Verity

Interviewee: Verity

Interviewer: Archie Wood

Date of recording: 20 July 2022

Recording location: on-line

Length of recording: 38:17

Subjects (key words): Brentwood, Chelmsford, York, Japan, academia, banking, acting ‘extra’, dental practice, , freelance writing, sustainable design, editing, History, ambitions, art, cat, climate change, commuting, Covid, cult, Etsy, experience, extracurricular activities, family, finding work, home, money, physical illness, libraries, mental wellbeing, reading, religion, remote working, skills, social media, travel, working hours

Abstract:

[00:31] Born in Chelmsford; brought up in Brentwood. [01:33] Early memories of family homes; [02:25] difference between her room and her brother’s; father’s wall paintings. [03:19] Father’s work in banking; his ill health; his work as an extra.

[04:10] Verity’s work doing spreadsheets for a dentist; [04:34] selling her artwork via her Etsy store; [04:50] began in lockdown; customers are worldwide. [05:51] Subjects of paintings. [06:52] Influence of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. [07:05] Also sells embroidered bags and crocheted scrunchies.

[07:25] Father’s and mother’s aptitude for art, and attitude to it. [08:07] Her reputation as the creative one in the family and at school. [08:38] Monetising art; needs to make money to pay rent.

[09:25] Memories of being brought up in Christian cult. [10:23] Physical punishment. [10:45] Childhood reading: Paddington and Tintin books. [11:11] Memories of other activities: tennis, golf, piano, football. Parents’ financial situation.

[12:25] Studying at school and reasons for choice of university subject. [15:30] Memories of studying history at school. [17:16] Family’s response to her choosing to study History at university rather than Art. [18:00] Ambitions for future: historian, curation, archives, editing.

[18:40] Freelance writing work.

[19:17] Analytical, writing and editing skills developed during History degree.

[20:48] Student loans, financial independence from family, current jobs (admin at dental practice; freelance writing). [22:05] Work for sustainable design company. [23:25] Work for her Etsy shop. [23:49] Hours worked; financial independence; [24:18] comparison with brother and boyfriend. [25:40] Finding work; challenge of finding work without experience; [26:35] ability to pick and choose jobs.

[27:06] Climate change.

[28:25] Skills developed during History degree. [29:50} Ambitions for career in editing. [30:26] Expectations that History degree leads to teaching; believes degree has equipped them for a variety of careers. [31:00] Desire to travel and live in Japan.

[33:00] Impact of Covid on what kinds of jobs were available. [33:45] Advantages of remote working; [34:00] isolation of remote working; impact on mental wellbeing; [35:15] routine of commuting. [36:05] What kind of space and routine they would like in their future career.

Excerpt

[15.13]

VERITY:

When I was young, I hated history without an absolute burning passion because all they taught us at Christian cult school was Henry the Eighth and Cleopatra and other stuff like that that I do not remember, it's the same stuff over and over again, and then, when I got into Year 7 and finally transferred to state school, after a whole life of being in a private Christian hell, where I was… I had the best teacher I've ever had. His name is Mr. Price, and he was so cool and he sat down, he taught us about all the violent happenings of the Battle of Hastings. And I thought, wow! Cool. And then this time from there, and like art was still, like what I wanted to do, but History was one of my favourite things to learn, apart from the World Wars. The World Wars were awful. Like in GCSE we had, we had four modules, two of which were about Hitler. And I'm not saying it's not an important subject to study, but – of course it is, of course it is – but after a while, I guess it gets a bit boring of learning all the same stuff. So, yeah. And then in A Level we did the Tudors, which I realize now is a subject that absolutely everybody does. But at the time it was like the first… first thing I did because we did the later Tudors which was Edward, Mary and Elizabeth. So, that really made me want to go study it, instead of I was just… I don't know, I'm so curious about anything and everything. So, I just love taking, I take loads of classes and loads of different things just because I'm interested in it. Yeah, I'd like to go back to uni and do something else just out of curiosity because I just want to learn more things. But, yeah, I learn art that art wasn't something I'd like to study, which was extremely disappointing to everyone around me. It was so strange. I had like, normally families would be, like, Arts not something you go study and think my family was like ‘I can't believe you're not going to study art, you're so disappointing.’ So yeah, my granddad’s still very disappointed, but I can still do it. I don't need a degree to do Art, but it may have made my art a little bit better, but I'm still having fun with it, so I don't see any issue. And now, I know a lot about random subjects and write my dissertation on London coffee houses, and I couldn't be happier.

INTERVIEWER:

Where are you hoping your history degree will take you in the future, have you got any plans at all?

VERITY:

I mean like I'd like, I think it's every history students dream to be a historian but, of course, that's a very narrow field and a very competitive one at that… so… I don't, I would have liked to go into curation and archive work. I think that sounds fun. But what I really want to do right now is like, going to book editing because my free time is spent reading. I mean, I read for my degree and then when I'm not reading for my degree I’m thinking about my fiction book in my head and thinking, wow, I wish I could go read that right now because I'm that sad. But, yeah, I really want to do editing of fiction and non-fiction books because that's kind of what I do at the moment is freelance writing, for different companies and stuff like that. So I'd love to do something like that. Where I'd like to write my own book one day, I'd like to be the female Bill Bryson of my age and write about anything and everything.

[18.55]