“I think of ARC West as a combination of work, social club, bakery and support group”

Our much-loved PPI Facilitator Mike Bell is retiring at the end of May. Here he reflects on his long and varied career, spanning printing in South Africa during Apartheid, crewing yachts, waiting tables and advocating for disabled and older people.

With retirement imminent (as I write this, I have seven working days left), I’ve been looking back on 49 years of working and wondering, was any of it worth it? What have I achieved and what, if anything, have I learned?

My first proper job was as an Apprenticed Photo-Lithographer on an Afrikaans language daily newspaper, in Johannesburg in 1974, during the dark days of Apartheid.

The newspaper was essentially a government mouthpiece. Not the place you would think someone from a South Yorkshire mining village would end up developing liberal values. Although the editorial staff were conservative nationalists and Afrikaans speaking, the people who worked in production were anything but.

Much of the workforce had been recruited from Europe and included Brits, Germans, Austrians, Portuguese and, in a male dominated industry, a rare female compositor from Yugoslavia. In a country where homosexuality was punishable with up to seven years in prison, we had a typesetting department staffed by gay men, including one who always wore women’s clothes and we addressed as Vanessa. Although this was the before the phrase ’politically correct’ had been invented and ’woke’ was still the past tense of wake, I don’t remember Vanessa or any of his/her colleagues being treated any differently from anyone else.

It was during these years I learned a trade that would keep me in regular, well-paid employment for many years. I also learned about a world I hardly knew existed and discovered other ways of thinking that my parents and teachers had failed to make me aware of. Experiences and values that would see me through the rest of my life.

It was during these years I learned Unions weren’t actually the devil’s spawn and that poor people weren’t necessarily poor because they were feckless or lazy and that we weren’t all created equal. I’d got my political education from Ayn Rand (now referred to as “potty” Ayn Rand) novels until I was given a copy of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist by someone who would go on to become my mentor.

As newspaper workers, we had access to late-night and largely illegal shebeens where I rubbed shoulders with much older and far more worldly-wise colleagues, including Vanessa and his/her boyfriend.

I visited gay clubs for the first time. A fabulously glamorous (and partly secretive) experience that I didn’t then have the confidence to share with many of my non-work friends. I had a few brushes with the notorious South African Police, culminating in me taking a severe beating and a court visit, before learning that I was never going to win that battle (in fairness, I did run one of them over).

The pub we frequented from work was in an area inhabited by ‘poor whites’ and wasn’t unlike the kind of bar you see in American movies. They had a jukebox that played only country music, mostly Lucille by Kenny Rogers in 3:4 time. It was the first (and last) time I’d ever been dragged off a bar stool by women older than my mum to waltz (very badly) round a bar. To be clear, this had nothing to do with my dancing skills, they seemed to take pleasure in targeting all of us apprentices. I suspect we could have resisted but none of us was brave enough.

It was during these years I bought my first motorbike with money I won on a radio quiz show. After crashing it (drunk) and spending 11 days in intensive care, I eventually learned not to ride while drunk. I was so ill, the church-going parents of a good friend came to pray at my bedside. On recovering, I bought my first car, a VW Sedan as advertised by a then up-and-coming actor called Dustin Hoffman.

It was during these years I went on holiday without parents for the first time and had my first holiday romance. I had sex for the first time (eventually – I was a late bloomer). I talked my sister into coming out as gay to our parents, convincing her they’d be fine. They weren’t. There were lots of other firsts. Some I’d rather forget (having a gun pulled on me for example), some I wish I could re-live but sadly you can never have a second first time.

All this to a soundtrack of sometimes wonderful, and occasionally awful, 70s music. I spent my vast wages (£11 a week) on records, beer, records, girls, records, motorbike, petrol and more records.

I took my trade test after four years and while waiting for the results, the man I’d considered my mentor, the man who’d taught me about equality and fairness, was accused of sexually assaulting a black woman. We all eventually knew he was guilty but this was still South Africa in the 1970s and he was white and she wasn’t. I passed my trade test and, now qualified, I left in search of more money and more reliable mentors.

I learned a lot in those four years and occasionally wonder what I would change or do differently if I could go back. If I’m honest, probably very little. I learned far too much. It was an apprenticeship for life as well as work.

Over the next 10 years I travelled widely, working in the printing industry whenever I needed to earn good money but also as a hall porter on the Isle of Man, in a factory making pneumatic components on a Kibbutz in Israel, I crewed a yacht from Cape Town to Brazil via St Helena and drove game viewing safaris in Kenya. I’ve repaired gearboxes in Tanzania and survived crashing into a cow in the Kalahari (the cow survived, the motorbike not so well). I had guns pointed at me four more times, though only once did anyone ever fire one. Eventually, in 1985, I returned to the land of my birth.

Then came children, marriage, a move to the West Country and the inevitable mortgage. I found a print job working three 12-hour days a week which, once I got used to the long days, meant four-day weekends and plenty of family time. But it didn’t last.

Photolithography was becoming a computerised job and the photomechanical skills I had were fast becoming redundant. I couldn’t bear the thought of spending my life in front of a computer screen (I know) so I went back to school.

Aged 38 and with three children, I retired from the formal labour market. During the four years it took me to get a degree, I worked as a gardener, a labourer, a handyman, a waiter, a sous chef and a babysitter (and on one or two occasions, a photo-lithographer). I got a grant (remember those?) but the mortgage still needed paying and the kids still expected Christmas presents.

Eventually, armed with a BSc in Human Ecology, I headed out into the job market again. Unable to find any adverts for Human Ecologists, I worked on the scattergun approach and applied for anything that took my fancy and was eventually offered a job working as an advocate with older people and disabled people.

It was my first venture into the voluntary sector, where I was amazed to find ‘paid’ work. It was unlike any previous job I’d ever had and I loved it. I was surprised when during a short but severe illness when my manager called at my home to see how I was. It was the first time in my working life someone had appeared to genuinely care how I was, rather than when I could get back to my job.

Since then, I’ve advocated for older people, disabled people, disabled students looking to get into university and most recently, people who had been treated badly by the NHS. Being an NHS complaints advocate was a lonely place. Working from home listening to people’s awful stories eventually took its toll so after five years I needed something a little more uplifting and rewarding.

And that’s how I ended up here. Initially with Bristol Health Partners and then with CLAHRC/ARC West and the Bristol BRC. Unlike the macho 1970s printing industry, I found myself in an industry where most of my colleagues this time were women (is health research an industry or a science or something I haven’t worked out how to categorise?). There’s less sexism, though I’m far more aware of every-day sexism now than I think I’ve ever been. My colleagues now are also more liberal and even more multi-cultural than the those I had in the 70s. The clothes and the cakes are better, though the music is definitely worse.

Although I was initially working for Bristol Health Partners, I was given a desk amongst the CLAHRC research team. My first friend was Hannah, who never tired of answering my questions about health and research and what I was actually supposed to be doing. She did eventually ask for a move away from me but was kind enough to blame the “sun coming through the window giving her headaches” rather than my constant chatter. In the next few weeks I talked Joni and Sharea into submission before the CRN finally moved out of our office space and I was moved “away” to the noisy end.

I’ve never worked anywhere for eight years before. Not even close. There’s a reason I’ve stayed so long (well, two actually but we shan’t mention getting to that age where no one else wants to employ you in case you can’t work a smartphone or you’ve never heard of Twitter etc).

I work with lovely people. I’ve had three of the best managers I’ve ever worked with in Lara, Pippa and Hazel. Between them, fiercely intelligent, loud, sweary and caring, always supportive and thoughtful. I’ll let you work out which adjectives belong to whom.

I’ve fallen in love with many colleagues over the years. They say “you never forget your first love” (at BHP/CLAHRC/ARC) and I remember mine very clearly. It was the first of August 2015. I was in a BHP team meeting and someone came in and informed us Cilla Black had died. One person’s immediate response was something along the lines of “Well, she was a Tory”. You know who you are.

The one that took me most by surprise is the one person who made me consider for the first time in my 60-odd years on the planet whether I was quite the heterosexual alpha male I’d always imagined myself to be. You know who you are too.

I think of ARC West as a combination of work, social club, bakery and support group. I’ve worked with some of the loveliest and most thoughtful people in the last eight years. People who have made me want to be a better person. I can’t count the number of times I’ve come into the office to find surprise gifts on my desk. A book, a plant, cake, a card. I’m loath to name people as I could and up with a list a mile long but I must mention Emer who, when she sold her house to my son, bargained him DOWN twice from his original offer. I well up every time I mention this to anyone.

I’m now at the opposite end of my six score and ten to when I started that apprenticeship all those years ago, but still experiencing things for the first time.

In the years I’ve worked here I’ve become a grandfather for the first (and second) time. I’ve seen one of my children get married and another one move abroad to live in Vancouver (twice). I’ve bought what will probably be my last motorcycle and had what I hope will be my last ever motorcycle accident.

I’ve taken up cycling in a way I’d never done before, cycling from Glasgow north to Tyndrum then winding my way slowly back to Somerset via Edinburgh, York, Liverpool and North Wales. A three-week journey that my hero Jon Banks would have knocked off in a weekend. I now get free prescriptions and I have an ‘older person’s’ railcard. My body has finally begun the aging process. I have a metal knee and an enlarged prostate. I’ve had the inevitable finger up the bum and camera down the pipe to test for cancers, thankfully all negative.

I’ve become more thoughtful and introspective. Spotify kindly informed me that my listening style last year was ‘melancholy’. At the same time, my daughter told me I’m getting more emotional. I certainly ‘feel’ more, my heart is bigger. Not certain whether this is age related or working with people that encourage and allow it. I’ve discovered I love working with young people and that it simultaneously makes you feel both young and old. I’ve fooled people into thinking I’m rather sociable.

I’ve made some wonderful friends in Bristol. Both colleagues and members of the public. I shall miss working here. I know I’m leaving YPAG and PPI in very capable hands. I don’t have words for how much I’ve loved working with Lucy and Carmel. Despite being older than their combined ages they have very kindly never treated me as an old duffer.

So, back to my earlier questions. Was any of it worth it? What, if anything, have I achieved and have I learned anything.

Yes, it was worth it. Life has in the main been good. It’s rarely been dull. I’ve made good friends along the way. There’s very little I would change.

Have I learned anything? Lots. Often it’s been just a little too late, occasionally it’s been just in time and once or twice, it’s saved my life.

Have I achieved anything? I think that’s up to others to answer although, last year, when asking members of the YPAG what they felt about YPAG and what was important to them, one of them said “Whenever I’m talking to adults now, I always imagine you or Lucy are behind me, supporting me.”

That will do. I’m off now to make bread or climb a mountain or read a book or just laze about doing nothing.