Your Story on Sunday

This week - Anthony Eccles

I am a qualified Summer ML and SPA and a Geography/Science teacher. It has taken a lot of indecisiveness and time to get where I am but I am glad I pursued what is shaping up to be a fantastic career choice.

I started exploring the outdoors while at university where I joined the Mountaineering club which I eventually became the President of. After only a few climbing trips I was hooked. I didn't think there was a career in outdoor activities at that point and I had already decided I wanted to be a Teacher (like most Geography undergraduates).

It wasn't until after university, while working in retail, that I started the process of becoming a freelancer by completing the SPA. I got a little bit of work using it but only at indoor climbing centres (can you see the irony?). I decided that the ML award was the most natural progression in to the outdoor office but living in the city wasn't conducive to obtaining it. So, I moved to North Wales, completed my teaching degree and booked my ML assessment, passed first time and I was working with my own group the week after. This year I'm leading my first overseas expedition to Jordan.

It is a good profession but you have to work just as hard getting work as a freelancer as you do actually working. This is balanced by the fact I am my own boss and I decide when I work and, most importantly, when I do, I'm in the outdoors, or rather I'm out of the indoors!

Find out more about Anthony