Life, viewed from a slightly different angle by a woman who began as a microbiologist, taught science, led special needs provision across several schools, trained adults and coached leaders in education and business, changed direction more than once and still occasionally loses her glasses while wearing them.
Carol Whiteley’s story is not neat or easy. It is a story of trauma, cancer and profound loss, but also of the stubborn return of hope.
Carol Whiteley, survivor, advocate and founder of FLARE.
What you notice about Carol today is not simply what she has survived. It is what she chose to do with that survival: speak, advocate and make sure other people know that help exists.
Her work through FLARE turns lived experience into something useful and human. It is rooted not in easy slogans, but in knowing what it feels like when hope disappears and how much courage it takes to reach for it again.
That work is now being recognised with a star on the walkway at The Light in Leeds: a visible marker of the distance Carol has travelled and the people she continues to help.
After around twenty-five years in nursing, Anthony knows that care often lives in the smallest moments.
“I’m just Anthony Larkin, living my life. And maybe that’s exactly the point.”
Anthony’s story brings together a life in nursing and the perspective that comes from supporting people at the end of life. It is thoughtful, human and full of wisdom that rarely arrives with a fanfare.
Then again, Anthony himself is quite capable of supplying the fanfare.
Experience does not arrive with a use-by date, and reinvention is not reserved for the young.
People begin new jobs, build businesses, change direction and make themselves useful in entirely new ways at every age. Perhaps the real problem is not that older people have less to offer, but that society sometimes forgets to look properly.
I am not winding down. I am gathering momentum, with better stories, stronger boundaries and considerably less patience for nonsense.
Meg Thompson / Writer / Curious human
The woman behind the wedge
I’ve done a lot. I’m not done yet.
Teacher, trainer, biologist, former school leader, interviewer, maker and professional question-asker.
I’ve spent a career helping people learn, grow and see what they are capable of. The Meg Wedge is where I bring together human stories, practical ideas, psychology and the humour that gets us through.
It is intelligent without being up itself, thoughtful without being solemn, and proudly northern.
Written by Meg. Lived by actual people.
Same stories. New angles. More voices.
A brighter view.
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