Jim Perks – Finding out I was going to be Teacher

Phil Titterton was Teacher, wasn’t going to move on so, think of something else. We were coming back from … we were on the way home from a long, long trip, 9 or 10 months. We had just sailed from South Africa; we were coming the long way round and I think it was a phone call actually.

I phoned somebody, it must have been the Flotilla Captain or something and he said, “Congratulations, you’re going to be Teacher.” “What! Where’s Phil going?” “Oh, he’s been promoted.” “Oh, brilliant! Well done Phil” and he wanted to … they wanted to move him quickly so “that’s where you’re going next.” Ah, awesome, fantastic.

Again, I think with these iconic roles, you know, Captain you have the same ‘oh, I’m going to be the Captain, I need to think about this.’ This isn’t something you just turn up and having not though about how you’re going to do it and the first few days and how, are you going to change anything, is there something you really want to do, is there something that throughout your career you’ve thought there’s a better way of doing it?

And the same with Perisher, which is difficult because it’s such a long-standing well known Course which has been copied by many nations, hasn’t changed a huge amount in 100 odd years, it was never in my mind that anything needed changing from a structural perspective. There could be additions.

We were starting to learn about coaching and mentoring and mental health and … no, not really mental health but we were trying to understand the needs of others better I think.

You know we were getting better at looking after people, not just shouting at them.