Michael Gould

Michael Gould graduated in 1969 with a degree in Classical Studies from Kent. He spent 38 years in the Civil Service with Her Majesty's Customs and Excise before retiring. Now an author, Michael has translated and published eleven plays by Euripides and written several original plays and a novel.

Tell us about your career path since graduation.

I went to Kent University on the premise that going to university was not only an end in itself, it was the be all and end all. With no ambition or drive, other than the vague idea I wanted to write, I joined the Civil Service and worked for 38 years in Her Majesty's Customs and Excise, later Revenue and Customs. After 16 years of retirement I cannot praise too highly the pension I have enjoyed and hope to continue enjoying for many more years.

What does a typical work day look like for you?

I get up when it suits me, take my heart pills and hope I can find the energy to work on my current literary project. I have translated and published eleven plays by Euripides into contemporary English verse. I have also published two plays: the Girl in Purple Stockings, based on my experience living in digs in Canterbury in 1968, and Losing Mr Martin, loosely based on my childhood, set in 1963. More recently, Cray Publications published my novel Undertow about a Camping holiday in Anglesey in 1963. Under the imprint Green Chimney Publications I have recently published The Greek Teacher. The teacher is Percy Spenser who joins a boys grammar school in 1965.

Can you share a professional highlight from your career so far?

I was always castigated for writing reports which were too descriptive and didn't meet reflective models.

How did your time at Kent help you achieve your current career?

If you regard my current attempts at being an author as my current career, then it helped inasmuch that all memories are valid. We carry the past with us. After a time the present is the foreign country.

What advice would you give to our current/prospective students who are looking to get into the same line of work?

You should keep a diary. It will force you to write something in the absence of inspiration. Otherwise, consider how easy is composition. If it comes easiest to scribble with a mechanical pencil in an exercise book, do that. You can always find someone else to type it up!

Did you get involved in any extracurricular activities as a student?

I did appear in one or two plays, but the Dramatic Society got awfully cliquey. In my last year I could never get a part. Perhaps there were too many actors and not enough directors. We ought to have had writing workshops. In the early days the Eliot Junior College Committee used to stage a pantomime. The tradition ended in its fourth year when the director of Babes in the Wood resigned and called it off. What happened to the JCCs?

Do you have a favourite memory from your time at Kent?

A production of Mid-Summer Night's Dream in the bomb crater.

Is there anything you would do differently if you could repeat your time at Kent?

Yes. I would have thought much more about my future, instead of retreating into escapism. Alas it was 40 years before I got to the title of a prospective thesis "Euripides was tragic in form but comic in intent."

Are you still in touch with other Kent alumni or academics?

Yes. My tutor was Shirley Barlow, soon to be 90, who I visit regularly. I am also in touch with a few former colleagues, one of whom I recently visited in Wales.

What are your future ambitions?

I want to finish my current literary project, The Chimney Boy and sell/distribute my other publications. In particular I would like to direct Euripides' play Hippolytus.