She gave up her six-figure salary to retrain as a teacher and set up the charity Now Teach. My mum was a great school teacher and when she died when I was in my forties I briefly thought about becoming a teacher like her. Ten years later when my dad died, I thought I needed to do something radical with the time I had left of my working life. So for me to leave readers with the impression that my life is like "Dead Poets Society" couldn't be further from the truth. I knew from writing about working life that many people in their fifties who were lawyers or worked in other corporate roles get bored with it and want to do something more useful.

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Persons: Lucy Kellaway, I've, we've, We've Organizations: Financial Times, Service, JPMorgan, Oxford University, View, Poets Society, Penguin Locations: Wall, Silicon, Gateshead, England, Bracken House, City of London, Hackney, London