049 - Sliding Doors Stories - Part 7

In this special Sliding Doors bonus episode, we bring you three more powerful and deeply personal reflections from teachers who’ve exited the classroom and discovered unexpected joy, freedom, and purpose on the other side.

🎙 Hollie Jones shares the life-saving impact of leaving teaching - how being able to drop everything for her son’s emergency surgery reminded her what true flexibility looks like.

 🎙 Paul Lennon reflects on how time - the real kind, not just school holidays - allowed him to reconnect with old friends, including a deeply emotional day kayaking with someone very special.

 🎙 Grant Decker opens up about the emotional weight he carried in teaching, and the liberation of rediscovering his optimism and true self.

These stories are tender, raw, and often emotional - perfect reminders of why listening to your gut and stepping into a new chapter might just be the most powerful decision you'll ever make.

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Edited with finesse by our Podcast Super Producer, Mike Roberts of Making Digital Real

Transcript

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Hello fellow pit ponies and welcome to our special bonus episodes that we've put together for your pleasure, which capture those beautiful moments at the end of our episodes, in which our guests share with you the magical experiences they've enjoyed since leaving the classroom. We refer to them affectionately as the sliding door stories. The stories are different, unique and incredibly powerful and serve as an inspiration to us all.

So on behalf of myself and Sarah, enjoy Hollie Jones sliding doors story. Yeah well I mean there's all sorts of stuff that goes on like not just like dropping the children off at school and being able to do this and that whatever, but I think the main one for me was end of November just gone, I'm working from home, I was about to go on a school visit to a school in the middle of nowhere and I got a phone call from the school of my two eldest and they said to me Ezra, my middle one, is really complaining that he's in pain and he's saying it's the same thing that happened to him in the summer when he was in Scotland, which was when he had a partial torsion of his testicles where they'd kind of twisted but then by the time he got to the hospital they'd twisted back and so he was okay but he'd recognised this pain in himself and they phoned me and they said he's not told me what it is, he just wants you to know it's the same thing happened in Scotland but it's worse. So I was like right okay I'll be there. 

Now I managed to speak to Rich who was at work, he's a tattooist, he just finished tattooing and I was like are you on your way back, can you pick up Ezra and get him to A&E and he was like yeah no problem. He was there, got him to A&E in seven minutes. All I had to do was say to the admin of our team at EPS, can you please phone this school and tell them I'm not coming, this is what's happened. 

She was like awesome, go for it, like let me know how it goes, don't worry about anything. Off I went to the hospital, he was already there and it turns out he'd needed emergency surgery so within two hours he was in emergency surgery. If I'd have been teaching that phone call would have had to have gone to the office, I would have had to go and find the head and say I need some time and so time is of the essence with that. 

He had a full testicular torsion and anything more than four hours and at least one of them would have to be removed. So Ezra could actually be infertile if I'd have still been teaching and it just made me think I'm allowed to drop everything at work and do what I need to do. It's like my managers know I'm mum first, that's what I do and it's like yeah I just wouldn't have been able to do that. 

There was a time where when I was teaching and they thought that Caleb my eldest had broken his arm and I went out and said he's fallen over in PE practice and they think he's broken his arm. The teachers have already taken him to A&E, I need to go and get him and I remember the executive head just looking at his watch going well I suppose you'll have to go then won't you and I was like yeah yeah I will. So just to be there with him, I've never seen someone in so much pain. 

It was like watching someone in labour, it was awful. So yeah they came, knocked him out, straight into surgery, absolutely fine and I was there for the whole thing and I didn't worry at all what was happening the next day, the day after yeah and he's had six weeks of recovery and I've been able to, like my manager's just gone just cancel everything, block everything out, do what you need to do, like nothing is more important than you being there for him. I don't think I've ever heard that from a teacher.

Brief interlude dear listener, a 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. Paul Lennon, Sliding Doors story. Again really, really tough question, really good question and you know I'll probably give you 100 answers. 

I think you know the first response is honestly, and I hope it doesn't sound clichéd again, the gift of time. I think we're sort of blinded sometimes in teaching that one of the big perks is 13 weeks a year holiday, which is a big perk, but we sort of seem to think that there isn't time then in other professions and I've definitely had the gift of time and I think therefore the biggest Sliding Doors moment was having a time for long-term friends that maybe we hadn't seen and spent time with over you know the 25, 30 years overseas and the most important one at the moment is a very, very close friend who interestingly is also an ex-teacher, an ex-international teacher and he currently lives down in St Agnes in Cornwall and his life took a different turn to mine and he was faced with a life-changing cancer about four or five years ago and long story short he had to have a life-changing operation or face palliative care and because of his family circumstances and his resilience and drive he chose the life-changing operation which has thankfully and touch everything, touch wood has left him cancer-free and it's also left him disabled. But the Sliding Doors moment was a day last summer which wouldn't have happened if I'd still been overseas and still been teaching and it wasn't in summer holidays to speak in school terms and we went kayaking off the coast of St Agnes in Cornwall, he and I, his disability is there, it becomes a little bit less when you're in water and because obviously your legs matter less when you're floating in the water and so on and we kayaked and we snorkeled and yeah he squealed with joy when we went to a couple of caves that he knew about, he's an ex-lifeboat guy as well, RNLI lifeboat volunteer and yeah to spend that day with Tom and you can hear the emotion.

Hello loyal listeners, this is a little plea on behalf of myself and Sarah to donate a few pennies to the Pit Pony Podcast Production Fund. Sarah's taken to selling her cure records on eBay to fund the episodes, so see the buy us the coffee link in the notes below and save her collection of Robert Smith's warblings for us will you, thank you. Grant Decker, Sliding Doors Story.

All of this wouldn't have happened if I hadn't of, you know my happiness, I'm so happier already, you know what I mean, I feel I've got me back and hopefully my family feel like they've got me back as well but I think if I'd have carried on, if I hadn't have had this moment and I'd have carried on in education, I could feel myself becoming perhaps the negative person at school, you know and I am sometimes that person because sometimes it is like, oh my goodness, three people aren't in today, that means I'm going to be in the classroom on my own with 11 students with significant needs, how is this possible and it always comes together and you muddle through but you know being negative doesn't, it's not me, you know what I mean, I don't feel like myself but that's probably where I would have would have carried on. 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.