Despite his grades, Bernard believes his skill of “getting on with people and adapting to new environments and being curious about them” helped him. Particularly because of his father being in the army and the travelling it entails.
“Very often it’s not the first, second, third positions in class but the ones a bit lower down the scale who are not bookworms who are not studious who sometimes make a better fist of life,” he shares.
To those receiving their results today, Bernard offers his advice: “Don’t worry about it too much, other things are more important in life than examination results.
“People like Winston Churchill didn’t go to university, so if you don’t do well at A-levels it’s not the end of the world…There are other ways of achieving success.”
However, “after a year in the Foreign Office, I thought: ‘I wouldn’t mind going to university, I wonder if they’ll give me time off.’
They said: ‘No no, you carry on doing your job. A couple of years abroad in a challenging environment with a difficult job will teach you as much as university might’ – and I think they were right.”
‘I hated school and now I earn £160k a year’
Another reader, Richard, 62, left school aged 16 with two O-levels in Physics and Engineering. He did not go on to study A-levels. Richard now earns £160,000 per year.
Although not an academic whizz at school, he secured two engineering apprenticeships in machine tools and then CNC machining to make parts for Formula 1 and rally teams.
Born in High Wycombe and later moving to Bletchley, Richard attended nine different schools. “That didn’t help much, and I hated school,” he said, adding that “in fact, I barely attended school in the last two years”.
However, he owes his success to hard work, including “volunteering for tasks that are difficult and or others don’t want to do”. He was always eager to learn, “and I don’t mean from books. Set yourself a task and work out how to do it.”
Looking back on his apprenticeship, Richard said: “I loved it as I wasn’t treated like a child. I was dropped in the deep end and given very difficult parts to make.
“I am very proud of what I achieved in engineering. The knowledge acquired working in machining/toolmaking is incredible and very underrated.”
After subcontract engineering, which was “very high pressure” but well paid, he sidestepped into an engineering electronics company, which paid less but enabled him to travel around the world for the next 12 years.