Page 14 - Through a glass brightly

spent the time producing a Glossary of French Property Terms, intended for my second year's dissertation. My Supervising Tutor at UCL, however, was so impressed that he had it published, principally to help future students but it did go on general sale (with an ISBN No!). My second summer at EPA was spent researching for my dissertation, which Patrick, my mentor there, decided should be on the impact of having a TGV station on the development of a town, particularly the effect which it had on the evolution of a new town, such as Marne-la-Vallee, and its impact on the economic development. For this I had to travel around France, visiting Lisle and Lyon in particular, to interview a number of people involved with the TGV and its stations. The result of all this hard work was a First Class Honours MSc, which is my proudest achievement.
In the middle of all this, John and I got married in July 1993 and now live a happy life in our bungalow in Welwyn. I have also acquired the family I never thought I would have, John has been married twice before and has three daughters and a son and we now have ten grandchildren so I consider I am very lucky.
John retired in 1997 and I did in 2000, since which time we have travelled extensively around the world, including New Zealand, Australia, Japan, China, Borneo, Malaysia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka, Canada, by train right across the USA and to four countries in South America. John became 82 last week and, as you know I am now 75 so we are slowing down and are concentrating our travelling to UK and Europe. We were due to go to Austria in May but Coronavirus prevented that holiday!
Glenda White (Glenda)
After leaving school with a poor set of A levels, I trained as a
primary school teacher at a pretty duff teacher-training college
in the north of England. Jobs were easy in those days and I
landed up in Daisy Street County Primary Junior Mixed and
Infants where, much to my surprise, I found I liked teaching!
After three more posts (one as Deputy Head) and a degree I
moved into teacher training at Jordanhill College in Glasgow
where I stayed for 13 years. By this time I was well into my
stride and a Masters’ degree in Education and a second in
English Literature followed. For want of a change, I became
one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors but found it very formal, status-ridden and male- orientated. So when Strathclyde Region set up its own inspectorate I became the first Chief Inspector. I loved this job and was going at it great guns when John Major denounced the region as ‘a monstrosity’ and abolished it. Thus I fetched up as Senior Depute Director of Education in South Lanarkshire which wasn’t really my style but needs must! Early retirement beckoned and life really took off. I could pick ‘n mix what I wanted - rescuing a ‘failing’ school, training inspectors in Shetland or lecturing all over Scotland on whatever people asked me for! Sometime in my sixties I did my doctorate and then retired. I have always been actively involved in church life, ran a walking club for over 30 years, have tramped the length and breadth of Great Britain and am besotted with the theatre.
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