Blackpool to paris and beyond

BLACKPOOL

I took my Clinical TA exam in Blackpool. I was gutted. Everyone else in my training group went to exotic locations - San Francisco, Gstaad, Kerala. Me, I got the seaside town of my childhood that my grandmother always took me to for holidays. That year Blackpool had successfully bid to host the EATA conference in the UK. We all thought the UK won on cost.

I tried to be positive. No expensive flights. All the big TA names  only a  car drive away. Cheap accommodation. One of my more sophisticated friends from the southern hemisphere staying in a luxury seaside flat expostulated for hours about how anyone could expect you to carry 50 pence pieces to feed an electricity meter. We all feigned shock and ignorance. In truth, we were dissembling. This was Blackpool in the late eighties. What could you expect?

At the conference dinner the Mayor of Blackpool did not disappoint. He regaled our European colleagues with perplexing tales of how many yards of toilet roll were required each season to take care of holiday maker needs. And, of course, how many links of sausages were eaten at breakfast. We Brits cringed and would happily have crawled under the table.

The culinary nadir came when a very sophisticated New Yorker from our training group demanded to see the chef during the conference banquet.  He left him in no doubt that tinned tomatoes and  baked beans was not a banquet dinner fit  for anyone, including a vegetarian. Our trainer niftily calmed the situation by suggesting that we all went out the next night to the best restaurant in town. To be fair to Blackpool, it was an absolutely delicious meal that night, but eye wateringly expensive.

But back to my exam. My trainer had ordered me to go on The Revolution the night before my exam. Back in the day it was the biggest and scariest ride any theme park in Europe had to offer. The idea was to break down my tension with screaming. She commanded a big chunky Geordie guy in our training group to accompany me. He readily agreed.

On the day he did a no-show. Jennie waited for over an hour with me. But he didn’t come. We left it right up to the point when the ride was about to close. Reluctantly, but heroically, Jennie said she would come with me.

The Adrenalin rush was incredible. I walked off the ride floating. Unfortunately, it made me too high. And next morning at breakfast I walked up to the table where the Chair of my board was eating and introduced myself. He looked disconcerted and gently dispatched me with Antipodean charm and kindness.

Jennie had made me a peach two-piece to wear for the exam. I felt amazing.

My board was made up of four. Three Europeans and the Chair from New Zealand. The exam was an hour. I had prepared every marking category in the hope I would answer fluently. But inevitably there were questions that took me by surprise and caused me to pause. Our trainer had schooled us well and told us that at such moments we could say we needed a moment to think or even ask for the question to be re- phrased.

5 was the top mark in any category. My training group was very competitive and it mattered how many 5s you got. But all of that fell by the wayside when after the boards’ scoring and discussion the Chair said those magic words,
‘Congratulations, Christine, you’ve passed!’

Jennie and some our counselling group trainees were outside the exam room. They let out whoops of delight when they saw my smiling face and pressed a bucket of flowers into my hands which they had brought from their own gardens at home. I burst into tears. After all those arduous long years travelling to our training in London, often every weekend, I had done it. No more saving Mars Bar Vouchers towards tickets on the National Express coach.  No more sofa surfing on Saturday nights.

Now just Jennie’s exam in Paris that autumn to prepare for.