I was a teacher with Bloomfield Collegient, I took early retirement from teaching in 2000 and went to work part time for the Trade Union for Teachers. I really enjoyed both my roles. As a teacher I loved working with children and young people and in the TUT I loved working with people and any issues they might have had around health and redundancy. However, they decided to make the post with TUT full time and I was not interested in working full time so I retired from this job in 2006 aged 59. For the first year of retirement I wasn't really doing much, I spent most of my time visiting family and caring for an elderly relative.

After about a year of retirement I decided that I needed something else to occupy my time. I started to look around and decided that I would volunteer. I had been involved in volunteering before, when I was a teacher I was involved in humanitarian work with schools and orphanages in Romania, so the idea of volunteering wasn't new to me, but the type of volunteering was and it was much closer to home.

As a volunteer driver I do school runs for children and young people and drive older people and people with mobility problems to their hospital appointments. Although it feels more like helping people through their whole appointment rather than just driving them there and picking them up. I make sure that they get to where they are going and get safely inside and perhaps bring their letter to reception.

I love meeting people. I get to meet so many different people through being a volunteer driver, young and old. Having worked with adults and children all my life, being a volunteer means that I can continue to put my skills to good use. To be a volunteer driver all you need to be is friendly and reliable and to have good communication skills, that means listening as well! I really enjoy listening to peoples stories and helping them to feel valued and play a part in their lives. Who would think you could achieve all that through driving! Driving gives me a structure to my week and I get a lot of satisfaction from it.

Don't hesitate, Do it! You will definitely get something out of it.