Career change daydreams may turn to nightmares

We all have our paths not taken – some of them more overgrown than others. Back in 2000, as I realised in a post-university fug of reluctance that I needed to get a job, I had little idea what I wanted to do. I had failed the civil service fast stream test. I’d had a meeting with a lady at Sotheby’s, which had put me off the antiques business. And I had vaguely wondered about journalism but didn’t have the skills or experience (or contacts).

I applied for a bunch of junior roles, the common thread being that they didn’t require specific qualifications beyond a second-class degree, were based in London, and sounded like they’d involve a bit of writing. I took the first one that was offered, despite having interviews for two others coming up. I sometimes wonder how things would have turned out if I’d ended up at the Charity Commission or the research company with swanky offices just off Leicester Square. Duller, I suspect.

Ultimately, though, all of those career ideas I had 22 years ago were in the same ballpark, and were no doubt just the kind of things most people with humanities degrees thought about too. Even the “radical” career change daydreams I’ve had in idle moments since would be unlikely to make my friends and family gasp in shock. “Guys, I’m becoming a teacher/lawyer/priest,” I might say with trepidation, only to receive a shrug in return. In truth, I’m about as likely to think outside the box as your average Premier League footballer.

Occasionally, however, it’s worth being exposed to other, less imaginable, worlds – as I was a few days ago on a trip to Bakewell’s livestock market.

In the heart of the Peak District, Bakewell is a tourist trap (not least because of the one-way system). Cake shops compete with gift stores, and sweet emporiums stand cheek by jowl with myriad tearooms. Dutifully we examined them all, ladening the children with sherbet and ourselves with Bakewell puddings.

The town is also an important agricultural centre, and is the site of regular sheep and cattle sales, though even these aren’t immune to catching the tourists’ eye. My family wasn’t the only shorts-wearing bunch of naifs mixing it with the farmers at a cattle auction last week.

As each new cow entered the ring, the auctioneer recited some introductory information at the speed of light in a language I barely understood, before inviting an opening bid. There were perhaps eight men in the market to buy, some in overalls, others in checked shirts and stout trousers. Try as I might, I could not discern any movement from any of them, yet in came the bids, noted by the auctioneer with such urgency and pace that it was hard to follow.

Up the price would go, rattled off like gunfire by the man at the helm, before a final look around the emotionless faces of the buyers and a swift tap of the hammer to signify the sale of the lot. Out the sold beast would go, a gate crashing behind it, and in would come the next, tapped on its rear with a large stick to keep it moving, pushed on the nose if ever it came too close to its prospective new owners. And off the bidding would go again.

In this no-frills concrete and metal building, where the stench of cow dung hung thickly, a serious business was being done by tough people who had a kind of knowledge that felt wholly beyond me. It was a world I could peer into but would have no hope in, despite there being any number of farmers in my family just two generations ago.

In fact, so deep did my inadequacy run in those moments, that it felt like a major achievement to prevent my seven-year-old son from buying a Friesian heifer with a cheery wave of his hand.

Then again, had we become the reluctant owners of a prize cow, perhaps we’d have been forced to confront a very different future and learn some of the things that in Bakewell livestock market seemed so out of reach. Could we make a go of it? Could we bullocks.