044 - Pit Pony Pete Scholes - Classroom to Driving Instructor & Author

This week, we’re joined by the brilliant and unassuming Peter Scholes – a man who gave 21 years to the classroom before stepping away when shifting leadership turned a once-thriving school culture into something unrecognisable.

In this heartfelt episode, Pete shares how the sudden departure of a beloved headteacher triggered a school-wide unraveling, leading to mass staff turnover, a loss of trust, and ultimately, his own departure. Now a successful driving instructor and published author, Pete talks openly about depression, rediscovering confidence, and the transferable skills that still shape his life today.

✨ It’s a powerful reminder that when one door closes, others truly do open – sometimes with a pen in one hand and car keys in the other.

📚 Links to Pete’s books can be found here

Don’t miss this one.

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to the Pick Pony podcast with myself, Sharon Cawley, and me, Sarah Dunwood, in which we talk to teachers from all walks of life who exited the classroom from what they thought was a job for life and thrived on the other side of teaching. Coming up in this episode... It was such a sad decline and we had, I would say, 60-70% of staff worked in the school have left over the last couple of years. I've not been back there, no desire to go back there either, so it's such a shame that after so many good years, it went down that route. 

Hello and welcome to our latest episode of the Pick Pony podcast with myself, me and Sarah. We've got a great bloke on today, very unassuming, but wow, what a story. Peter Scholes, Pete. 

We're going to talk to Pete about his experience because he did 21 years as a teacher, primary school teacher, a later entry into the profession. No desire to be SLT. His joy was firmly, firmly in the classroom. 

He worked in London, he moved up to Yorkshire and then eventually made his way closer to home in Cumbria. Pete's going to talk to us about his experience of why he left the classroom and how a changing headship devastated the school he was in to the point where the long-serving headteacher, the mother hen of the whole of the estate, went. And then subsequently, there was a series of headteachers coming into a school and by the time he left, 14 members of staff had gone. 

There's only one remaining now. And Pete was one of them. And he's going to talk to us about culture and the importance of that within a school. 

So, Pete, welcome and tell us, what is it you're doing today? Nice of you to have me on the show. I'm now working as a driving instructor. I trained to be a driving instructor when I left in 2023. 

And yeah, I'm also a writer in my spare time. Lovely, lovely, lovely. And Sarah, Pete sent me a copy of his book, One Last Waltz.

It's brilliant. It's absolutely brilliant. So, I'm so excited to talk to you. 

But before we get into all the good stuff, Pete, take us back to the time you exited from the classroom. Right. Well, I left, it would be a couple of years ago since I left. 

I love teaching. I love, for the majority of the time I was teaching, it was absolutely fantastic. And like you said at the start, being in the classroom with the children was my joy. 

We had a headteacher there at the school. It was in Lancashire, near Accrington. And she'd been a teacher herself and then moved into headship and headteacher for the majority of time that I was there. 

And we had a really good community spirit in the school. The teachers knew the families, knew them intimately, knew the children. It was a lovely, lovely atmosphere.

And when that headteacher left, we had a series of other headteachers that came into the school. Some lasted just a term on secondment, others lasted a bit longer, but the culture that we knew and loved changed considerably. And it was such a sad decline. 

And we had, I would say, 60, 70% of staff that worked in the school have left over the last couple of years. I've not been back there. I've no desire to go back there either. 

So, it's such a shame that after so many good years, it went down that route. Times change. And unfortunately, I was not part of that.

So, off I went and something new. When we talk about the impact that a different headteacher can make, anecdotally or on a day-to-day basis, what kind of things changed for you at the chalk face? How were you impacted by those changes? There was a lot of trust with the old headteacher. You could go and talk to her. 

You could talk to the deputy as well. We were all a family. I know that sounds a bit cliched, but we were all a family. 

And if somebody had a problem, we would back each other up. And you could go to the headteacher, you could have a moan, you could have a cry, and she would do the same the other way around. And it was nice. 

And then when she left, as understandably, when a new broom comes in, they want to change different things. But it was almost like everything that was there before had to go. And all of the nice things that we've just talked about, you couldn't just go and speak to somebody. 

You couldn't just leave the classroom to have a chinwag with somebody else or ask advice. It became rigid, uniformed, too formal, over-reliance on things like observations and new systems were put in place. Then they were scrapped a term later, then something else would come in, and that was scrapped. 

There was no consistency. And I've mentioned it before, that it was a bit like window dressing. There was a lot of what it looks like from the outside.

They wanted it to look good, but very little substance as well. Yeah, I'm going to bring my friend in here because she's talked in all the time I've known her about the importance of the headteacher. And I've listened to her on a variety of different platforms talk about working under some of the greatest heads who she's looked up to and admired.

But Sarah, this is a subject close to your heart, isn't it? You've talked about this. What's been your experience when things change at the top and the impact it can have? It's happened probably a couple of times to me in my career. And the word that's just come into my head is it's discombobulating when it happens, when somebody comes in. 

And you're absolutely right. Somebody new comes in and they want to make changes. I think about that with me in my current role. 

I've come in, I've made changes along the way and stuff like that. And you do because you want to make your mark. But for me, I feel like the last decade or so in schools that the making of the mark quite often, not always, is about that person, not what's necessarily right or best or most appropriate for the staff that are in schools. 

And something really struck me and it's only just come to me as you were talking, Pete, is the the amount of change that happens that then is discarded a relatively short time later. And therefore, how many man hours or woman hours to be equal, but how many hours of collective staff time, not just in one school, but in schools across the country is being consumed and wasted by people coming in, making changes and then going, oh, no, that doesn't work. Let's do something else. 

Because all of that, for me, detracts from where the time should be being spent, which is teaching children. So my experience of it was it was really unsettling because you go from being on an even keel, knowing what's around you, knowing who's around you, knowing how the relationships work to suddenly this isn't what I'm used to. And it's not it's not normal.

I think you're absolutely right, Sarah. It's like throwing the baby out of the bathwater. And things are done really quickly and there are casualties. 

And in some respects, Pete, you were probably seen as a threat because you've been in the building, you know, all that kind of stuff. And then all of a sudden you've gone from being at the heart and soul of the school. And now you're almost one of the bad guys or a dinosaur. 

Did it take you a while to make the decision to go or could you just see the writing on the wall quite quickly? I think we could see the writing on the wall fairly quickly, but it wasn't just one head teacher. There was, like I said, there was three or four within the last two years. Just to give you an example of how it affected me, the head teacher that came in straight away implemented a brand new assessment system. 

And one of my targets for that year was to reach a certain percentage of marks or passes on this assessment system. Within another term, we had another head teacher who scrapped that system. So when it came to the end of year appraisals, I couldn't make my targets because it was on a totally different assessment system that had been previous head. 

Obviously, that has a knock on effect with things like pay rises. And I couldn't pass my appraisal for that year, no matter how much I argued that it wasn't my fault that that assessment system was no longer there. I didn't get put forward for the pay progression for UPS 3. And that was just one example. 

But there was counsellors talking about a change of head teacher, the longstanding head teacher that we had for all of those years. I think the new ones felt so threatened by her. And she was even unwelcome on the premises, should I say. 

She wasn't allowed to come back. And because that school had been a heart and soul for 25 years, it was a real horrible thing for her to be excluded from school events, not welcome at Christmas plays and things like that. She just wasn't welcome on the premises. 

And that was horrible. It was horrible. Brief interlude, dear listener. 

Couple of questions. Are you a tutor or even a pit pony considering tutoring? And do you fancy getting in the room with myself and Sarah Dunwood learning about the wonderful world of tuition? Then why not join us at the National Tutors Conference hosted by Conexus Tuition on the 29th of July, 2025. It's at Chesford Grange, Kenilworth.

Links to the tickets are in the show notes below. And we will both see you on the other side. It's unbelievable because you're talking about casualties. 

Let's just go back to that nonsense about not being able to pass and progress with pay because your employers have changed the goalposts. I mean, anybody listening to that would go legally. How do they have a leg to stand on and not progress your pay when they've changed the goalposts? And I mean, particularly for somebody who's a driving instructor who understands that the whole point of passing is because there are clear parameters. 

There's clear things you've got to be able to achieve when you're learning to drive. And then you pass your test. Well, you can see the correlation immediately, can't you? It's like teaching a kid to pass a test and then going, I'm really sorry. 

The test's changed. Yeah, well, you were my driving instructor, Pete. You should have changed the goalposts and accommodated me.

It's absolutely disgraceful. And then a woman who's put her heart and soul into a community in a school isn't even allowed or welcomed back into the building. It's the very, very worst of us what went on. 

And it is, it's human casualties. So you left, okay? You went, I'm not doing this anymore. Did you decide then you were done with teaching? I did. 

I thought that was the end of it. I had no intention of going back into the classroom. I'm now 50 years old. 

I suppose there's, even though I'm a grown adult, I was riddled with anxiety, depression, yes, as well. And that's that fear of where you go when you're 50 years old and how do you start again? And on your site, I've read many stories like mine. So I know I'm not the only one out there, but it certainly feels like a lonely experience. 

So I had to, I felt I had to retrain in something, something with transferable skills and driving instructing was the one I chose. So I joined a franchise company and went through their training system. It lasted about, the training was about six months long. 

But yeah, the transferable skills were quite clear when I first sat in the car with some students. And you can see I'm quite a calm natured person, which you need in that job because everyone who gets in the car is a ticking time bomb, I suppose, if we don't keep an eye on them with everything. But I had a great rapport with the students and I've taught primary all of these years and these people in the car now are 17, 18 year old and worried about that as well. 

And I shouldn't have worried because they were absolutely fantastic. I've not had a bad one and I'm talking dozens now that have passed their test or come along and and some of them, they're still friends after they've passed the test and keep in touch. So the same skills that were in the classroom, the same relationship and bonds have been developed through the driving instructing as well. 

And it certainly brought some confidence back as well. I think a driving instructor, I mean, our Ellie at the moment, I can't get one for loving the money. I mean, the demand is huge, I think, for driving instructors, and I often think it would be a great, a great industry to get into for many teachers leaving the classroom. 

So can you choose your hours? I'm not getting personal, but is it lucrative? Do you make a good living as a driving instructor? If I was to give the advice to anyone who would like to do it, don't join a franchise company. You can do the training without having to sign up to expensive contracts. But yeah, you choose your hours. 

There's plenty of work. Like you say, I could work 24 seven if I wanted to. So yeah, it could be quite lucrative, but you've got freedom again. 

You've got this freedom to choose your hours, to choose your holidays. And yeah, it's certainly an option for teachers that are looking for something out of the classroom. Yeah, definitely. 

And you've talked about choosing your own hours because I'm going to, I'm going to pick the bones of the bit that I'm really interested in. So you're freed up this time, you are a driving instructor, you've still got all your transferable skills, you're working with people, you're training, brilliant. But time's then freed up for you to a certain extent. 

And everybody says that there's a book in us all. And you do that. Talk us through, talk us through Peter Skoll's The Author.

Right. Well, it's something I've always been interested in. I just love to write. 

I love to entertain with the writing as well. And things like years gone by, I would write poems for people for birthdays. I would write little funny stories to give people a laugh at work. 

And then one day somebody said, well, have you ever thought about writing a book? And I actually settled down and set off on my first one, which was called Conscience. And I wrote that quite a number of years ago. And I got a bit of a book for that. 

So I started writing more, I started writing educational resources as well when I was still working in school. I actually had one that was nominated for the education show as well for a literacy award. So yeah, I really got the book for it. 

And like you said, now I've freed up a little bit more time and not working 70 hour weeks. I can get the laptop out for a different reason and just sort of lose myself in the writing. So I've written a series of children's books with a fellow teacher.

He's left teaching as well, or has left this country to go and work overseas. But we wrote a series of children's books called the Beyond the Hill series. I wrote a second book, Once Upon a Time There Was a Man, a third one, One Last Waltz, and With Every Breath as well. 

And I've just written a semi-autobiography called The Place I Belong, a little bit like a modern version of Fever Pitch by Nick Horn because I'm a big football fan as well. So that came out quite recently as well. And that's also involved in a competition as well, the Lakeland Book of the Year. 

So fingers crossed for that one later this year as well. Wow. I never understand how you get a book published. 

I don't really get it, to be honest. Do you self-publish or do you go to a publisher? What do you do? Both. I started with self-publishing through Amazon. 

It's quite a simple process, to be honest, once you get your head around it. And you can set your royalties, you can set the price, you can design the cover and things like that. But at the same time, I was sending my work away to publishers up and down the land. 

And it's a familiar story. I'm sure you've heard with the amount of rejections you get. Most of them are probably never even read the book. 

It's just a standard rejection, but you keep trying. And I did with one of my books and I sent it to a publisher in the South, in the Isle of Wight and Dorset. And the reason I sent it to them was because part of the story is set there. 

So I thought with the local interest, it might just grab their attention. And I got a message back from the owner of the publishing firm to say how much they'd absolutely loved the book and they wanted to take it on a contract. So I'm with them and they're making noises that they want the rest of my work as well. 

So from having no publisher, only self-publishing, I've got my foot in the door, if you like. And once the foot's in the door, I'm keeping it firmly wedged. And I think what I want to do now is, probably a little bit prematurely, but I just want to open the door. 

The clue is in the title, Open the Door. Pete, I want to bring in your sliding doors story because it's going to allow us to do a little bit of fangirling to a certain extent. Pete, since you left the classroom, what has happened to you that you know for a fact wouldn't have happened if you'd have stayed in teaching? Well, going back to the writing, I've been able to spend a bit more time on the writing and really put my heart and soul into it. 

And this book that I mentioned earlier, Once Upon a Time There Was a Man, when the publisher took it on, they loved it and they passed it to other people and they loved it too. And it was a real, real ego boost, I suppose. And all the anxiety and depression from the past, this is exactly the kind of boost that I needed. 

And then they got back to me and said that for 2024, they were going to use the book as their nomination for the Booker Prize last year. So, unfortunately it didn't. Sorry Pete, it doesn't matter. 

Can you just repeat that bit again? They decided they were going to do what? They wanted to nominate it for the Booker Prize. Sarah Dunwood. What's your thoughts on that, pal? I've never met you before today, Pete, but I'm thrilled.

I mean, just to have the nomination for that is in and of itself is a big thing, isn't it? From what I understand in the publishing world. Wow. Wow. 

Can you put that on promotion then? Can you put Booker Prize Award nominee? Is that something you can leverage? It can't go on the book cover, but I can promote it elsewhere. And it's triggered quite a lot of media attention as well. I've been on the radio a couple of times.

I've been in newspapers. I've been in articles about the books in the newspapers as well. So, yeah, the publicity has been fabulous. 

And I'm actually talking at a library on Tuesday and the posters that they put out have got Booker Prize nominee on there. So, hopefully that will encourage a few more to attend. Hello, loyal listeners. 

I'm going to go full on Charles Dickens in this buy us a coffee slot. And as Oliver Twist, we're going to ask for a little bit more. Any pennies you can donate to keep our podcast funded would be greatly appreciated.

See the buy us a coffee link in the episode notes. Thank you. I just think it's absolutely amazing. 

And it just shows, doesn't it? The talent that pit ponies have that probably would never have come to the fore. I mean, you'd have stayed in teaching and worked under your old head teacher till they carried you out. I have no doubt about that. 

And you would have maintained and retained your joy in the classroom. And that's why the sliding door stories are so important because things have happened to us that were terrible at the time. But when these things do happen, it's almost like there's a clearing. 

It's almost like it then opens the doors in other ways for great achievements. And I don't know whether or not you would have ended up writing had you have stayed working under your head teacher. But the fact you didn't and you are writing and how many people have read your work now, I think it's going to go from strength to strength. 

I really, really do. And I think at some point, Sarah, we could be saying, do you remember when we had the Peter Scholes on our pit pony and look at him now? He's been made into a film or I'm just I'm just so thrilled for you because I think you've managed to bring two worlds together. You've still got your hand in teaching through your work as an instructor and you're still being incredibly creative as an author. 

And you know what? It's been just lovely to speak to you. It's been glorious. So if you could give anyone a piece of advice just as we leave today, Pete, what would you tell anybody who's either thinking of becoming a driving instructor or is thinking of taking that book and writing it? What would you tell them to do? I think I would tell them to have to believe in themselves. 

There is so much creative talent in teachers. That's why they're in the job in the first place. And it's amazing what you're capable of doing. 

So don't let the job crush you. Don't let the job crush your spirit because you're so capable. And when you when you leave, if you leave, don't ever doubt yourself because you can you can turn your hand to anything and I'm sure you will. 

Oh, that has been such a glorious episode. It really, really has unassuming, talented. And I think lying at the heart of you is very compassionate, a very compassionate man. 

It's been a delight to chat to you today, Peter. And on behalf of myself and Sarah, we wish you all the very best in whatever it is you do. Thank you very much.

Hello, friend. Just such a lovely episode. And in that period of reflection after we'd interviewed Pete, it really, really brought something home to me. 

A school is not a building. A school is the people and so, so important, the culture. I kept thinking about that head teacher who'd given 25 years of her life in that building. 

I bet she knew every single inch of it, but still dreams about it. And it just goes to show how on the turn of a sixpence, an entire feel to a school can change. Am I making sense? Am I rambling? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, completely. 

Completely. Because it all, it comes from the top. It does. 

Yeah, it's hard to explain it because you're absolutely right. The body of people is the school, but it only takes one key person. It might not be the very, very top, but one key person to upset the, oh, who were we talking to the other week? One of our podcast guests was talking about ecosystems.

It's upsetting the ecosystem. Somebody comes in and introduces a behavior or an attitude or something that's intangible, that completely knocks everything out of balance and it causes people to question role there. It causes them to question that everything that they've done prior to that point that has worked and that has been part of the thing that has made them want to go to work every day, suddenly is no longer there. 

And I think I said it on the episode, I've been through that in two different schools. Great head teacher for a period of time, settled, really driven in like collectively together and then a change. And in both instances of retirement, actually, people came in who just, I don't know, didn't align with the values and culture that already existed. 

And for me, I was trying to think about how to articulate this. Change is not a bad thing in and of itself. And there are circumstances where change needs to be done and it needs to be done quickly. 

And it might need to be done really judiciously in terms of there are some things that are categorically not working. And that's true of schools, of of any workplace. If the culture's not right or if the activities are not right, then something has to give and something has to change. 

But when the change is at the expense of a culture that is right and the changes to the systems, processes, how we do things completely changes that culture, then you've lost it. To my mind, I might be wrong, I might get shouted down. But the proof's in the pudding. 

Fourteen members of staff went. Fourteen. And he said there's only one existing member of staff there now. 

So that tells you something. And it was like I said, it's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It can happen departmentally. 

You can have a great English department and then there's a change of head of department who comes in like a whirling dervish. Let's do this. Let's do that.

Because their ideas worked within a different setting. And before you know it, that driving through the school gates in the morning starts to feel very, very different. The thought of going in on a Monday morning, it starts to creep into the Sunday scaries. 

And before you know it, the building's the same. Your desk's still in the right place. Your coffee cup's still in the same cupboard. 

But everything changes. And that's why it's discombobulating. Because your physical environment has not changed. 

The children around you have not changed. The adults around you are still the adults that you've been working with for a long period of time. But something changes and it throws everything else off. 

And it's like, it's like, you know when you're poorly and suddenly your food doesn't taste right. It's that. What's this? And it's just come back to me with the first time I got COVID, how I knew I'd got COVID. 

That I'd put lashings of English mustard on something and I couldn't taste it. And I was like, what is this? Oh my God. And it's a really ridiculous example, but it's exactly what happens. 

What is going on? Why is this feeling like this? And I think you said something as well, and I responded to it in terms of lost hours. Which if you were to aggregate how many times things are put into schools, trialed and then ditched, or not even publicly ditched, but it just quietly goes away. And you go, hang on a minute, I invested hours and hours and hours into developing this APP system or writing this new curriculum or whatever. 

And that's time I'll never get back. That's time that my children will never get back in terms of teaching or whatever. I just, I'm not anti-change. 

In fact, I'm the complete opposite. You know me. I completely believe change is important when it's for the right reasons, but when it's for reasons that actually completely turn everything upside down. 

And when it's more about the person implementing the changes, wanting to make their mark, perhaps as part of a stepping stone to the next thing that they want to do. And I'm just thinking back to previous episodes that we had with Paul recently about what's driving the people who are making the decisions to make these changes. Is it the right reasons? And if it's the right reason, is the change then being managed in the right way to make it work for everybody who's got to implement the change? It's a really complex, I mean, there's books and books and books written on change and change management. 

And I'm just invoking Drew Povey in terms of, you know, how many books you read about a thing. It's common in terms of the posts that we see in the group. New headteacher, new broom, boom. 

It's all up in the air. I'll tell you what I, I went through something. A new headteacher came in to a school I was at. 

It was the last school I was at. And the headteacher before, you remember when you used to get specialist status for your schools and it was a sports college. And one of the things that they'd done under the last headteacher was they'd changed the school uniform. 

So instead of like having jumpers and blazers, they almost like had sports tops. I can't even think of the word I would use to describe what it looked like. Oh, it wasn't like a rugby top or anything like that, but they'd have a shirt and tie and then over the top, I'd be like a sports style. 

It wasn't a jacket. You pulled it over your head. It had a collar. 

It had the school logo and it had pockets in. And it was, it was to do with the fact it was about sports, right? So there's no blazers, no jumpers. They have this particular top. 

And this new headteacher came in and didn't like it. Didn't like it, felt it was too informal. It wasn't the, the vision that she had for that school. 

So what she decided to do was ditch and change the uniform. Now, all that kind of stuff was taking place in the school, ditching marking policies and, and changing all sorts of things. And as teachers, guess what? We just had to put up with it, do it and have a quiet moan in the staff room.

This doesn't make sense. This is drivel. Why are we doing this? Why are we doing that? What's the change here? The parents hit the roof. 

With exactly those arguments that you've put, hang on a minute. I've got three kids. I've bought these sports tops for the year.

I do hand-me-downs through the generations of my kids. And now you're telling me for September, I've got to get a black blazer. I've got to buy school shirts. 

We can't have polo tops. We're not having it. The parent power got it all changed. 

And what happened is, was she phased it in. So any new year seven that was coming in had to do the new uniform and a compromise had to be made. There was people kicking off. 

She got herself in a world of pain. Whilst compliantly, teachers who were going through the same feelings didn't have the same strength and voice that the general public and parents did. And I think that's where it almost comes down to.

The union is not a body. It's not an organisation. It is the people in the union. 

Had the school and the teachers gone, this is a ridiculous policy you're bringing in. We're not doing it. And the present sort of started revolting from within.

Yeah. And you see it. You do see there's been, in the last 18 months, there's been a number of schools where the staff body have collectivised to complain, not complain, that's the wrong word, but to make their stance about things that aren't right. 

And in most instances they win. And that for me actually is one of the reasons why I know people's individual experiences of, of union support has been, is hit and miss. And, and we, we talked to, we talked to a union rep a long time ago, actually, on a live in, in the group, didn't we, about this and, and that there's no, there's no guarantee that you're going to get somebody who's going to go out to bat for you individually. 

And there are a number of things that, that aren't quite right. But fundamentally on the ground, what's different from when you and I started teaching, I think is I, I would put money on the fact that 95% of the staff that I worked with in different schools in my first 10, 15 years were union members. We had a school union rep, we met as a group once a half term, there was constant communication about, about things. 

And, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't whinging and challenging for the sake of it, but if something came along, we got together as a group and we spoke collectively so that individuals weren't putting their heads above the parapet and leaving themselves vulnerable. I suspect that in schools now, that it's probably in some schools, less than 50% of the staff body are in a union and, and then potentially are in two or maybe three different unions. So the power of collectivising is not there, it's not being utilised, it's not being leveraged. 

And that for me is where, where a trick has been missed. Now I know it's to do with legislation and that the unions have been, I'm not going to go into an economics lecture, but they've been systematically kind of deprioritised and had their, had their influence removed probably since the mid eighties. But something has to change there. 

Staff have to collectively go, no, this is not okay. It's not. Yeah, completely, completely agree. 

And listening to Pete, really unassuming guy who underplays, I think his achievements and what he's done, he touched on it very briefly, how depressed it made him. This was only two years ago, how utterly depressed the whole thing made him. And I think he was such an empathetic man, he felt for the head teacher, he wasn't welcomed back. 

And, you know, any great, any new broom coming in without a doubt would have used that head teacher and brought that head teacher back to help stitch it, because I bet she was chomping at the bit, you know, that kind of thing. So I just thought it was a great episode. Obviously we're going to drop his links in, in, in the notes below and go and honestly, Sarah, he sent me the book, One Last Waltz. 

It's beautiful. It's really, really beautiful. And I am, I am genuinely reading it because it's just so well written. 

Great guy, great episode. Still tried to work out how far away he was from our house because I still can't find a driving instructor for our alley. He's too far away. 

Yeah, I know he's too far away. It's interesting, actually, the driving thing that post-COVID, because my son was learning to drive post-COVID and the trauma that, I'm over-egging that, the challenge that we had in, in finding somebody who had availability and, and more to the point, the backlog of, of driving tests. And I think you said it in the episode, it's actually potentially a really good move for a former teacher. 

I couldn't do it because I'd be genuinely terrified of being in a car with somebody who was learning, because I'm not a good passenger by any stretch of the imagination. But I think I, one of my former colleagues has, has gone on to do it, and I know that she's, she's doing amazingly well. And I think it does bring flexibility and, and all sorts of things. 

And there are multiple different routes to do it, do it independently, do it through a franchise, do it through this, do it through that. Each one of them has different pros and cons, as with everything. But I think it's, I think it's a fantastic, for the right person who's not got nerves like I have, I think it's, it's potentially a really good, a really good route. 

And I was interested in that equally as much as his writing, although I, the writing for me, it's not, it's not jealousy, it's not envy, but there's a real kind of, there was a real response when, when he told us about the, the Booker Prize award. I was like, I would just love to write a book, I just wouldn't know where to start. So I might need to go and have a bit of a pick of his brains in terms of how he's done it and, and a, and a future conversation, because I think there might be a Life After Teaching Stroke Pit Pony book somewhere. 

Hey, that'd be, that'd be a great idea. Well, listen, always lovely to chat, always a pleasure, never a chore, my friend. Smashing episode. 

I think we might catch up with him again. Fabulous guy. So thank you, as always, listeners, for sticking with us. 

And Lady Dunwood, I'll see you on the other side. Tra. Thanks for staying with us during another great episode of the Pit Pony podcast. 

And on behalf of myself, Sarah Dunwood, Mike Roberts at Making Digital Real, we wish you all the very best and we'll see you soon. If you wish to contact me directly for a support session or a clarity call for your next steps, please find my link in the comments below. See you soon.