Students who give up successful jobs, move their family across the country and take a year out of their lives in mid career to retrain, are taking a serious attitude to risk. Many, if not all of my students fall into the same category of heroes and heroines. So it’s good to report of success, of fate moving with the brave and confirming that risky decisions were right after all. This is about the success of Steve Clewes. For his sins, Steve used to work for the Inland Revenue. Yep, Steve was a taxman, now, I know, but you can forgive him because he’s a nice bloke, and because he stopped taking our taxes and moved his wife and young family to Devon and retrained with us for a year. His plan was always to go and work for someone at the end of the year. I always flinch when I say to students who ask about jobs, ‘Well it depends a lot on what’s available near you when you pop up looking for a job. It is a bit of a lottery getting a job in a top class workshop as an improver.’ So it’s great to report that Steve sent off his stuff showing the work he had made here during the past year and got not one, but two offers of work in top class workshops, both within half an hours drive of his home. Now that’s what Goethe would call fortune favouring the brave.