Spotlight - "My Journey from Pinner" The story of Alex Hems.
Photo - Alex with daughter Sophie on holiday in Norfolk.
I was born in London in 1969, in the old St George’s Hospital, which is now a hotel on Hyde Park Corner, so I suppose I must have had a good view.
Perhaps that is what gave me my love of the buzz of London.
I was adopted when I was only a few weeks old and was brought up in Pinner on the north west edge of London. My adoptive parents had waited over ten years for me and they always made me feel very special and loved. I was an only child and spent a great deal of time amusing myself, mainly by reading and, when I was very young, by organizing my dolls into classes and setting them tests.
I was obviously destined to be a teacher from an early age! My father was a surveyor; he worked on many of the big developments in the City that sprang up in the 1980s, including the Lloyds building and the NatWest tower. He loved his job and could be very single-minded about it. My mother eventually worked for the same firm as a book-keeper. I know that she hated the job,
but chose it as it was something that she could do from home and therefore be around to collect me from school. My education meant a huge amount to both of them and I know that they made many sacrifices to give me the start that I had.
Eventually I went to Oxford to read English, which had always been my favourite subject. While I was there I considered a number of other career paths, including Law and Arts Management, both of which I am sure I would have been very bad at, but just at the end of my course I cam back to the idea of teaching and felt immediately that I had made the right decision.
It was while I was doing my PGCE that I learnt to row, the sport that occasionally threatened to take over my life over the next 9 years, in fact I am sure that my non-rowing friends thought that it had. It was rowing that first brought me to Hammersmith, first to watch the Boat Race as a student, and then as a member of Sons of the Thames RC. Eventually I also found a job here, at St Paul’s Girls’ School, where I started in 1996 as a teacher of English and Latin.
I had played matches there as a school girl and had always been rather in awe of the place, and in fact I still am, slightly.
While I was there I met William, my husband. I was invited to the wedding of two member of the rowing club and went along early one evening in September 2001 to the reception in Henley, intending to ‘have one drink and come home’. It was not long, however, before I had made an arrangement to stay on a friend’s floor for the night as it was such a wonderful gathering of friends that I couldn’t bear to leave, and in the course of the evening I set eyes on the groom’s youngest brother.
It is probably fair to say that I moved in rather ruthlessly on him! He was living in a mysterious place called the North East at the time ( I had to go to look up Darlington on the map when I got home) but we managed to see each other every few weeks and eventually his work moved to Cambridge, bringing him first to Ely and then to London.
By that time I had moved to another girls’ school in London when I was appointed to be Head of Sixth Form. In 2005 we got married, in Cornwall where my mother was living by then. Charlotte was born in the same year and in 2006 we moved to Cambridge where William was working. We intended to stay there, but the lure of St Paul’s was too great, and when my current job was advertised, although I was 6 months pregnant with our second child, we decided that I should apply. William took the brave decision to stop working for a while in order to be a full time father while the children were very small, and in August 2007 we returned to west London. I am now Head of Senior School, which means Head of Sixth Form, and it is a job that I love and feel very proud to be doing. My role involves overseeing the academic and pastoral welfare of just over 200 girls in their final two years at school. There is so much energy, creativity and determination in them, but inevitably they encounter problems of all sorts and it is my
responsibility to help them to overcome or manage the difficulties that they may face. It keeps me on my toes in term time, and in the holidays I try to become Mummy again to Charlotte and Sophie.
We first came across St Andrew’s even before we had moved from Cambridge. A good friend, knowing that we were about to come to this area, reported hearing ‘very fine organ music’ emanating from the church one summer evening. I looked up the website and found that there was a service on a Monday morning for toddlers and their carers. When we moved in a few weeks later and William was left with a toddler and a tiny baby to look after, the Monday service became a focal point in his week. This was the way that we first made friends when we arrived. I know that on some occasions the group in the Lady Chapel would number Father Martin, William, Charlotte, Sophie and Janet. It is wonderful to see how it has grown: I am sure that Peter’s cappuccino making has a great deal to do with that! When I come sometimes now, in my holidays, I love the fact that Sophie is obviously so happy and at ease in the church and that it such a welcoming community. Our nanny, Iveta brings Sophie now and really enjoys it. It is also wonderful that the Monday group continues to run throughout the school holidays, and I am sure that this is another factor in its success – people know that they can rely on it.
I became involved with the Homeless Project because I heard Peter’s appeal for volunteers when he first set it up and it chimed exactly with what I had been thinking about doing anyway. I don’t manage to get there to help as often as I would like to as I sometimes have to work on a Saturday, and also like to spend some time with my children then, but whenever I go I feel inspired by Peter’s energy and good humour, and by the fortitude of the men and women who come for lunch there. I think it is a wonderful thing to be happening at St Andrew’s.
The PCC is still quite new to me. I felt very honoured when Father Martin asked me to consider standing and I have found it very interesting. I have a great deal to learn about the workings of the Church and the parish, and am trying to do quite a bit of listening at the moment!