Curriculum Vitae!

I took a Gap year in 1972.I had discovered I was a year younger than I thought I was (another story!), I'd bought a one way ticket to Canada for £30 from a chap in a pub, and I managed to persuade my land lord to pay me £500 to move out of my London flat-so I had the time, the money, and a ticket to ride, sort of a gap year situation.

Ever since spending years as a kid in Malaya, Jordan, and Cyprus, I'd wanted to live abroad. After 5 grim winters at skool in Somerset living in fear of the seniors who'd beat us with half a billiard cue for such heinous crimes as having our hands in our pockets or even the top button of our pyjamas done up, I'd had enough.

I went into overseas banking, yawn, did a short Short Service commission in Malaysia,fall out, and survived a couple of years in Accountancy, terminal grey. Fed up with working 9 to 5, I felt like a break to reassess my future - a gap year was the ideal solution. Within three weeks I was working as a dive boat guide in the Florida Keys, next I moved onto a big game sportsfishing boat. I spent most of that first winter catching sailfish, shark, and all kinds of  exotic fish, I lived and worked on the boat, and others too as the season ebbed and flowed. I saved, bought more camera equipment, shot lots of film, got better at photography, and began to make money from it. Getting a gap year job was far easier than I had imagined.

When I came back to England after 6 months I was a different person. I felt hugely self confident, I'd done all kinds of new things, met new friends, and felt well able to cope with anything that came my way. I never went near the City again, I joined a first generation trance band called Zorch during the summers, and was given my name Hektor Krome as I was in charge of photography and publicity, and Zorched around on one of 40 or so bikes that I've survived.

I spent several more winters in the Keys, mostly being paid to fish, sometimes I'd do gardening, restaurant work, driving, construction,-there was always something you could find, I'd get commissions to photograph portraits, resorts and properties, sold loads of  photos from my portfolio, and also worked helping to train dolphins.

One winter I was shipwrecked off Africa en route for Brazil where I  intended to spend the winter exploring the Amazon. I got back to England with a safe conduct pass. I regrouped, bought a new passport and headed back to the Keys to recoup my losses. I was too late for a job on a boat, so I set myself up as the dock photographer and made a small fortune snapping at the tourists and their catch.

In all I spent 5 winters in the Keys-never short of money, work, or adventures. My whole life changed, and in the 80's and 90's I spent most winters in the Indian subcontinent and the Far East living out under the stars, not spending one single penny on accomodation for months on end. I spent less than a pound a day on average, far cheaper and infinitely more fun than a winter in England, I took photos, communed with the locals, and enjoyed life to the max.

I started giving these talks twelve years ago and popularised taking an independent Gap Year . I've met dozens of "my" school leavers all over the world having the time of their lives. There are all kinds of excellent organisations which will arrange various activities, often at great expense.

 I believe that a great number of students, like me, have had enough of being continually supervised, and yearn to get away somewhere safe but challenging to use their initiative and take responsibility for themselves. To have fun, perhaps do voluntary work,  have the adventure of their lives, something which will make them feel proud of their achievements, a memory which will last forever. To return, matured, self confident and better able to use their initiative, wordly wise and more tolerant of other nationalities. You also find out and modify your strengths and weaknesses, the mountain is clearer from the plain, you appreciate more of what we take so much for granted.

Opportunities come to those who actively seek them, don't wait for your boat to come in-swim out to meet it and get ahead of the bums on the beach who are waiting for opportunity to fall into their laps...............

30 years later I'm still out there, I've never been back to the 9 to5. No regrets, adventures a plenty, a thousand nights beneath tropical stars, free, solvent, nothing on credit, . Life is for living, Dead Poets' Society, carpe diem, to survive is miracle enough, and all that wonderful jazz.

As Nike says-"just do it"-but don't spend 50 to 80 quid on a pair of trainers which'll humm their own tune in a month's time-put the money instead into your travelling fund. Remember, too, that an hour working at the greasy spoon-Macdonalds, pays £4-enough for two day's b an b and food in paradise-Bali.

Get to it! Carpe Diem, it's your life....