Careers Officer

My careers officer said: “Don’t be silly, Morris. There’s no such thing as a black photographer.”

When I was 15 and said I wanted to do photography, my careers officer told me I couldn’t.

My parents said: “You heard what your careers officer said. Why don’t you get yourself a job as an electrician?”

Discouraged at school from aspiring to university, she won a scholarship to read English at Oxford, where a careers officer solemnly informed her and her best friend: “The world, of course, is your oyster, girls: you can teach, you can nurse or you can sit the civil service exam.”

Including, presumably, his old careers officer.