00:00:03 Hi, my name is Keith Kendal Jones. My professional life is easily described as being involved in sales and marketing and looking after customers. I’ve spent the majority of my later life actually managing the people and managing the teams that delivered, hopefully, those sales, and when I’m not doing that then I spend much more satisfying time social mentoring for the Prince’s Trust.
00:00:30 My mother brought up two children. I have an older brother. He’s ten years older than me. My father, in terms of his life, spent his whole life on race courses. He ran the local betting on a local race course, and he had an amazing work discipline. However long the working day was, however late he got back at night, he was always up working the next day, and that must have brushed off on me somewhere along the way.
00:01:03 I was only really a numbers man, so all the aspects of mathematics were key to me, but as soon as I could actually get out of the classroom and onto the football field or into the gymnasium that was really turn on time for me, so not the academic, more the running around the field was very much more my school life. Having said that, and one thing what you would change in life, well, I continued my education into… from the ages of sixteen to eighteen, and I guess that’s the only thing I would then change is that I wasted those two years. So I got to the age of eighteen, left my school… not unhappy memories, reasonably happy memories, apart from wasting a bit of time, and then needed to earn some money, as they say.
00:01:55 Through no great design, I ended up working in the city, working for Barclays Bank, look after the taxation of fares of around two hundred of their customers. I then got to the age of twenty-four. I actually had married. I had a young son by the age of two at that time, but I really decided that sitting behind the desk, scrawling with the pen and looking at the screen all day, really wasn’t for me, and I happened to pick up a newspaper and see an advertisement to go and work for the Mars company. All I had to do was turn up at a local hotel round the corner from where I was, which I did. It pointed me in the direction of a huge room that I got into, and in there were two hundred and fifty other people, and I thought to myself ‘What the heck are you doing here, boy?’ The upshot was, out of those two hundred and fifty people, I got the job, and I guess that was a major turning point for me because that just gave me the confidence, gave me the inspiration, and for the next twenty years I never looked back.
00:03:07 I’ve been lucky; I’ve had very few lows. The only lows have been when an organisation has said to me ‘Thanks very much, Keith, we don’t need you any longer. Here’s a cheque. Go elsewhere.’ Okay, we’re sitting here in 2009 talking about people losing jobs, but that, believe you me, has happened over the last twenty to twenty-five years, and you have to just take that, take it as an experience and move on.
00:03:38 What would I want to be remembered for? Well, I’ve always spoken my mind, which certainly came from my father. I’m not afraid to say anything and be outspoken, but I think most important is also to listen to other people’s views and ideas as well. We were born with two ears and one mouth, and we should use them in those proportions.
00:03:59 End
Keith Jones
Keith Jones
Hi, my name is Keith Kendal Jones. My professional life is easily described as being involved in sales and marketing and looking after customers. I’ve spent the majority of my later life actually managing the people and managing the teams that delivered, hopefully, those sales, and when I’m not doing that then I spend much more satisfying time social mentoring for the Prince’s Trust.
My mother brought up two children. I have an older brother. He’s ten years older than me. My father, in terms of his life, spent his whole life on race courses. He ran the local betting on a local race course, and he had an amazing work discipline. However long the working day was, however late he got back at night, he was always up working the next day, and that must have brushed off on me somewhere along the way.
I was only really a numbers man, so all the aspects of mathematics were key to me, but as soon as I could actually get out of the classroom and onto the football field or into the gymnasium that was really turn on time for me, so not the academic, more the running around the field was very much more my school life. Having said that, and one thing what you would change in life, well, I continued my education into… from the ages of sixteen to eighteen, and I guess that’s the only thing I would then change is that I wasted those two years. So I got to the age of eighteen, left my school… not unhappy memories, reasonably happy memories, apart from wasting a bit of time, and then needed to earn some money, as they say.
Through no great design, I ended up working in the city, working for Barclays Bank, look after the taxation of fares of around two hundred of their customers. I then got to the age of twenty-four. I actually had married. I had a young son by the age of two at that time, but I really decided that sitting behind the desk, scrawling with the pen and looking at the screen all day, really wasn’t for me, and I happened to pick up a newspaper and see an advertisement to go and work for the Mars company. All I had to do was turn up at a local hotel round the corner from where I was, which I did. It pointed me in the direction of a huge room that I got into, and in there were two hundred and fifty other people, and I thought to myself ‘What the heck are you doing here, boy?’ The upshot was, out of those two hundred and fifty people, I got the job, and I guess that was a major turning point for me because that just gave me the confidence, gave me the inspiration, and for the next twenty years I never looked back.
I’ve been lucky; I’ve had very few lows. The only lows have been when an organisation has said to me ‘Thanks very much, Keith, we don’t need you any longer. Here’s a cheque. Go elsewhere.’ Okay, we’re sitting here in 2009 talking about people losing jobs, but that, believe you me, has happened over the last twenty to twenty-five years, and you have to just take that, take it as an experience and move on.
What would I want to be remembered for? Well, I’ve always spoken my mind, which certainly came from my father. I’m not afraid to say anything and be outspoken, but I think most important is also to listen to other people’s views and ideas as well. We were born with two ears and one mouth, and we should use them in those proportions.
End
Keith Jones's day job is in sales and marketing, but he is also a volunteer mentor for the Prince's Trust. "I've spent the majority of my later life actually managing the people and managing the teams that delivered, hopefully, those sales, and when I'm not doing that then I spend much more satisfying time social mentoring for the Prince's Trust".
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