The Star by Hackney Downs, 1 October 2024

10 Oct 2024

It was the first day of the rest of my life. OK, so technically every day is, but this one was particularly special. At 5pm the day before, after more than 34 years of full-time employment, I walked away from my office job for the last time. Too many pressures both within work and outside of it… I’d simply reached the end of my tether.

I turned 55 in August and hope to be financially solvent for a few years. I travel a lot, always on a careful budget, but otherwise live a very low maintenance life. Whether this proves to be my retirement however, remains to be seen. What’s certain for the time being is I have just one job: life model. Words I never imagined myself saying.

How fitting it was then that my first life modelling job on the first day of the rest of my life was for Drawing the Star at The Star by Hackney Downs. I’ve been modelling here every year since April 2015 – for me, the longest such run at any venue. I truly love being here and always feel appreciated; the best foundation for a fresh start.

I’d worked with group organiser Catherine Hall only six days before at The Clapton Hart, venue for her new Clapton Drawing sessions. What chance I will model there every year for a decade too? Probably slim, as it’s hard to visualise myself still doing this till I’m 65, but then I’d have said the same of my current age 10 years earlier.

It’s a pivotal moment for me, maybe one of the biggest decisions I’ll ever make… yet weirdly it doesn’t even feel like a “decision” as I know I could not have gone on. This moment had to happen, whereas the future remains an open book, still to be written. I’m now looking only forwards. But it was wonderful to be here in the present.