political Officer’ and a member of the CCP! What better suggestion than to return to the UK and take up driving again? I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth Stevie, but I’m adaptable. My strengths lie in being able to put on a shirt and tie and give a lecture to a hundred people, or putting on a Hi-Viz and driving a HGV. I’m sad to leave the home I’ve made here, but needs must and better I do it now while I’ve still got the funds to be able to get back into earning money, rather than arrive back later with no fixed address and a £100 in my pocket!
I’ve learned a lot here from the changes that have occurred since I left and my objective now is to find an area to locate to and I’m initially considering Thurrock, Grays, Tilbury as areas of high employment for drivers. Any suggestions?