Back in the early 90s, I was working as an English teacher in Porto, which is still one of my favourite cities in Europe. I spent three years there, and the story here takes place in the second of those three.
My closest ELT friend at the time was a colleague where I taught (a globally-known organisation that I think of as a QUAGO – Quasi Autonomous Governmental Organisation). This friend shared an apartment with two other teachers who worked at a different language school in town. I became good friends with all three of them and spent a fair time over at their apartment. Jill, one of the three, had a good friend Joanne, who was also teaching at the same school. Joanne was married to a Portuguese guy and had a young daughter.
However, all was not well, and the husband would occasionally come home drunk and sometimes get physically violent with her. Whenever this happened, she would take her daughter and come and stay at Jill’s. Obviously all her friends would try and convince her not to go back, but every time she did. That was until the one day that he came home, and not only hit her, but hit their little girl too.
This time she said she would never go back, and decided to leave Portugal and go back to the UK. However, she needed to get some paperwork (like a passport) organised for her little girl, before she would be able to leave.
And so began a very stressful and difficult time for her (as if it weren’t difficult enough already). Her husband was searching for her, and after a while would discover where she was and try and get her to come back.
Whenever he found her, she would move to another friend’s house and carry on with the clandestine hidden existence. We drew up a list of people she could stay with whenever she next had to move on, and in the meantime, everybody chipped in with babysitting duties when she needed to go and take care of some other piece of bureaucracy. My girlfriend babysat a couple of times, and my flat was very close to the front of the rota when she finally got all the paperwork she needed and was able to fly home.
In all my years of teaching and working in general, I can honestly say I never encountered anyone in such a difficult situation – she had nothing, she was a single mother and she was going home to Scotland to live on the dole, leaving behind what little support network she had.
A couple of years later, after I had left Porto, my friend mentioned in an email that he’d heard news from Joanne and that she was doing quite well, and had written a book. I was obviously delighted to hear this, as it had been so hard to see someone at such a low ebb.
Flash forward a couple of years, and I was travelling through Italy with my girlfriend, when we picked up a newspaper that someone had left lying on the train. We were idly flicking through it seeing what the news was and practising our Italian, when we happened upon a piece about the new children’s book publishing phenomenon that was sweeping the world, a phenomenon that we had both heard a lot about – Harry Potter.
As we opened the page, both of our gazes fell on the picture and after a moment’s gobsmacked silence, we both said almost in complete unison:
“Oh …my …God…! JK Rowling is Joanne.”
I will never forget that moment of astonishment, amazement, and incredulity, quickly followed by this feeling of joy that this person who we’d seen at such an incredibly difficult period of her life, was doing so well, and had clearly made it through the other side – and how! And this was back in the earlier days of the series, when she was “merely” a very successful author, and before she became a true global megastar and incredibly wealthy and successful woman.
She remains by far the most famous person I’ve met through TEFL, but more than that stands as living proof that there will always be light at the end of the tunnel.
A little post-script to the story is that the third book in the series is dedicated to Jill – who is still in ELT.
Comments on: "Guest post 11 – Andy Hockley’s inspiring tale…" (22)
What a story!
As I’m a true Harry Potter fan, I’ve seen a number of interviews with J.K. Rowling herself. She’s an amazing lady – a real inspiration.
Now I understand what she meant by the ‘fringe benefits of failure’ – take a look at her wonderful speech:
http://harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination
What a fantastic tale of perseverance! This is a great story to share with students to help put daily ‘issues’ in perspective and model how determination can pay off. Thank you for sharing!
Oh My Golly, Andy – what an amazing story even without the magical twist in the tale!
K
What a great story Andy! I love Harry Potter books and your narrative was wonderfully staged to catch me by surprise.
Chapeau!
Marisa
What a fantastic story, Andy! Thank you! Joanne was lucky to have such great friends when she most needed them.
I agree with Anita that her speech at Harvard was brilliant!
Carol
What an incredible story Andy and thanks so much for sharing!
I am constantly amazed by how people find the strength to continue at unspeakably difficult times in their lives. Unwavering support from a fantastic network of friends and family is certainly priceless.
Amanda
A wonderful, optimistic story. And very touching too. Thank you Andy
One of the teachers at my school was working in Porto at the time and was part of the crowd that helped her. So I was already quite familiar with this part of her life.
When Harry Potter hit the bestseller list here in Portugal all the newspapers boasted about her Portugal connection & how she’d been married to a Portuguese journalist, and how her daughter was half Portuguese. It really bothered me at the time because I had heard terrible stories about her life here in Portugal. I was quite happy when a magazine exposed the bastard and set the record straight.
I have a great admiration for JK Rowling both as a writer and as a person. She deserves all she’s accomplished because it came out of hard work & perserverance. I showed my students her speech on TED talks and they were so touched by her words.
Thanks for sharing this story, Andy
Anna
Great stuff Andy,
Thanks for sharing it – and sharing it so well too. J K Rowling passed me by a bit until I read a newspaper interview she did about her mum coping and struggling with MS. It was so touching and she came across as a woman with a great sense of perspective about what’s important in life. The more I read bout her, the more I was impressed. With your blog addition, the more I impressed by her friends too.
Bravo
Amazing.
Heike
Andy,
That is just an amazing story and great inspiration for people struggling in such a difficult situation. Thank you for sharing this story because many people who face situations that seem impossible to deal with can gain strength knowing this triumph.
May I ask, has she ever contacted any of those who helped her in Portugal?
Rgds Heike
What a wonderful story, Andy and so beautifully told. A lovely read to start my day! Thank you!
I also think it’s a wonderful, inspiring story, and Andy tells it really well. I guess he’s gone into hiding, and I expect eventually he’ll come and respond to all these lovely comments.
Wonderfully inspiring story, especially from an insider’s perspective. Thanks for sharing it with us. It gives us all hope!
Thanks very much everyone. I was offline for 4 days, and I come back to find lots of comments!
It is a great story, and one which I still find inspiring.
Heike, as far as I know she is still close with Jill and others who were her real support network. People who just chipped in here and there, I don’t think so, but then I certainly don’t see that as any kind of issue. I’ve actually considered contacting her, but only to say congratulations. But I worry that being contacted like that from someone you barely knew in the past is something she possibly gets a lot and for the wrong reasons. So I haven’t done so.
An uplifting story, Andy. I really like her, I must say. When I’ve seen her interviewed on TV , she seems like a very private, thoughtful person. I knew she had a difficult background, but not about the abuse.
Inspired me to get on with my hundred words:)
Sue
Great post and thanks for sharing. I know a lot of English learners here in South Korea read the Harry Potter series. There is something to J.K. Rowling’s books that is universal. I think her own story is a great example of making something great from a bad situation.
Hi Andy!
Great post! Talk about coincidences!
It is a great story that goes to show what happens when you are in a difficult situation, and you decide to fight against it and have great people around to help you in the process.
Thank you very much,
Vicky
I only ever met a student who was taught by her in Porto (but he’s a nice guy).
What makes a life come good after all the trouble? Ah, if we knew that…..
Jeremy
Great story, Andy, thanks for sharing!
I’m sure you know the impact the Harry Potter series has had on Romanian young learners of English, not only do they like the stories but quite a large number of them have chosen to read the novel in English.
Anita suggested I watch JK Rowling’s Harvard speech when I declared my burnout phase and I must confess I found it inspiring and helpful, a good example of what life brings to good people who know what they want and who work hard to get there.
Thanks again,
Melania
P.S. Thank you for the new Guest series, Ken! I look forward to discovering their (ELT) world!
What an interesting story! You told it so well, Andy. As a fiction writer (and English teacher) you can get pretty sick of people reminding you that “JK Rowling did it” because it is such a stereotypical “rags to riches” example and publishing isn’t like that. But most of us don’t even know the real story behind her success, and how far she had to go to beat the odds. Fascinating. I am currently reading the first Harry Potter book with my son and I think I’ll read it in a very different way knowing this background.