Interviewee: Jacqui Mitton Interviewer: Chris Cox Date: Thursday, 9th May 2014 CC: This is Chris Cox recording an interview with Jacqui Mitton on the 9th of May 2014 at I don't know, it's about 9.30 at Jacqui's home as part of the YES oral history project. And what I want to ask you, Jacqui, is if you can tell us, something about how you became involved with YES in the first place, and then, if you don't mind, some of the highlights that you can remember. [00:00:33] JM: Yes, I can remember very well starting at YES, I'd been working in the women's refuge in Bath and there was a guy there called Stephan Manishco, who was childcare worker there, and we had a Step project, one of those Manpower Services funded schemes, and I was … had a year's contract which was just coming to an end and Steph's had ended a bit before. And I bumped into him in a pub in Bath and he said to me that he was working at this great place in Bristol called ROSLA project I think then, and would I, not would I, did I know any teachers, unemployed teachers? I don't know why they had to be unemployed perhaps because he needed them to come along quickly, who would like a job there, and I said, “No, I don't know any unemployed teachers but I do know an unemployed social worker that might be interested,” and he said 'Who's that?' and I said “me.” So, wouldn't happen in my current job, no interview, no application, no equal opportunities monitoring, nothing. He just said, ‘Oh well, yeah, that might be an idea, I'’ll let you know.’ And he got back to me shortly afterwards and invited me to go along for a meeting with some other people, who turned out to be Dave Brockington and Roger White to interview me to see if I would like to be involved with, I think, and I can't quite remember, yes, a life and social skills project with people on the Youth Opportunities Programme . Although actually it was probably … I can't remember if Youth Opportunities or YOP was before YTS, I think it was YOP. CC: It was YOP. [00:02:32] JM: It was YOP. So I went along to find out more about it, remember going into a room where there were lots of dust mites in the air, great big windows and that was at Frederick Place where YES still operates. On the first floor, great big table and a polished floor I remember. Can't remember the conversation, certainly didn't feel like an interview and I think I started about a week later and was asked to run life and social skills groups for people on the Youth Opportunities Programme. I'd done a little bit of group work before on a placement, years, no not years before, a couple of years before when I was a trainee social worker. So off I went not really knowing what I was expected to do, but full of the enthusiasm of youth myself and, started running groups And what I remember at the time was, I think I was only working three days to start with, but the groups were all day and I used to go home afterwards and fall asleep. I was absolutely exhausted, didn't realise how exhausting it was going to be. I don't know how long that lasted but nowadays I sometimes meet trainee teachers who are on their, I don't know if they call it placement, on a teaching practice. I've got a nephew whose wife is in her first year now of teacher training and she does exactly the same, goes home and falls asleep and says to me, ‘Is it always going to be like this?’ And of course it's not, you get used to it and develop your skills and a repertoire of things you can do, but that's basically how I started. Don't remember the year, but it was in the ‘70s, and I stayed there for about 11 years, on the YOP scheme, then it became a YTS scheme, … then I worked in one or two of the school groups when I came in touch with some different staff. I don't really know up until then, who were running the school groups, and one, I'm not sure if it's a highlight, but I remember a day when I thought, “Oh my God, what am I going to do now?” And it was a group of girls, I can't remember which school from, and there was one particular girl who was extremely domineering. I remember she got hold of an office chair and put it in the middle of the room and just span round and round and round and round on her office chair and said, 'We're not doing it are we? We're not doing it are we?’ And all the other girls sat there and said, 'No, we're not doing it.’ And that seemed to go on for ever and I really didn't know what to do myself. Can't remember what I did do. Somehow or another, in the end, that group turned around and we had a very good year and they learnt lots, and some of them stayed in touch for quite a few years after they left. So somehow or other it was a success. If I could remember what we actually did I'd probably be writing books about how to teach disadvantaged young people. Yes, I'm not sure if that was a highlight, but it was a memorable moment. [00:06:24] I can also remember one of the YTS groups came from a company called Bush Telegraph which was a ‘Theatre in Education’ company and that was started off with adults taking theatre into schools to promote discussion and understanding of social issues and so on. And then they started a youth wing, working with young people who went round with them to some of the schools and doing similar work and encouraging other young people to join in. And that particular group were mostly punks, so I guess this was still in the ‘70s and I can remember a very, very tall one called Bear and Andy who had lots of piercings before many people did in fact, and I can remember taking them to the courts as part of a sort of citizenship project and learning about responsibility and crime and how the system works and all the rest of it. And I can remember taking them to the courts and we were watching a couple of cases and then in one of the breaks I was sitting outside on the steps with Bear and Andy who were quite scary looking. They were not the sort of modern version of punks, if people remember. They wore a lot of black, a lot of leather, a lot of plastic, a lot of studs, a lot of piercings and … particularly these two guys because they were both about 6 foot plus. Anyway, plus a mohican of another foot and a half or so, did look pretty intimidating. I can remember sitting in between both of them on the court steps and this woman went past with a gown flanked by two posh looking men with a gown and she turned and looked at me and caught my eye. And I realised that she was a girl that I'd gone to grammar school with and she looked as though she was probably a barrister by this time she had this gown on. And I can remember the look of shock and horror on her face as she recognised who I was, and I could read her mind and she was thinking, 'Oh, what has Jacqui come to?' Because, of course, that type of work we didn't dress up, we, I was probably in jeans and a tee shirt, or something like that. That was a funny moment. [00:09:10] JM: Um, another highlight I remember was when we decided to open a fashion school. And we'd had a load of people that were working in shops that were interested in fashion and we decided that maybe we'd try and stretch their ambitions a little. And rather than just be content with working in a shop, see if they wanted to do a bit more than that in the fashion industry and one day a week we put on a dress-making course, well, not dress-making, a fashion design course for them with a local woman who had her own business as the tutor. And it worked really, really well, so we decided we'd like to see if we could do something more still and opened something which we decided to call the fashion school. We worked very hard on fundraising, fundraising was always an issue, for new work. We raised money from Laura Ashley Foundation and Marks and Spencer’s and some other companies as well as some trusts, by staging a fashion show, showing what these young people were capable of doing with just one day a week on this course and promoting, ‘look if we could open a fashion school where they were in the fashion school maybe three, four days a week, and out on placement for one, how much more they could achieve.’ And we had a fantastic evening and the donors, we put them all on the same table, chatted them up, and they all agreed to fund the project which I think had two or three years funding, eventually closed ‘cos of lack of funds. But it was a really exciting and creative project while it ran. [00:11:09] JM: A personal highlight for me was when I became, I think my title was co-ordinator, of the charity. So by this time I'd worked with the school groups, I'd worked with the life and social skills groups and then the Youth Opportunities or YTS scheme had brought more variety of courses and also we worked with other local voluntary projects like Airspace and the Nova Project, so I became co-ordinator of the whole project and there was somebody telling me that it needed more time to prepare for literacy classes than anything else. I can't remember if that was Chris who's sitting here with me now, or whether it was Sylvia Walker. And I thought well I don't really know much about this teaching literacy so I signed up to do the course that Sylvia ran for PGCE students from the two local courses, who release students to come, train with Sylvia, and then come and help run the literacy groups, most of which were in the evening then. And so I did the same course as the PGCE students, really enjoyed it and then said, “Right, I'd like to work in one of the classes.” So I got to work alongside Jo Yeandle on a numeracy class, which wasn't my forte and that was actually for people on YTS scheme. She assigned me to work with a young man who was doing a painting and decorating placement and his supervisor had said he was very, very good at the practical side of the work and also quite creative in terms of thinking of good colours to go together. And on his own initiative he kept redecorating his room at home with various … paint effects that were very popular at the time, the sponging and the rag-rolling and all that sort of thing so he was very keen on this as a career. However, his supervisor said, ‘He'll never get to be a supervisor or foreman or run his own business ‘cos his maths is hopeless.’ So I'd never be able to ask him to estimate how much paint we needed, or do a quote for a customer ‘cos he just can't do the maths which is why this young man had come along and joined Jo's class. And one day he was sitting next to me because I was assigned to work with him individually and area suddenly clicked, and he just said, ‘I can do that, oh that's really good, I can do that. Oh, now I'll be able to work out how much paint I need, oh, I could run my own business now.’ And he was so excited and I sat there and I felt really proud ‘cos I thought I taught him that and that felt really, really good. And when I eventually left YES I didn't go into teaching numeracy, because that wasn't my forte, I was only a little bit ahead of this young man, but realised the huge difference that both literacy and numeracy make to people's lives, and the huge disadvantage that not having those skills brings, and went on to get a proper, or full qualification as a literacy tutor and basically been involved one way or another in teaching or managing literacy ever since. CC: OK thank you Jacqui. That was very interesting.

Notes: Manpower Services: Manpower Services Commission (MSC) ROSLA Project: ROSLA – Raising of the School Leaving Age – alternative provision set up at 14 Frederick Place for pupils in their last year of compulsory schooling. Pupils attended for a half-day session once a week. Dave Brockington and Roger White: YES Trustees Youth Opportunities Programme: a programme for unemployed young people, replaced by YTS - Youth Training Scheme