Who was there? Jackie Stone

For those of you I didn’t chat to on reunion day, here is the story of what I’ve been up to since graduation.

After training to become an accountant in Birmingham with Coopers & Lybrand, I stayed in the West Midlands for a good few years in various accounting jobs, some of which actually enabled me to use my French, but most of which I was no good at! I then ran away for a year of teaching English to the Basques of Northern Spain. Returning to the UK in 1994 I took up accountancy training, but that was not a great success either!

In 1997 I married Richard Read, a Birmingham University graduate from the same era, but whom I had not known whilst there. The following year we had Anna and agreed to take on an overseas posting to Shanghai with Castrol, Richard’s employer. After a two year stint as ex-pats (thoroughly enjoyable) we returned to live in Broadstairs, Kent where I had a second child, James in 2001. In 2005 we moved to Cirencester and Richard is back at Castrol in Swindon, now part of BP.

I have not worked outside the home since James was born. I have enjoyed being a full time housewife and mother and after more than my fair share of career disasters I feel I have found a job I am good at and can be proud of. A degree in French is not that useful on a day-to-day basis, but I use skills I learnt at Birmingham all the time. Skills such as finding information - not on Rabelais any more but Romans and Egyptians, justifying my arguments – not on whether Shakespeare really was a renaissance writer but why 8.15pm is an appropriate bedtime, household budgeting, negotiating with fellow housemates, rustling up meals with mince, you get the picture.

Thanks to Hazel’s hard work and determination I enjoyed a wonderful day of reminiscing and catching up with old friends so keep in touch.