Joseph Cooper

Joseph Cooper: Born in 16b St Andrews Gardens (The Bullring), Liverpool city centre in the 1950′s.

St Andrews Gardens (The Bullring)

Done a lot of wonderful and crazy things in my life. Now living in Sweden and trying to make sense of the past, the present and the future.

Left school at 16 with no qualifications, and went into the family business, served my apprenticeship as a butcher. Got married very young, 17, stayed married for 13 years and raised 3 children.

Went into the building trade at 25. Around 30, I had gone through a series of traumas, a separation and divorce, my mother and father had died, and a friend was murdered.

Those were tough times and made me want to change my life somewhat.

I went back to college, and within a year had gained a place at the University of Liverpool, to read for combined honours degree in Communications, Psychology and Sociology.

In my first year of university I met someone and started a 4 year relationship, which looking back on it, was exactly what I did not need at the time. Too much passion, and not enough will, to spend , much needed, time on my own.

During my second year at university I started teaching, part time, to help my finances. Finished University with a 2:1 degree, (just shows, that I had the ability when I was 16, but the school I was at seemed only capable of churning out factory fodder, a shame they could see the potential in me), I went on to to be a full time college lecturer.

Around 36, I tried another relationship which lasted just two years and when that broke up I was under a lot stress in work and got quite depressed. Life was getting on top of me and really grinding me down, my solution, was something I had tried a couple of times before, rebirth. Tear it all down and start again.

I sat down and wrote my resignation letter, left teaching, and went to make a documentary film in Turkey. Upon my return, I secured a job for a satellite broadcasting company in Regent Street, London, as a producer.  The company later based me in Brussels, Paris and Copenhagen. I particularly enjoyed living in Aalst and Ghent during those years, some very fond memories.

While based in Brussels and filming a documentary in Belfast in 1998.  I met a woman, an aspiring Journalist from Sweden. I had given up on relationships, but ours grew, and we worked very slowly, on truly getting to know each other.

In 2000, I had set up a freelance business, making non broadcast video documentaries, for businesses and charities. My new found soul-mate, wanted to try freelancing in the UK, so we set up home, in Liverpool.

In 2005 we married……

In 2006, we moved back to Sweden to start a family, and 10 days before the birth of our first child Shona, I was diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia and started a treatment of a revolutionary new drug called Glivec.

My response to Glivec has been outstanding, so much so, that we decided to have a second child, Leon, who was born in 2008.

My wife is now a Press Officer for a leading Swedish organisation. I wrapped up my company and my freelance work to spend more time with the children.

I went back to teaching. Firstly, a short night course in English. Then to a school in Stockholm, teaching International Relations, Psychology and Philosophy.

I resigned from that post in June 2009, as I found that my medication coupled with commuting 3 hours a day, and then having to be up at 5 am to be teaching at 8.00 am, was a little too draining.

These days I am home looking after two children….in August 2009 I decided to seriously get down to playing guitar, and build up a nice collection of 5 guitars……I have to have something creative to feel passionate about…..and I am passionate about blues and soul music…….so my guitars are my passion……

Currently, looking for a suitable position a lot closer to home, hopefully within a one hour commuting distance. That would be manageable and  ideal.

I am proud of my roots; Liverpool, Irish, working class. My strengths and my weaknesses, are probably based in those roots, upon reflection both my strengths and my weaknesses are well known to me now and I have learned through experience, how to use both to my advantage.

So, ever the existentialist, taking each day as it comes, I am looking forward, to what life brings along. Life is……..

Onward and upward to the next chapter……….:-)