Staff Spotlight: Dawn Barden

What's your role at D&A College, and what's the story behind how you ended up here?

My role at Dundee and Angus College is Lead Caretaker at Kingsway campus. I am responsible for supporting the caretaking and cleaning team and the maintenance of the building. I have been in this role for two months and I am enjoying the challenge it involves. I have had various roles in my five-year employment with the college. My first position was in the canteen department catering for events and meetings, which ended when Covid arrived. I then became a catering assistant and a cleaner until I applied successfully for the internal courier service for the college. This involved working alongside the caretaking team delivering and collecting mail and parcels between all campuses, as well as external attached companies. I was in this role for one year, and really enjoyed assisting the caretakers in quieter times, which in turn stood me in good stead when a caretaking role became available at Gardyne. I was a caretaker there for two years and four months, which takes me to my current position as a team leader.

Work is one thing, but what do you do outside of the college walls? Any exciting hobbies or weekend adventures?

I am a keen knitter and enjoy intricate fair isle and plaid patterns. I have been a knitter for the past 10 years with many mistakes and much wasted wool! Knitting helps me relax whilst watching Netflix. It’s a lazy hobby so I justify this by walking my cockerpoo Bonnie Broon who has boundless energy. An hour is not long enough to keep her happy!

I am currently trying to learn the harmonica (badly) and hope to be able to play a decent tune by the end of the year (watch this space!)

Another hobby of mine is gardening, I love relaxing with friends with the wine flowing on a bonnie summer night in a beautiful garden in full bloom.

My partner has a blacksmith shed in the garden and I enjoy learning and helping to make the wooden handles to the tools he makes on a wooden lathe (badly still learning 3 years on!)

We also enjoy summer evenings on our motor bike and this year I am hoping to do my CBT test so I can be the proud owner of a Honda Monkey bike to use to commute to work in the summer days.

When you were younger, what was your dream job? And if you could do any career, what would you choose and why?

When I was young, I wanted to be a nun! I loved the costumes and was intrigued by the mystery of nuns - I grew out of this thankfully! If I could choose a career now, I think I would love to own my own wee village shop and gossip with the locals all day selling my own veg and produce grown on my attached allotment. This dream was born from growing up in my Nana’s village shop and my grandfather's family bakery which holds great memories for me...maybe one day! Who knows what's ahead of us eh?

If you could have any person, dead or alive, as a dinner guest , who would it be and why?

Oooooh I have a few. Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Sam Elliot would be my three as I couldn’t whittle it down to one. The dinner would be hilarious with Spike’s comedy sketches, trumpet playing and talent for poems, and Harry’s singing and his laugh alone would make for a great night. Sam Elliot could be my after eight guest.

Share with us the most valuable piece of advice or life lesson that's really stuck with you, especially when it comes to dealing with the ups and downs of learning.

The best advice I have been taught is never to be jealous of people and their achievements as ‘jealousy makes you ugly’. This has stuck with me all my life and I have had to use the saying often. Another lesson from my grandfather is ‘If you go to bed without learning something new it is a wasted day’. I try my best to live by these.

Look out for more staff spotlights coming soon!