Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
- Hi everyone. I am here today with Natasha Wood who I met a couple of years ago
through the Jenifer Trust for Spinal Muscular Atrophy conference. That’s just rolls off the tongue.
Ever since then we have become very good friends and Natasha has inspired me to keep on pressing
with my personal adventures. Thank you for joining us today Natasha.
- Thanks for having me Martyn and inspiring me like that.
- We are going to be having a look at identifying the ideal job and how to get out pursue and get that job.
If you want to introduce yourself and some background knowledge and fire with all of your expertise.
- Sure, well it’s a pleasure to be here Martyn. As you said I am Natasha Wood, I am a wheelchair user,
I’ve got a muscular disorder which mean I cant pick up a cup of tea or a pint but I can have a shot.
So there you go. I have had an amazing 20 year career. Initially 14 years starting in London,
then Birmingham and finally working in the BBC New York office in production management.
Since leaving the BBC 6 years ago I became self employed and I have worked as a playright initially.
Then I went on to do performing my own stage play, then a screenwriter and sort of mixed tv consultant now.
Executive is the title I like to consider myself to have. I am self employed, which I know
we are going to talk about later, but my biggest thoughts are as a kid I knew I wanted to perform.
It started that you try and you try and you try and its hard out there to get work in acting roles.
So I thought, you know what, if I cant get a role in front of the camera, then I’ll get one behind.
Every week I got the media section of the Guardian and I made a decision I was going to chase a job
working behind the scenes and it was persistence. It took me several months just trawling through,
thinking what do I want to do. What is going to suit me. I found an advert 20 years ago,
in fact almost to the day of this recording, for a broadcast assistant traineeship and I went for it at the BBC in London.
Sadly I didn’t get it to my absolute devastation. So what I did was wrote for feedback
and I cant recommend that highly enough. If you want something and you know that is what you want.
I’d done all of this research on what is a broadcast assistant and there were so many scopes to it which was exciting.
There was broadcast assistants out on the road filming, out doing shock hauling and continuity for dramas.
Then there was a broadcast assistant in the studio. I kept thinking about me, I had to be very realistic
about I am in a wheelchair, I cant throw my arms about and lift heavy files, but I need to be realistic.
In those days you didn’t have the support worker role, which we can talk about later, which I think is great.
People need to remember that...
- Yeah
- There is so much support on offer now - which I know you are going to cover, Martyn - on employment
services and the really cool initiatives. In those days they didn’t really have that.
So I was realistic and I thought this a job, well a trainee program, surely its going to throw me all over the BBC.
I applied for the job, didn’t get it, applied for feedback and several weeks later personnel called back
gave some feedback. They suggested I take some work experience, or volunteering,
or whatever we want to call it. Internship is also another word used, so look out for that in the ads
because it is labelled as several things nowadays. The BBC actually do these programs now.
I did a couple of weeks at central television as it was then on the show family fortunes.
I attached myself to the broadcast assistant and a few months later, because I was told by personnel,
the job came up again. I applied and got it.
- Brilliant
- And I was thrilled!
- I know when I have talked to other people and when I was starting to look at the employment world.
There is a worry when you have the needs that need to be seen to, but you don’t want to
lean on your colleagues too much, as they are your colleagues not your personal assistants.
How did you go about having your needs seen to but your relationships with colleagues
was still in the most professional sense of the word as well?
- What was great about the BBC program was once I had got the position on the trainee program
and being such a huge corporation like the BBC, they were very pro supporting me and to help me.
In those days I didn’t have support workers or care PAs like I do now. I didn’t have that back then 20 years ago.
I needed it but I didn’t have. I don’t quite know how I survived, but I think with partners,
family and friends you just do. So I packed my bags up in Nottingham and
suddenly I am going to London and the BBC. They supported me and getting people in place to go
to the loo at lunchtime, or that would help me if I was out on a film shoot for the support I needed.
People don’t necessarily need be scared looking for big corporations or companies, because although
I think there is potentially a lot more support there, we can get our own, we can come with our own packages
- Yea yea
- Now I am freelance or self employed that’s what I do. I don’t need to have any worries.
If the building is not accessible, then clearly something has to be discussed.
- That would be an issue
- Issue number one. But I remember being very well supported, lots of things were put into place but I was at a big corporation
where they were very pro the support for someone in my situation in a wheelchair.
- Well what I love about you Natasha is the way you just get out there and do it,
and work the rest out relating to your disability, or the other stuff that everyone goes through.
you just muck on in with it and make things happen. I know theres so much more you could share
on this topic and indeed all of the other parts of your amazing career. But we will wind up now
and catch up later about how and why you went into self employment and the areas around that.
But thank you very much for that Natasha.
You are welcome