The
Long and Winding Road
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Judy with her 'best
dog in the world', Kes
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For most students going to vet school I’m sure the journey was
very straight forward – you excelled in your GCSEs then you
got an A* in all you’re A Levels and hay presto before you knew
it you were getting caked in eggs and flour at Fresher’s Week!
Well let’s just say I took the scenic route!
“I want to be a vet”, children say it to their parents
all the time but most parents simply brush it aside along with their
offspring’s dream to be a ballerina or an astronaut. However,
I really meant it. You may well be asking why it’s taken me
until I am thirty one to get here? Well I shall explain.
Like most animal lovers I’ve read all the James Herriot books
and never missed an episode of All Creatures Great and Small. I’m
sure my list of heroes reads exactly the same as many other budding
vets.
When I was at school I could never understand my classmates who
didn’t know what they wanted to do when they left school.
I was lucky; I had always known what I wanted to do. My friends
knew it, my family knew it, I was sure of it – I was going
to work with animals. Thinking about it I actually think they were
the lucky ones. If you don’t have a specific ambition then
you can’t get upset when you get knocked back. Take it from
me; it’s a lot harder to know where you want to go but can’t
get there!
When I told my school career advisor that I wanted to be a vet
he simply said “You’re not clever enough to be a vet,
be a vet nurse instead” (apologies on his behalf to all vet
nurses!). He gave me a feeling I wasn’t good enough that has
stayed with me, mostly buried, to this day. Frustratingly, my twin
brother was always academically better than me, especially at my
nemesis – maths! I constantly asked him to explain my homework
but he would simply do it all for me then walk away with me shouting
that was no good, I had to understand how he had done it. He was
always the one who was expected to go to University.
I left school with one B, three Cs and it seems one of each letter
of the alphabet after that. After school I did a string of mundane
jobs spending my spare time helping at local kennels and livery
stables and then a friend suggested getting a qualification to improve
my prospects.
Three years after leaving school I started studying a National
Diploma in Animal Care and at the end of my first year I was astounded
to be given the College Award for the student who achieved the highest
standard in the first year of the course.
Toward the end of the two year course my lecturer handed me a UCAS
application form.
“What do I want this for?” I asked.
“You’re going to university aren’t you?”
“Err; no Judy and university don’t go in the same sentence!”
“Well apply anyway and see what happens”
I got offered a place on the BSc Zoology course at Surrey University.
I loved every minute of it. After graduating I did an MSc related
to conservation. I had now surely proved to myself that I was capable
of being a vet, but the words of my careers advisor still rang in
my ears and anyway I couldn’t afford the fees. So, after realising
that kneeling in a heath land counting invertebrates wasn’t
for me, I started my own pet services business.
Judy
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