Harbour Ambition
Many people get Poole wrong. They see the Sandbanks peninsula on TV with its millionaire homes and its beaches and perceive Poole to be a wealthy town. There are certainly a good number of wealthy residents close to Poole harbour and the sea but the Borough of Poole, with a population of approximately 140,000, has some seriously deprived areas and the average salary is only £20,000 when the average house costs £180,000.
People across the country are finding life tough. Those who have been well-served by our education system and the parental lottery, or have found good jobs, are insulated to some extent. Those who are less fortunate are wondering where they will find jobs and how they will ever afford to buy a house.
Harbour Ambition is a project I am setting up which aims to create opportunities for people of all ages and equip them with the skills that they need to take them forward. It aims to inspire, support and inject a sense of reality in equal measure. It particularly seeks to reward those who make a commitment to improving their own communities with opportunities to expand their own horizons and find meaningful work.
There are certain experiences in my life which inspired me to achieve - for example, a talk at school by someone who repeated Scott's journey to the South Pole and the film Dead Poet's Society. The energy these events created soon dissipated though as I could see no opportunities to use it. In the past I lost the opportunity to be with someone I loved very much because I lacked belief in myself and an understanding of my attributes. I believe she recognised in me a drive and ambition that I could not see in myself at that time. That experience ultimately opened my eyes.
I think Keats brilliantly summed up the exhilerating feeling of opportunity and achievement in "On first looking into Chapman's Homer":
"Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Til I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific - and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise -
Silent upon a peak in Darien."
The more people that we can help to recognise and take opportunities, value community and understand the rewards of hard work, the more prosperous and enlightened our society will become.