My father was in on way academic. With no qualifications to his name he spent most of his life as a manual labourer and slowly worked his way up to be a Head Green Keeper at a municipal golf course via grave digger and truck driver.
While at the golf course he hired a PHd Physicist to cut grass and do odd jobs. It wasn't his choice. As a state enterprise he was obliged to hire a certain number of 'disabled' people.
Over a few years this wretched physicist slowly revealed how he was pushed through school and university early and was woo'ed to the city of london to do financial modelling and how by the age of 25 with mountains of cash his brain literally shut down.
He was rebooted in hospital diagnosed with depression and put on to the incapacity benefit list and a charity helped him into work via the local authorities.
He told my father that his greatest pleasure was seeing the stripes on the golf course after he'd freshly cut the fairway. He envied my father because he had worked his way from nothing to something where as he had the whole world at his feet, there was nothing to work for, it just came.
After two years at the golf course he stopped turning up for work, he stopped turning up for anything, he'd committed suicide.
This greatly effected me as a child who achieved academic success with (seemingly) little or no effort. A little bit of struggle makes any prize more valuable.
My ever pragmatic Dad said "he cut the grass straight and didn't piss in the tractor cab, he was a good man".
While at the golf course he hired a PHd Physicist to cut grass and do odd jobs. It wasn't his choice. As a state enterprise he was obliged to hire a certain number of 'disabled' people.
Over a few years this wretched physicist slowly revealed how he was pushed through school and university early and was woo'ed to the city of london to do financial modelling and how by the age of 25 with mountains of cash his brain literally shut down.
He was rebooted in hospital diagnosed with depression and put on to the incapacity benefit list and a charity helped him into work via the local authorities.
He told my father that his greatest pleasure was seeing the stripes on the golf course after he'd freshly cut the fairway. He envied my father because he had worked his way from nothing to something where as he had the whole world at his feet, there was nothing to work for, it just came.
After two years at the golf course he stopped turning up for work, he stopped turning up for anything, he'd committed suicide.
This greatly effected me as a child who achieved academic success with (seemingly) little or no effort. A little bit of struggle makes any prize more valuable.
My ever pragmatic Dad said "he cut the grass straight and didn't piss in the tractor cab, he was a good man".