What impression do both people have from their career break? Case study (1) – Anna

Anna Middlemiss is a Volunteer Co-ordinator at a community centre in Leeds. She took a career break with her husband Mark when she was 28. "I had always to see the world. Mark and I decided to travel around India, South-East Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the USA. As well as the 7 months we spent travelling, we did 4 months living and volunteering in the Solomon Islands, which was my favourite bit. We ran a community development project there, working with young men who had been involved in the civil war. We trained 15 young men to be cricket coaches and they went into their communities and trained a team each. This brought the communities together in a cricket tournament and gave people a focus in an area of high unemployment. As for my job, I told my manager that I was going to resign to go travelling round the world. She suggested that I ask the Board of Directors for a sabbatical. I did and they agreed! They then recruited someone for a year to fill my job. We remortgaged the house to supplement our savings, and we also used credit cards on our travels. We finished paying for our career break within 6 months of getting home. The whole break was much easier than I expected. Mark and I took care to organise everything properly, which is why we didn’t have any problems. It was the experience of a lifetime, but at the end, I found I still wanted to live in England."