066 - Pit Pony Revisited: The Summer Series - Hannah Jones

In this powerful reissue from our archive, we revisit the story of Hannah Jones, a history teacher who walked away from education after enduring one of the most dehumanising experiences we have ever heard.

From her early passion for teaching to a brutal relocation that left her physically unwell, mentally exhausted and teaching in a condemned classroom, Hannah’s story is one of survival, clarity and courage.

She shares what it was like to raise a disabled child in a system with no empathy, how her mental health deteriorated and the moment she walked out never to return.

Now Head of Prison Education for England and Wales, Hannah’s story is a testament to what is possible on the other side of teaching.

This is one of our most impactful episodes. If you are in the thick of it, this one is for you.

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Mark Rickard - Author: Teach, Survive, Repeat 

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

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Pit 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 Hello and welcome to an episode of the Pit Pony podcast with Hannah Jones. So Nana came from good old-fashioned Pit Pony stock. 

Her dad was her head of sixth form and a history A-level teacher. Her mum was a TA and they didn't shoehorn her into education but they recognised early doors that she'd make a fantastic teacher and they were right. She spent her early years abroad in China, English as a second language with the British council and then she came back to the UK and was an assistant housemistress. 

Now there are going to be so many more questions than answers to this but the first school she worked at in the UK, the girls had their own stables there with their ponies in so you could bring your own pony to school day. You BYOP. So the pupils could traipse their ponies in front of the Pit Ponies.

I love it but what you could have had if you'd got generational wealth and she worked there, loved it and then she was so lucky through a skit to train at Watford Girls Grammar School under the inspirational Dame Helen Hyde. A history teacher amazing, the Edward de Bono thinking school that was utterly off the charts in terms of creativity. Her NQT year was at the boys school, Watford Grammar.

She relocated to a school in Birmingham, again another grammar school, loved every single minute of that experience and it was there that she had her child and sadly Hannah's child was born with cerebral palsy but at that school the entire staff raised a thousand pound for the neonatal intensive care unit so we've had a really glorious career up until this point. Hannah is in this for life, there's no two ways about it. After a relocation to Yorkshire at a good school by her own admission she lasted four months, walked out and has never gone back. 

So Hannah welcome and thank you. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. 

What's your job title today? So I have just accepted and will be shortly starting what I think of my dream job as a teacher who's no longer a teacher and I will be head of prison education in England and Wales. So I work for the civil service. Wow that's, we feel like we're in the company of gracious do we not Sarah Dunwood. 

If anyone can throw that type head on, if you put head of in England and Wales in it yeah you're doing so thank you so much and BYOP It was quite the shock. I was with the British council in China and they always place you in schools that ultimately couldn't afford English language teachers otherwise and I essentially arrived off the plane from, we lived essentially, it was like an industrial estate in China. I drived off the plane to Heathrow and I had to drive up to this school because I'd not interviewed in person. 

They'd given me the job but I needed to get there to meet them in person too and I can't, I could not, my brain just could not fathom the differences I had just seen you know to this like rural beautiful BYOP but I had a lovely year there. It was absolutely fab. Some of my best anecdotes come from working there. 

And I think, I think you experienced good years in teaching, there's no two ways about it. Yeah, yeah. As is always the case I want to start at the end and I want to go back to those four months and start to share with us the arc of your story in many ways. 

Take us to the time where you relocated to Yorkshire please and walk us through your experience at the school in Yorkshire. Yeah, absolutely. So, it was 2021. 

We were in, I'd had my second child in May 2020 so I'd been on maternity leave for most of lockdown and in about March 2021 I was living in Birmingham at the time with two small children and kind of turned to my husband one night and said I'd really like to move. I'm from the north, I wanted to be near my mum and dad and we just decided to go for it. And so applying for jobs and obviously this is then still through kind of lockdown, it was just when lockdown was starting to lift. 

I got offered a job at a really good on paper school and accepted it happily because we were so excited to move and it's a permanent contract and helped me get my mortgage and we found a house in a beautiful village and I enrolled my little boys in the local, well one was in like the local nursery, he was just one and the other, my Henry who's the one with cerebral palsy, he had a stroke at birth and has cerebral palsy. He went, he started at a preschool so we get into, we moved into the house at the beginning of August and obviously started the new school in September. I applied for my first job out of teaching on day two of being in that school.

Wow. Yeah, I just, yeah, I think straight away it was just, you just know, it's that trust in your instinct isn't it? I just knew something wasn't right. I knew that there was just, this wasn't a healthy place for me and so yeah, I think kind of talking, thinking through it, so I always get emotional when I'm thinking about it. 

It was, teaching for me was everything, it was me, I was a teacher and so at the end, the end of it to come quite so suddenly is quite, it's still quite emotional for me to think about. So yeah, so my classroom I think stayed, the big issue straight away was the classroom they put me in and I was timetabled full-time in this one room was, had no windows at all, so there was no natural light. There was a tiny skylight that used to just shut if it was raining, so you couldn't get any fresh air. 

There was no natural light, that didn't give any natural light to the room. It was the dingiest room you can possibly imagine. I think if you walked into a prison and saw that room, you'd be like, this is disgusting and the idea that I could teach in there, I just couldn't get my head around that they thought that was acceptable to put anybody in there. 

You wouldn't leave animals in a zoo in that, you know, and so right from the get-go, I had to kind of fight for myself, so I was new to Yorkshire, new to the school, didn't have any kind of friends or support network here, so it's a huge transition anyway and then straight away from day one going, this isn't an appropriate room for me to be teaching and this isn't safe, you know, we're still at this point teaching in masks, we're being warned about the dangers of Covid and I was just being told repeatedly by, you know, male senior leaders in very nice offices with floor-to-ceiling windows that this room had passed all health and safety standards, it was fine. So anyway, so I applied for a job straight away on day two, I decided not to go to continue with it, I got offered an interview but it was a huge pay cut and I thought no, I just need to, you know, maybe this is just settling in anxiety, maybe I just need to kind of get my head around it. Over kind of September, October, November, my absence started to creep up, my little boy, my youngest, was just one, he'd been in lockdown for his first year of life and had gone to nursery, so as you can imagine the germs were everywhere in our house and it was at that time when they were saying if you've got a cough you need to be out for five days or you need to do a Covid test and that would take a few days to come back, so like we were totally stuck between me and my husband, like he had to have a lot of time off as well, he is and was at the time a civil servant working for the treasury and so he was able to be a little bit more flexible than I was, but it was just a kind of this constant, you know, juggling of priorities. 

Then, so it was stressful from the get-go, my little boy Henry with cerebral palsy was in a preschool environment as well and that was really hard for him, he'd been in nursery where he'd been, you know, loved and cherished and kind of babied and he's very young, he's got developmental delay as well, and so the preschool transition was really hard and every morning I had to kind of rush and rush and rush, as you do because I have to be there on time, so rush everyone out, rush everyone in, no time for like a supportive transition for him, just me kind of getting panicked and then like just driving away and every day kind of my heart breaking as I was driving away knowing that I was, I wasn't properly supporting him, knowing that I was going to be probably late to school and it was just this kind of a mass of anxiety. I think that could have been managed if I'd have, if I'd been say how I was in Birmingham and in that kind of school where they saw me and they understood my kind of role as a carer, they knew I had a disabled child but there was never any additional support given to that, so they knew because I'd requested not full-time working, so I had four days a week that was kind of given to me, that was like, oh you know, we're really helping because you're having four days a week, but apart from that there was, there was, there was no other, there was no other flexibilities allowed and I very quickly reached my kind of policy given and dependents leave days off because also like I have appointments and stuff I need to take him to and I started getting, you know, told I wasn't going to be paid, so it quite quickly turned into a bit of a battle with them. So then, but the school itself, it's not a very welcoming environment. 

In about November or even December, somebody randomly turned up at my room and said, oh I'm meant to be your, your buddy and I said, oh what? And they're like, oh I was meant to welcome you to the school and it was, I think it was about December and I was like, oh and I knew, I'm not a rude person but I think I nearly told them to F off because I was just like, this is, at this point that's just rude to come in and be like, oops, I, I haven't. Welcome. Yeah, welcome, you've been here for three months and really struggling on your own and the, the department was, they were nice, they were nice people, but it felt very much like they were an established team, I was the newcomer, I got the, the rubbish room and the head of department who made that decision was like, oh yeah, well we, we know, we all, you know, almost like passing the buck a lot. 

There was no sense of, I'll help you and I'll help you support this. Am I right in thinking that in order to try and stay there, you thought, okay, I am going to bang the drum and I'm going to get moved out of this room? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you went in, you stood your ground.

Yeah. And they came up with a solution for you, didn't they? Yeah. Work with us, Sarah, get ready, brace yourself, it's, it's incoming.

So for, for months they've been telling me there's, there's nothing wrong with this room, you're just, you're making a fuss and I got hold of one of those, again, this is still 2021, so I got hold of one of those monitors that we all got, or some of the classrooms got to show the, and mine immediately went off the charts and like the union said 800 was, was a bad number, mine was 1600 straight away, like within literally minutes of plugging it in. So I marched down to the deputy head's office, floor to ceiling windows, floor to ceiling windows, deputy head's office, and I said, I'm not teaching in this room any longer, this is not happening, this is now kind of early December time. I said, I can bring them in here, you, if you think it's fine, you can go and have my room as your office and I'll, I'll bring them in here and be fine.

And obviously they didn't want to do that, so they, they, there was, it's, the school I was in is a very big site, really sprawling, kind of like 1960s, secondary modern type of buildings, sprawling buildings, and there was a building right, kind of, you know, about a mile, it felt like about a mile from the staff room, that had been condemned and was going to be knocked down in the Christmas break. And they said, oh, you can have a room in there. So I, so for December, I was put on my own in a room that was actually condemned to be knocked down. 

There was no, and there was nobody else in that, in that building at all around me. And I had classes. So I think fundamentally as well, that there was issues that I just couldn't agree with, with the school in the way that they, it is on paper, a very good school. 

And I think the way they manage that is that they, they, they stream every single class. So as a history teacher, I'm not used to teaching top, middle and bottom sets, right? But it's mixed ability. I'm not a maths teacher. 

Like, this is how we teach is mixed ability. But no, in that school, everybody from like, term two in year seven was put on top, middle or bottom. And ultimately, what it meant was, if you had a special educational need, you were put in bottom set, and you would spend your day with that exact group of people moving from room to room to room to room. 

So say, for example, my year nine history group, were the bottom set year nines. I mean, year nines, anyway, challenging, aren't they? But bottom set year nines, I think in that room, I had three specific EHCPs, as well as everybody else had some kind of statement of need, individual educational plan. There was never, ever any, any TA with them. 

When I pushed and shouted, they would say, we'll see if we can get the cover supervisor to come and sit with you. I think once because I'd made such a fuss, one of the assistant pastoral heads came and sat with me to help me with them. There was just no support. 

So then taking me then away from my department away from other teachers just felt like it wasn't a safe, it wasn't a psychologically safe environment for anyone. It was almost at points not physically safe. But it was it was at this point, it was December. 

So I think I just downed tools and put my Netflix password in and we merrily watched films for a couple of weeks. And not only that, at the time, you'd gone through that period where I think you were in a school where teaching had to be taught the same way. So you'd gone from a very creative form of teaching to a kind of PowerPoint standardization. 

Oh, yeah. Yes. Why did they want me? I've got a master's degree in history, and I qualified to one of the best schools in the world. 

Why are you paying me? Why do you want me? You've not used my brain at all. At one point, I was told that I couldn't run the year 11 revision session because they didn't know I could teach I could teach exam classes. I'd been ahead of sixth form. 

Like I was just why have you paid me for this job? And yeah, it was I mean, in one way, it made it made the job like, oh, well, didn't make the job easier. But in one way, like, oh, yeah, I could not plan lessons, right? Because they were there. And I suppose in one way, I think they'd done it for that kind of set. 

But yeah, it was there was no there was no creativity. There was no sense of what I could do. It was it was teach them to the test, teach them to the test, because we've got to justify these who's going to be top, middle and bottom teaching to the test. 

And then so it kind of came to a head. So all of this kind of stress from home life, this ongoing like pressure from from school, this and then in January, so that knocked down the burden I was in in December. So that is gone.

The two weeks I was there that had gone. So I arrived back in January. And over the Christmas break as well, I'd been like my anxiety like that environment is not healthy. 

And my mental health took such a hit in such a short space of time. So like over Christmas, I was just having like I'd just be sitting on the sofa with my family and I could just feel this rising panic and I'd have to just go upstairs and I was just be having this panic attack. And I couldn't place what was going on. 

I think there was just so many different triggers. I think like, you know, my little boy and kind of all the kind of PTSD from his birth and that trauma was coming out, you know, and I think it was all down to this environment that I'd been in where my brain was just being just just being stressed and then physically unhealthy in this horrible room. So I'd obviously been applying for jobs in in the over the Christmas break, I'd been successful with the civil service in November. 

So I'd missed the deadline to to have my notice in so they put me on the reserve list. I'd had an interview just before the Christmas break for a job I was really keen on working at university locally. And they rang me just before the Christmas break to say we really really liked you and you performed really well in this interview. 

But and I know everyone listening will know what happens next that but there was just someone with more experience but they left me hanging because they said what we're trying to do is we're trying to create another role and we'll know by January if we can. And so I had this kind of like hope that I was actually going to get out and the kind of that kept me going through Christmas. And I arrived back in January and the plan that they'd they'd put in place because now they'd condemned this room and I'd refused to teach in my original room was that as a department we were all going to swap rooms. 

So there was like we were all quite quite like you. Wasn't I just and so it was yeah I was teaching in in lots of different rooms there was just like mad moments where you just start to feel so isolated because clearly you know I'd hacked people off by making them teach in the nasty room. And well didn't they didn't they play not play games but weren't they mean with the resources? It was a little bit mean girly yeah it was it was there was just a couple of times there was one day where I was teaching in this person's classroom and actually I taught in there most of the day I don't it was so it should have really been by right to my classroom and I reached down to the pen pot that had always been there and I realized it had been put away in a locked drawer. 

So that's that's where we got to we got to kind of levels of petty and again it's just it's the stress on the brain so all those things sound like small but it's when you are when you are putting your brain through so much stress those things like I just felt just like punched in the gut day after day. And so then it became it was January so I then had this phone call to say sorry we couldn't offer you this job and I I think I had also applied for like a tutoring job and got turned down and I just remember sitting on the floor in my little boy's room while they were in the bath and saying to my husband I can't I cannot do this anymore I can't keep going and then we're like well we've got the mortgage to pay and it's kind of like what are we going to do? And then being January it's a Holocaust Memorial Day and often schools try and kind of time their teaching around you know to to teach the Holocaust. So with my year nines my lovely year nines my bottom set year nines with three HDPs a lot of a lot of need and no support I was then given this kind of pack of worksheets to work through with them about the Holocaust and they the Wednesday before so we're working up now to the day where I walked out so what happened well it was generally the most dramatic thing I think I've ever done in my life where I did I walked into school I taught period one I packed my bag and I walked out and I never went back and the week before that I taught a kind of a pre-emptive lesson to my year nines and I'd seen that what the next lesson was in my kind of Holocaust pack that I'd been given was to teach about I'm sorry I'm going to get emotional to teach to what I'd have what the what the Nazis did to disabled children in Germany and one of the girls in that room like I'd prepped them because this is like I'm talking to disabled children I'm a carer of a disabled child I knew that was going to be a challenging lesson and I talked to them a bit about it and what was going to happen and one of the girls said I'm really going to struggle and I said me too me too I'm really going to struggle with this and in the end I never actually taught that lesson because that was due that afternoon the day that I walked out and I don't think in at the time I knew that and I like it wasn't like that was the reason why but when I looked back I was like that was I knew I just couldn't do that I knew and I then looking back now I'm absolutely shocked that I was put in that position where as a as a parent of a disabled child I was going to be asked to teach about euthanizing disabled children without any support without without any support for the children like just I yeah the kind of the callousness of it and the lack of care just now now I'm out of the environment I'm oh my gosh we can't treat people like this so yeah so through January my anxiety had had been rising um to the point and I just Paul you there for a moment because I'd like you to take a breath more than anything I dislike you to take a breath because I don't think you can share um an experience of what you've gone through like that and then just segue straight in so Sarah you and I will just we will just react to what has been I've worked out in my head four months take away two weeks for Christmas take away a week for October half term talking what 12 weeks 13 weeks 12 weeks okay yeah and in those 12 weeks every single thing that can be done to a human being to make it almost impossible for them to thrive environmentally practically emotionally yeah has been isolation yeah lack of light yeah I just think Sarah Sarah doesn't get to know the story beforehand I I always meet with the guests beforehand and I purposely I'm very very interested to see the absolute in the moment reaction Sarah to what you've just because we've listened to some to some experiences but 13 weeks of that go on Sarah what's your thoughts I've I've written down psychologically not safe in fact it's beyond that psychologically that's that's that's almost harm with intent yeah or harm through omission of any sort of compassion or understanding of you as a human being I I have words that I'm not going to use on our podcast they would get me kicked out of my own group but I'm stunned I'm genuinely stunned I'm sure there's people listening to this who are in positions of leadership teams at school and they would want to apologize to you for what you went through because nobody should have to go through that and and really can I thank you for sharing that to be honest he is how you did I've I have no idea to I mean to me to be street streaming kids in 2020 in the 21st century so let me get this right I'm top set English for a middle set maths so where do I go where where is this holding any individual at the helm and I will say this and we'll move on shame on them yeah that's all I'm going to say about this shame can I can I ask a question was it an academy yeah yeah so it's interesting and I am going to time stamp this because I don't know quite when when this will come out in the sequence of things but it's early November and this week there's been an article published in schools week with a quote from Sir Kevin Collins who is the school standards star whatever that means but he has actually been looking at academy freedoms and what it should have brought and his quote this week is that he has never seen teachers more enslaved that's a direct quote well with teachers quote being told what to do in every lesson so I'm listening to you in terms of and and I'm just going to rewind I'd written health and safety down about the condemned building you should never have been put in there um and then I'm hearing about the lack of creativity and that's that's what I was busy doing as I was trying to find that that quote and then and then you talk to me about what you have to teach and and that I yeah no just I'll tell you something as a parent right so as a parent you're telling me my kid's been taught in a condemned building my kid's disabled and my kid has to go through that lesson because I'll tell you something you might have I might have kowtowed as a teacher but as a parent I'd have had him by the throat for that I used to say to the kids I said you need to you need to be telling your parents to email in because it's the only thing that's going to make a change yeah but then to my bottom set year nines they didn't they haven't got that kind of you know their parents don't have that social capital you know they they were they were the condemned group and I loved them dearly actually they're the ones that I think about most even though they were the hardest ones you know at one point one of the girls sprayed um you know the fluid you keep to wipe your board sprayed that in my face and there's no there was no one around there's no support at all and she should have had she should have had one-to-one and she never did and we just have to deal with that but it was them I felt sorry as far because she didn't want to behave in that way and she needed help to not behave in that way and we were just the school were just streaming them to keep them out then from the top set to the top set could thrive and bugger to the rest of them absolutely yeah if you're if you're the man of you're the manifestation yeah of I was our response yeah of everything that is wrong with with the send system and you'll know that as a parent as well and the the academy system and poor leadership you you've almost I'm sorry to kind of reduce it to this but you've almost ticked every single box that we encounter on a daily and a weekly basis in the group yeah yeah that's too much for one person in 12 weeks yeah yeah um I I say my the anxiety that I kind of plummeted into like it was I was ill I was really ill and so so yeah so going back then to that day that morning I I I knew I really shouldn't have gone in I'd had um I'd had the day it was a Wednesday I'd had Tuesday off because I'd had another interview booked but um I cancelled that interview because I was just too mentally unwell but this is where I I'm not a religious person but sometimes I wish I was because it would make more sense of things so that was probably getting towards my my lowest days I had a phone call from um a really lovely sounding lady from the civil service who'd I'd almost forgotten at this point I was on this reserve list um saying that you know they were looking for someone to join their team and they'd had a look at my application and I sounded great and would I like to work with them and they sounded so lovely and I could start you know they could be flexible I could start after Easter blah blah blah all the nice things and it wasn't a formal offer all that was still to come I had to go through all the checks and stuff but just for the first time I just felt there was a there was a glimmer a glimmer of hope and I taking my dog for a walk and ringing my friend and just crying because I thought I'll be able to walk my dog I'll be able to see that I'll be able to see like actual light I'll be I'll be able to like I've moved to this beautiful place I've not seen any of it because I'm locked in a box um and that was and they were like yes you can work from home you can be flexible um and so that was the that was the Monday so Tuesday I had booked off because of this other interview I cancelled that because I just couldn't even though that wasn't a formal job offer I couldn't um I just couldn't I was I was ill function and I just walked for my poor dog I walked for miles you know when you with that anxiety you just need to give it an outlet and I've walked about like 10 miles over those two days dragging my poor dog behind me and then on the Wednesday um kind of just back into that routine without really thinking go go go go go go go um and I got in I got to the to the school car park and I was texting I've got um two beautiful teacher friends from Birmingham and they're still my two kind of best friends um and we have a group obviously well women are in one group with three women aren't they and so I was texting them saying I didn't remember the drive to work like I was just in such a state of anxiety I just couldn't remember what I'd done I just it was and they were saying just go just go don't go in don't go in you are not well go home speak to the GP I sat in the car and I don't know why but I decided to go in and I was just and I was just in this I was not I was clearly not well I taught and I say that with inverted commas taught period one because I don't I don't it definitely wasn't my finest hour I don't think I did much teaching but we got through it um and then I was free period two and I just I knew it was just like you know like the way you push up to get out of a drowning pool I just knew I had to my legs just took me out of that building and I packed my bag and I walked to the office and I said you're going to need to cover me for the rest of the day because I'm leaving site and I was clearly like anxious I was in a state of anxiety and the office staff just looked to me and went well we couldn't cover you for period five so you have to come back for that and I said no I'm leaving I'm not coming back and I got in my car and I was shaking so much but I knew I needed to get off site so I drove to like there's a quite there's a big um like shopping centre not too far from the school so I thought if I can just get there then I'm off site and then I'll be okay so I drove to this car park and I rang my GP and straight away uh you know they kind of booked me in for the afternoon they said and I rang my friends and just get home just get home so about 11 o'clock I think even I couldn't get I couldn't get back in the car so I ended up going shopping I think I bought a shoe that's you know and he's like well I just need I think I bought my little boys some trainers um got back in the car got home my husband was working so what have you done I've just walked out I've left and then he he went good was his reaction and what I would probably say at that point when you were describing leaving the building and everything you've done through this is the English teacher in me because it's been triggered at the start by the image of the prison yeah you've been teaching in a cell yeah you've had no natural light you've been then been put on death row in a condemned part of the prison and what you've just described there for me wasn't leaving your job it's escaping this heart you've just done it's a breakout I mean Jesus Christ this is a this is teaching and hell is going on yeah I know and when I told my well when my kind of colleagues so like my two best friends knew what was going on and knew that how it had gone but when then my other colleagues from my previous schools found out what happened they just couldn't believe it because that's not they'd have never assumed that I'd have done that so like the the the teacher I was and what they because of their lack of care and like like Sarah said you said that harm to intent and I actually think it's a really good way to put it they never they never got me they never knew who I was and the kids never got me as well it's interesting you say that because Sarah walked out of her job um she did exactly what you did handbag on her shoulder this is a woman right who drives me insane with her need to stick to the rules okay so for example if we were in an empty building and it said keep to the left and we were in a deserted building she would have to keep to the left so Sarah you understand the extremity of something that so out of character how bad must it have been and I think I think what Hannah did was something that chimed with you you were saving yourself weren't you yeah yeah I mean just just to extend how ridiculous I am with rules I learned the grey cross code when I was a kid I still now walk to the dick in the curb to cross the road I will not cross the road from a high curb you're just mental um but yeah I think it's something something kicks in I think something really primal yes kicks in about self-preservation doesn't it and and and I literally I think you and I probably had some sort of parallel moment where I did I went back to my office I swept my bag up I walked out the building and I just said I'm going to the ladies in the office and that was it yeah exactly that yeah yeah but it was primal it was visceral I yeah I had to yeah I absolutely it was I was saving myself yeah but that's yeah yeah so so you're out you've got out you've got this glimmer of hope yeah still not you're still not well there's no no ways about that yeah it was what happened a long time to heal it really did and then so yeah so I took um I spoke to the GP they were brilliant I think they heard teacher and went okay how long do you want to be off for which I was really grateful for they they and they put me in touch with some support services one of my old friends from home and I hadn't spoke to you for years and years and years um but kind of friends on social media he'd gone he'd kind of gone off and done hypnotherapy and I remember seeing like him put something out about hypnotherapy for anxiety and I thought I really want to do that I really want to give that a try so I had this kind of signed off work I was still waiting for this job offer to come through from the civil service so I could have my notice in um so originally I was kind of I'll just be off till February half term and then and then we'll kind of work it out so I was doing this hypnotherapy and it was it was so powerful and I'd recommend it to anyone it was absolutely brilliant and um and he decided said things that just helped me put it into such perspective because everything was everything was like piling on top of me in my head it was everything about the school and it was everything that I hadn't dealt with from um you know from the trauma of my son's birth because he had a stroke at birth and being in the in the neonatal unit and you know being close to death and then we'd had COVID and and he'd said like well you you know your anxiety is there because you've helped your family survive and you survive and now you can let it go and I was like oh you've just hit the nail on the head like that's exactly it like this energy and this mad anxiety I'm feeling has been what exactly what was needed because it helped me get through everything we've gone through as a as a nation but also me personally over the past four years and but I'm in a safe place now and I really felt like when we moved up here and we live in this beautiful village um and we've both both me and my husband kind of really feel like this is our safe place and um I just really could feel that starting to to release and then the glimmer of light got stronger and I got all my checks through from the civil service and I got a formal job offer and I was able to have my notice and I was still planning to go back and try and do the last six seven weeks before between February and half term and Easter because of course I'm a teacher I've got to go and do the work I've got to I've got to follow the rules I've got to do it and I could just feel like this the anxiety rising and rising and rising again um and I spoke to the GP and they were brilliant and they said well if you've handed your notice in any way let me sign you off until then well isn't it bizarre that we've just used the analogy of I was fighting for my life yeah it was in a prison break oh by the way at no point in a prison break movie do they go back in and hand themselves back in clean the cells and finish off his sentence oh yeah exactly that's that was it I was like I've got to I was like I've got to I've got to do it because I'm a teacher and the kids need me and I'm being paid you know and all those all that and it was the it was the GP that kind of gave me the permission to to just go but if you've handed your notice and you're still not well and I was like and then so I had this this time to recover and then obviously it's becoming spring and just life is starting to feel a bit more manageable yeah it's that thing about permission that's a really interesting word isn't it yeah that because I and and I'm feeling so many parallels between what what you have a different but but similar because I had an amazing GP and that when I walked in very similar but completely unsurprised by the story that was told and categorically when you're not going back you're not going back and actually the permission at that point was what I needed to justify my catastrophic yeah like I've just thrown a bomb into our whole world yeah yeah absolutely and I feel I often feel really really sorry for the the stories that we hear a lot on our on our Facebook group of the people who say oh no my husband or my partner or my wife doesn't understand why I need to leave and because I I have a really supportive husband his his mom is a primary school teacher so he kind of he gets it and he saw how well it was making me and at first he was there was a lot of conversation about well what are we going to do for money you know come on like but then I think he saw how ill it was making me and I'd say when I walked back home on that Wednesday at 11 a.m he could have he could have hit the roof because we'd just taken out this huge mortgage on a lovely house in Yorkshire and instead he went well done and that and that's what my husband did was it was a phone call and he was like whatever you need yeah and and he I was the breadwinner he wasn't yeah yeah yeah it makes a word of difference when you know you've got somebody to catch you and I think if you don't have that then you've got to be the permission for yourself and I think listening to these stories and hearing other people's experiences on that group is so powerful because I think then we can all hold each other up we can give you permission we know how bad it is we know how much this is hurting your brain and hurting your health get out get out and I think with permission yeah it's not just permission oh it's okay to do it yeah do it it's permission to do it and then not have all the associated negative emotions that come with it yeah yeah it's okay to do it you're not a failure yeah they'll say to do it you've nothing to be ashamed of oh it's not it's not a shame on me it's shame on them but when you're snapped there it's you feel ashamed yeah yeah and it's all of those emotions so right you've got light at the end of the tunnel yeah again you've come from the darkened cell light at the end of the tunnel it's spring oh there's so much going on symbolically it was it was beautiful it was a really lovely spring I did I spent months and months doing the I've never done gardening before and I spent months doing the gardening and um I think and I listened to loads of podcasts and um I just kind of felt my brain just starting to return like I started having ideas I started feeling creative and I was thinking of different ways I could do different things and then so I start this new job um with the civil service um and it does take it took a while to transition but I think because I'd given myself the time to have a break I kind of was ready to do something I was ready to start and just being met with kindness and being met with like transparency and there's no hidden agenda and people want you to do well and they help you to do well and they have the time to help you to do well they celebrate when you're doing well and I've yeah I just I loved it I loved it from from the minute I started it was it's a so I started working in children's social care um and for the civil service so not with local authorities um and it was from the start it was just a really positive experience um and I really then also could still feel like I was adding value which was so so important to me like that was I said to you at the beginning like as a teacher that was everything to me and the shame that I felt in leaving was really palpable now I've turned that it's like you say shame on them and I can see that now um but it's taken me a while to get there um and so yeah having having being able to pursue a new job and a new kind of career field for me but still doing something that's supporting vulnerable people that's still helping um and then so just as like an example so right from the get-go I started the civil service the week where um Jacob Rees-Mogg kicked up a fuss about nobody working um in offices and everyone working from home and I'd been told I could pretty much work from home and my office was placed in Darlington and I'm near like York and Leeds so it's about an hour and a half commute and um so that was my my kind of first experience was oh my gosh they're going to make me come to Darlington every day and this is a three hour round trip for me and I've left teaching so that I can be at home more and I can pick my child up from school when he starts school next year and so I kind of tearfully got on the phone to my new line manager like this is maybe three days in and I said oh I'm really sorry but I'm probably going to have to look for a job elsewhere and she'll talk to me about it so well I can't do the commute to Darlington you know to even two times a week I could manage it maybe once a week and she's and I said I was saying I left teaching so that I could be around for my child you know he's got cerebral palsy but then she won't stop you there she said oh I didn't know that your child had cerebral palsy so she'll talk to me about that and with this is like three days in she's put in place this formal structure we call it a carer's passport that details all the support that I might need as a carer to support my child one of those was about flexible working so I am like no matter who my line manager is I'm entitled to flexible working so I can take into appointments and not be docked pay I get paid leave for his appointments because we have that policy in place I so like quite often what I would do is I would kind of work through because I'm a teacher who needs a lunch break so I kind of work three till three o'clock then I'd log off at three and spend three till six with my children because I can because that's flexible and then I'd pick up the hours again in the evening and I was able to work from home so that I can I can be around and that that was within three days of starting at the civil service I was just given just met with compassion and empathy but like not over these people were like this is just standard this is just like it wasn't like they were being so kind it's this is this is what you can expect this is what you should have been expecting all along I wrote down Hannah again a quote from you being met with kindness transparency and people who wanted you to do well and then I put my own thing on it which is this should be normal not a revelation yeah because it clearly is normal in in places yeah exactly and that's it and my my first my first draft of this carer's passport versus what I write now is almost laughable because the first one I wrote was very much with my teacher head on where I was apologizing for the fact that I might need this time and oh I would try and do this and oh you know I might need a day off and then I'd make sure I'd make up here there there you know this kind of like kowtowing and it's like what like I read it now I'm like who was that woman why was I apologizing for the fact that my child is disabled why was I apologizing for that fact and so now it's just statement of fact you will give me x y and z because that is what I entitled to because that's what my son needs and that's what I need simple as that and everyone accepts it but yeah that and I just yeah yeah I accepted it for far too long as a teacher but we all do we all do because we didn't know we did no different and we wanted the best for the children we teach so we just accept it um so you you're still venturing in the world of education because you are taking up a position here's the beautiful irony in the prison service and you've now got an experience that you can bring having some hard time in a still for 14 weeks absolutely and I know this is a new position so we don't really like to go into it yeah yeah it has too much detail are you excited about taking I am so excited so the desire so in civil service you know a lot of people and I look at those jobs there's often essential criteria desirable criteria the essential criteria was uh you know all the kind of the basic stuff around policy development stakeholder management I didn't know what a stakeholder was until two and a half years ago but here we are stakeholder management and then in the desirable criteria it said qualified teacher status and I just knew like this is for me and in the interview the feedback I got from the interviewer was it is so refreshing to interview someone who hasn't come just through the civil service who's got experience outside because of the way you answer questions we can sense your passion and it's just what you want to hear because that was my fear leaving teaching was am I going to find somewhere that you know that kind of likes my passion and that gets why I'm like committed and why I like that drive so to hear that as feedback um but also like financially oh my gosh like I'm getting paid more than I was as a teacher now and I work 37 hours a week so when you factor in my hourly wage oh my gosh and I do that over four days so I get I get full I'm a full-time employee I do it over four days I get paid more than I was as a teacher you know it's ah yeah and I'll tell you this for nothing having gone through what you went through only for that short space of time I bet there's not a single person listening to this who got and that bloody girl deserves that you absolutely deserve that so with that in mind my friend yeah I am going to ask you to share with us a sliding doors moment that you've experienced since leaving the classroom that you know you would not have been able to do that you have remained in teaching yeah thanks Hannah okay so this one is maybe going to be slightly longer one um than others have done and I will give a bit of a content warning for any listeners that I will be talking about cancer um so as I said I'm a carer to my son um when and I share that responsibility with my husband my dear husband uh who is only the same age as me so mid-30s young and healthy and fit and through COVID started having back pain um and went to the GP a number of times but it was oh you're sitting on the wrong chairs you know and we were because suddenly he had to start working from home he was working at a dining room table so we spent money and got him a proper chair and desk and rising desk etc we moved up to Yorkshire and the pain was getting worse so I think kind of like another mental strain I had through the time I was at school was this this kind of beginning of shift of my relationship my husband where he was just in pain this kind of like constant discomfort and his mood was starting to change um when I started at the civil service so I started in May um 2022 um he'd been in significant pain for uh for a while um I'd nearly rang an ambulance for him in March 2022 but it was around the time where they were saying if you ring an ambulance you might be you know in an in an ambulance bay for like 48 hours while we wait for you to go to hospital it was all through this time and I thought he'll never forgive me he's in so much pain if he's stuck in an ambulance for 40 hours he'll never forgive me um and I didn't um but the the GP finally referred him for an MRI after agreeing it might be something more you know more than than than just sitting on the wrong chair so he had his MRI just before I started the civil service um in August so I was what was it May, June, July, August I was four months in so it's a six month probation in August, August bank holiday we were um we were down with his parents and we got a phone call on the the Friday afternoon just before bank holiday weekend to say we've looked at your MRI um and we can see that there's a slipped disc and we were like oh almost we were a bit disappointed because he'd been in so much pain that we were thinking this is surely like that's not going to be the level of pain you're in but hey maybe it just is I think I was thinking like oh bloody men it's a slipped disc and he's just like he's at this point like he wasn't sleeping he was like losing weight his hair was falling out he was so ill with this pain um and anyway on the Tuesday morning we were just packing up to go back home and on the Tuesday morning we had another phone call and it was the same GP and she said oh I'm really sorry I the the MRI report was sent in two parts and I read the top and it was done in two and she said I just read the top and the top does show a slipped disc but it shows a slipped disc because there's a there's a well they never said the word tumour they said mass and lesion um that essentially was pushing his disc out so the top MRI did show a slipped disc but the bottom MRI showed why um and so that was that was the beginning of our cancer journey um and it took a while for diagnosis and it took a while for uh because he's got a very very very and had a very very rare form of bone cancer um so this is in terms of my career I'm six months into the civil service and dealing with this news and I'd taken um I'd taken a pay cut so I started um at SEO level at the civil service which senior executive officer level which actually is a really good entry grade for the civil service and does pay well and I'd recommend any teacher to enter into you know that grade or HO a really good entry grades and still pay fairly amount but it was less than I was being paid as a teacher um and his salary was was was what we lived off and and we'd just taken out we just bought our kind of forever home in Yorkshire and we'd taken out a huge great mortgage to have this with um and ironically to afford the mortgage we'd also cancelled our critical care cover that would have paid off our mortgage had one of us got cancer because we'd said to each other jokingly we're only in our mid-30s like how likely is it we'll get cancer so we'd cancel our critical care cover because that was really expensive and um so so yeah so he got the in September we we were sent down to Birmingham back to Birmingham for no no link in terms of because we used to live there just because that was the centre we were sent down to Birmingham and um we were told it was likely to be malignant cancer they were very worried about it being malignant cancer um and the way that they they diagnosed sarcoma which is bone cancers is that they start with the they take a biopsy and then they start kind of profiling against the most common and there's about 100 types um and so it can take about a week if it's one of the more common ones or it can take a few weeks if it's one of the less common ones um and it was for us it was it took weeks because it was the it was one of the the least least common cancers he's got a type of cancer called mesenchymal chrondosarcoma um which is a very rare cancer a very aggressive cancer um and so so we were given this news in October um so I just just about passed my probation period with with my team um and I was we were told that he was going to need a life altering surgery um we didn't know kind of to what extent that life would be altered we were told it'd be a life altering surgery and then we were told with a likely need to have nine months of chemo and radiotherapy following that so we were kind of going into Christmas 2022 with that knowledge so he had his surgery booked for the end of November 2022 so I at this point I've been there six months um he was down in Birmingham um the surgery um was very dangerous I didn't know this I'd never seen it but he filmed like a goodbye to me and my children before because we didn't know how that was going to go my um my line manager but I was I was still in teaching mode right so I I um I said to my line manager well he's having a surgery on the Wednesday so I'll take Wednesday Thursday Friday off and I'll see you on Monday and she just said if you need to work I'll see you on Monday but other otherwise come back and see me in January and we'll see how you are and without any question she just signed me off on full pay for the for five weeks and I'd only been there for six months I'd only just passed my probation and she just she just said don't worry about it he said if you want to log on and work because that was good for you then do but just just come back and see me in January and obviously I couldn't work and he was really ill after the surgery and um we had a rough few weeks and I was just so grateful that I was not having to worry about cover lessons and um and so he came home and on we got home just before Christmas and we had the weirdest Christmas um all his family came and they all cooked and kind of celebrated as you can he doesn't remember any of it because he was so on so many pay meds but we got through um on boxing day we went to um Leeds um sarcoma center where they were going to do his chemotherapy and they told us that we needed to have the full nine month regime and they were going to give him for those who know about cancer um they were going to give him the dr rubison which is the called the red devil which is I think the most powerful chemo drug there is and it was going to make him very ill and he was going to be um very immunocompromised and for me that's where then the sliding doors moment starts because straight away like I was due back to work in January but I was really kind of on and off because I was needing taking to all these appointments while we kind of got ourselves settled um so there's kind of two big things one of them was around his health and this immunocompromised and I remember keep on thinking what would I have done if I was in school because I would have killed him if I'd have gone into school but then there's no mechanism for me to not have gone into school and still earn money and he's been off work now from November this is January so we're three months into his six months full pay sick sorry he had five months full pay so we're three months into his five months full pay then he was dropping to half paid then nothing so I knew we're going to be okay for a few months we can pay our mortgage and our bills but I'm going to need to step up and I'm going to need to earn more money now because um otherwise we're going to have to sell this house and actually the first when we kind of first got his diagnosis I was thinking we are going to have to sell this house there's no other way around it like how I've only just started this new career how can I earn more money but from the minute I started the civil service they'd seen me and they'd seen my potential and from kind of day one they'd gone you should have been you should have been a grade seven which is then the next grade above and it's quite a significant pay jump between seo and grade seven it's about a fifteen thousand pound pay jump so it's a huge increase they're like why did you come in as seo you should have been a grade seven so already I had this like positive talk in my head that that you know I was capable of this and I spoke to my line manager kind of in January this is after just coming back from you know six weeks of leave supporting my husband and I said I'm going to need to I'm going to need to leave this team because I'm going to need promotion because I've got no option like I have to earn the money to support my family I have to we cannot lose our house on top of everything so in the kind of worst months of my husband's treatment so he had the doxorubicin he was on he was on a chemotherapy regime that was one week on one week off so he'd be home for a week but there was a period then through end of January early February where his his cell counts were so low they didn't let him home and he'd lost so much weight he was they were talking about like feeding him through a tube because he just he was so poorly and through that period I was applying for grade seven jobs and my line manager was supporting me every step of the way she was helping me draft them she was coaching me for interviews she was that constant you're gonna be brilliant you're gonna do it I had I applied for a lot of jobs I had I got two interviews the first interview I missed by one mark it's almost like a test I missed it by one mark the the context in the morning was that my that was where my husband was it was in hospital with sepsis and so I was quite pleased I'd only missed it by one mark to be honest and then I got called for a second interview in a different role and I was I was not offered the job I was offered to go back on the reserve list and the reserve list has come back to save my life again because as luck would have it then my own team had a vacancy for a grade seven so I was able to stay in the team that had supported me but as a grade seven so like for me my siding doors moment is if I was teaching while all this had happened and if that school hadn't been as bad so my you know if I'd have managed to stay for a year we would have been homeless we'd have been bankrupt like what could we have done we'd have both been we'd have both had to be signed off work so my pay would have run out the same time that my husband's pay would have run out and we'd have had nothing nothing that we no money that would have supported us we'd have had to sell our house we'd have had to move we'd have probably had to go and live with parents through the worst times of our life and instead I am in a career that fulfills me that really through some really dark times last year became like a really positive outlet to my I never thought work could be that for me in a way because teaching made it so negative towards the end but it's like it's my positive outlet like I get to direct all my nervous energy into doing good and doing amazing things and really supporting vulnerable people and develop myself and have something that gives me something back of who I am and who I was all through that time and I cannot thank my team and my line managers at the civil service enough for just how they've met me with that with that flexibility and with that we know what you're going through and that openness to talk about it but at the same time without it being oh aren't we doing you a favor it's never been that it's just been of course that's what you need of course that's what you're going to get of course we'll give it to you so that's that's my sliding doors it's not a moment but that's my sliding doors of life and it's so not only did walking out that day save me but it's it's safe it saved my family and it saved our house and it's saved our future wow and can I just um ask how your husband is now oh yes sorry good news yeah so after after so in September 2023 we had kind of the fat end of end of treatment scans and they came back clear he there's been a long road he's had to have another surgery um because of complications from the first surgery that they could never resolve because of the chemo and the radiotherapy so he recently had another surgery um and but he's healed now and we're off to centre parks on Monday because now I'm not a teacher I'm gonna go to holidays but god hallelujah oh so yeah we are we're nearly a year and a half cancer free and I such a the way I look at it is we've just been given the biggest gift of all because he was dying and we didn't know he was being killed in front of our eyes and we didn't know and they found it and it took a while and there was issues with that but they found it they they got it out they blasted his body so that it hopefully won't return so like it sounds really naff but it genuinely is every every every every time we every day we have is a gift that we weren't going to have like we just have a life now and even if it comes back and there's a really high chance it does come back the type of cancer he's got is an absolute horrible beast um he's had more time he's had time with us he's had time with the boys to watch them grow he's had we've had time together you know and financially we're we're much more secure than we would have been two years ago so yeah it's a total gift and um I did sit down once and work out the odds so my little boy had a stroke which is pretty rare but it's not completely rare it's about um I think there's about like like 0.8 percent of all children have a stroke in utero so it's like it does happen and then um I couldn't get a proper stat on my husband's cancer because there's so few cases that it's not really recorded so like best guess is that he's around the kind of the 800 known case of this type of cancer so there's like absolutely like we as a family we are statistically incredibly unlucky um but I've always said that that makes it actually we we're the luckiest because we know what what matters we know how important love is we know how important time is we can cut through the bullshit a bit um I think that just um I think we're incredibly lucky and we have been incredibly lucky to spend time we have been incredibly lucky to spend time with you today and on behalf of myself and Sarah and all of our listeners I want to extend the biggest thank you to you for sharing your story and I am sure there are many people out there who will take the inspiration from it that we have. 

Hannah Jones thank you for spending time with us today. Okay I'm going to be honest with you listeners normally Sarah and I go straight into the epilogue but we both had to take a little bit of a minute in order to catch our breath after Hannah's story because I listen to Pit Pony stories all the time in my role in Life After Teaching and the support that we do but there were points throughout that story where I couldn't contain my anger I've got to be honest with you Sarah I was just enraged at certain points particularly the room and her circumstances was bad enough but the lesson for Holocaust Day I didn't think I was going to be able to contain myself. It's funny because at the point where we we were talking about that it's not funny um I I actually a fleeting thought went through my head and I know I've said this to you before that I sometimes have this like ticker tape of a running monologue in my head and I just thought I would love to put some of these people in a room and ask them what the hell they think they are doing and that's me being very measured you know what my actual language would be. 

I know that that that was a killer for me as well and and it was it was in front of that head teacher or whoever thought that was okay and said if I'd have presented you with the scenario at the age of 22 when you were going into teaching Mr or Mrs head teacher and gave you that scenario that a history teacher with a disabled child who was already expressing real struggles within your school you had directed her to deliver that lesson what because I have to believe that that 20 22 year old head teacher going into the profession would have been still able to see how morally wrong and abhorrent that was. What has happened to you over the course of your career that you have become so desensitized to the needs of the basic human needs of your fellow professionals that you think that's okay? Shame on you. And that and that comes back to and and it will stay in my notebook and I will probably write it down on a piece of paper and have it over my desk that we talk about things that are normalized and and actually I have to remember it's not it's not all it's not all leaders it's not everybody I have to remember that but it almost feels like because we are hearing people's stories and because we are in the echo chamber of our group that it almost has become normalized to to be met with people who are so desensitized to gen general human compassion that that they're almost they're robotic they and and the irony is not lost on me that that they follow a set of rules that suits them in terms of employment legislation or the HR policy or the attendance or the absence policy or whatever but they don't follow the rules of of law in quite quite a lot of cases in terms of employment law and people's rights and and it just really struck me when she said to me and I will say it again being met with kindness transparency and people who wanted you to do well that should be normal that should not be a revelation to somebody in their in their mid-30s when they go into a new career I mean the the peak irony that the the thought of the lesson that broke her was how appallingly an organization the Nazi organization was treating people with disability I mean let's just sit with that for a moment how little they valued people with disability and the mother of a disabled child was not met with compassion in the midst of a lesson that is serving us to never go back and to let that period of history teach us to be better I mean the irony bucket's going ping ping ping what on earth are we doing at times in this what should be the best job in the world after the call she talked about wanting to drive into the back of a bus she had her three moments and that's becoming normalized oh yeah I had a tree I had a bend in the road I could have stuck my arm out when the train was coming in the morning I think we're getting to the point as we get further and further into the pit pony stories and we're not picking sensationalized no I'll tell you how we've got pit pony guests there's a spoiler for you we have um a thread in our group called blog it friday or we have people who are commenting on threads offering advice and finding our guests from within our group these are every day teachers and pit ponies who have popped their head above the parakeet to help and support other teachers and that that was just appalling appalling the the the juxtaposition for me of how she how she described the awfulness of the last two and a half years in terms of her husband's illness and everything that she went through with that but was still able to be so positive even while she was talking about that but take her back four years for a compact period of time how utterly broken she was she said every day I drove I left home in a rush of a morning with my heart breaking I couldn't spend time with my child and and she was so right that psychology it's interesting you talk about a room with no windows because one of my friends will be listening to this who I used to work with and we both worked in classrooms for nearly a decade with no windows in them but it was okay it was okay because they weren't little black holes hidden off somewhere and we made them nice and I might be imagining this I think there might have been a skylight but it was okay because we weren't trapped in them she was obviously in somewhere very very different because the culture that surrounded that that cell was very different than what we experienced but psychologically physically so much wrong with that and and the solution was it doesn't matter we'll put you in a condemned part of the school that's been knocked down while you're on your Christmas break and in a school that I would have worked in the parents would it would have been even though we are talking about the same sort of children the children who had been clustered and almost not forgotten about but hidden in plain sight um our parents at schools that I worked at through my career would have been all over that they would have been all over that complaining about the health and safety of their children never mind the teacher it just sure it does it beggars belief that story it really doesn't and she came she came out of it and you're right we we're learning more and more and more about when you step outside I loved when she talked about the carer's passport yeah how she wrote it in the first instance with such low self-worth of her rights of what she's entitled to of what is normal and she cringed at what the most basic things she was asking for compared to now what she's saying well I'm having this I'm having that I'm having the other and I think it's there are so many teachers who who have got these rights but they have not got the strength to ask for them because they're they're working in fear the thought that this was the other one she used the language of a prison break she escaped she got out of the building as quickly as possible the doctor said to her you've resigned I'll write this off still was so trauma bonded to that job considered going back in and finishing off now we're sat aghast but what I do hope and I really do hope that somebody listening to that story suddenly has that light bulb moment because of her story and goes that's me right now oh my lord that is me right now what on earth am I doing because there is a life outside of teaching we always temper it there are some great schools but if you've touched unlucky and you're not in one you're never going to fix it from within as a lone voice singing in the darkness you're not going to fix it within so get out and like she said pushing herself up to get out of a pool save yourself save yourself I thought that was a fantastic episode Sarah I thought it was a very powerful and moving moving episode on so many parts and you know the takeaway for me when she screeched down the mic we're going to centre parks in school time and I thought that's how I'm going to take her episode of the pit pony I'm going to think of her often in centre parks counting her blessings absolutely loving every single minute of what she's gone through because without it she said I wouldn't be having this now so she left us seated in gratitude and I'm very humbled and very grateful and privileged to have been able to listen to the story of Hannah Jones and I can only begin to imagine the changes she's going to make in in the prison service education system in England and Wales and we wish her and her husband and her kids the very very best for what the future holds for them thank you my friend I'll see you on the other side