Bridge Building at Builth

The Bridge at Builth Wells.

So you're still with me then? The old 'Bipolar Bastard' has just qualified with a Post Graduate Certificate in Education (F.E) from the University College of Wales, Caerleon. It lasted a year and a very kind tutor kindly offered to help me improve my written Welsh. The year 1995.Why did I take this route after graduating? Fuck knows, but I did. Again, no plan Stan! I saw a job as a Basic Skills Tutor advertised with Rathbone Community Industry and I went for it. It was in a Unit over on Ely Bridge! It was to encourage young people excluded from school to engage with basic worksheets in Arithmetic and English. I was alright with the English, the language of Oppression but numbers and figures whoosh! I then saw another advertisement for a Full Time Field Officer with the Young Farmers' Clubs of Wales. Well I was working with young people part time, why not give this a go! I must have had some altruistic wish to be that adult who really understood what it was like to be an unhappy young person.
Young Farmers though? and you having been a city boy for 10 years. Aye, but I was raised in the country, in a village, outside a town in North Wales.  My father was from farming stock and I must have thought subliminally that this move would please him. I thought I was getting back to the land, the earth, 'y pridd'. I lived in Grungetown, Cardiff and I travelled 3 hours a day, there and back to Builth Wells whilst also travelling to all the County Headquarters around Wales. Urban/Rural, Welsh/English. I was driving around in a fog of self loathing and low self esteem. The  car had 125,000 miles on the clock when I started in 1996 and had 205,000 miles on the clock when I finished at the end of 1998. I was fucked by the end of this job and it cost me my physical health. I don't blame the job but I blame my Mental Health whilst doing the job for causing a serious physical illness the following year. I was a worrier, I didn't eat properly. I was snacking on food in garages and I was binge drinking on the weekends. I couldn't relax. I would attend meetings and run training events around Wales with an un-diagnosed Mental Health Condition.  I used to dread the Royal Welsh Show. I had been a Security guard on the show in the early nineties, again Why? Why? Oh yes for the pittance of pay and that had been a sobering experience. Trying to stop somebody on a quad bike from driving around the showground, I made a grab for him and his little son on the back spat out "Hit him Dad, Hit him". I was actually flooding my anxiety later on by doing a job that involved meeting and working with a lot of different people. For a 'Normal' person, this would have been stressful but for somebody with high and low moods it was too much. I bailed out at the end of 98 and in the debrief was asked "Was there anything you enjoyed about the job"? I'd seen another job, working in the Arts and I tried for it, but I was ill already.   Was I being selfless? Was I bridge-building? Or was I just fucking myself up? Tune in next time 'Shark Fishing in Wales' fans to find out.