Cathedral Guide: Aileen J P Christodoulou

Aileen J P Christodoulou

BA English and Theatre Studies, 1988

First job:

Growing an herb garden in Cyprus, aged nine.

Strangest interview question:

Can you ride a unicycle?

Advice for current students:

Pacing yourself for the setbacks and recognising that careers do not happen overnight. You do not need to move forward or up all of the time. Work-life balance can empower you to change tack, to have a second or third career option, as I have, from gardens to teaching to roles in civic/government, or charity and church. Sometimes you can have it all at the same time, without even knowing it, as I did in our rich and diverse community at Warwick.

Ambitions for the future:

Too many to list here, but worth sharing that I am in essence, as creative as I was at university, only now it’s all about re-generating and supporting others at ARK (local cultural arts venue), Jazz venues, and a World UNESCO heritage site, as well as charities like Cancer Research and Oasis.

Cathedral Guide, Canterbury Cathedral

Describe your current role and what attracted you to it.

Meeting and greeting international pilgrims, visitors, and tour groups from all over the world. Introducing people to the "fabric" of our UNESCO World Heritage Centre. The inevitable "next step" for me as teacher, adult trainer, Community Cohesion Policy Officer, and a British citizen with Greek (Orthodox) and Irish (Catholic) roots.

What’s your favourite part of the role?

Finding out what people most want to experience and facilitating that wherever possible, whether it’s exploring the architecture, paintings, stained glass, stonework, the history of the Archbishops, or the “sacred spaces” of the Crypt, Martyrdom, Bell Ceremony, and monuments. Mother Church is a British cultural "living", working record, in a nutshell.

What are the key skills you learnt at Warwick that have helped you with your career to date?

It gave me the opportunity to try new things like writing for Warwick Boar, stage-managing a revival of Thomas Middleton's The Witches at Warwick Arts Centre (no previous experience required) and setting up a Greek Society for International students.

I met some very interesting people in student halls and classes, as well as performing artists like Peter Polycarpou, (Royal Shakespeare Company, Les Misérables, Birds of a Feather), Niamh Cusack, and Sharon Morgan. Also, alumni Dominic Cooke OBE and Ruth Jones MBE.

In the first third of my undergraduate studies, I established Student-Liaison Committees and documented the 1986 International Magdalena Festival of Women in Innovative and Experimental Theatre. During this time, I also gained practical experience working at the Belgrade Theatre.

Did you have a specific career path in mind when you chose to study at Warwick?

I was recently home from a gap year in the Negev desert and presented an interview with ballet choreographer Martin Wright.

What top tips do you have for Warwick graduates who would like to work in your sector?

1. Never give up.

2. Never be afraid to fail.

3. Never fail to appreciate that "everything counts" and will help build resilience for your life, as that is your CV in the 21st century.

What has been your greatest career challenge to date and how did your experience and skills help overcome it?

Writing Race Equality Scheme for Thanet District Council, (12 Directors, 500 staff) and publishing it in June 2004, without any training or blueprint. I set up Key Service reps, liaised, revised, and produced a five-year programme for evaluation.

Producing a school production of Les Misérables at Granville Theatre, where BAFTA award-winning Brenda Blethryn is a patron, and was in the audience.

Both of these scenarios required a steel-like focus for getting the job done, whatever obstacles we faced, and taking positive and negative reviews throughout the process, but achieving the set goal.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given in relation to your career?

"If at first you don't succeed...try another medium."

Thus far, I have found myself performing poetry, theatre (including in front of the Bishops of Lambeth 1998), reading news on Radio, creating an Altar Cloth to mark Bishop Rose's visit in 2023, and last month, an art for auction for Pilgrims Hospice at Anthony Giles Studio.

What do you know now that you wish you had known when you were applying for jobs?

That women will usually be discriminated against, and that smashing that glass ceiling is the role some of us were destined to play, whether we knew it at the time, or not.