Lucy Kellaway’s mother died suddenly and unexpectedly. In her shock and grief Kellaway decided she didn’t want to be a journalist any longer and that she would try to continue her mother’s work. However, at 47 she felt she was too old to become a teacher.
Ten years on, and mourning the death of her father, she changed her mind: age would be no barrier. What was more, she would go on to start a charity — Now Teach — and actively recruit other people in their fifties to leave their high status jobs and become teachers.
Re-educated, thankfully, is not some “life change” bible for the bored middle aged. Kellaway was a successful and high-powered woman before she left the Financial Times (and a handsome income) after 32 years and a back catalogue of 1,032 columns. Here she writes with warmth, wit and honesty, turning her real life experiences of teaching in a Hackney school into what I hope will become a serious debate about what education is for.