Personal

Growing up in Steel City UK and the US

Linda Rose was born Linda Thiselton in a theological college in Bristol, UK. From the age of 4, she is proud to have grown up in Sheffield, the steel capital of the industrial north of England, with a year out between her O and A levels when she travelled with her family to Calvin College, Grand Rapids in the Mid-West of USA. In the US she predominantly studied theatre, alongside dabbling in philosophy, psychology and economics, experimenting in community theatre, theatre in education as well as full scale productions, and even performed in a play in the German language. This creative atmosphere stimulated her writings in theatre and led to her first musical pieces written for piano.

Combining her love of travel with her passion for people and creative arts Linda joined Operation Mobilisation in Belgium during her A levels, and then went to Soviet controlled Poland with UNESCO at the age of 19 to be part of a team running summer English language camps in 1985. She became inspired to teach language in a creative and fun manner seeing the benefit the Polish students had from joining in drama and music whilst learning.

Linda went on to study drama at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth and took the opportunity to be an exchange student and return to the US - this time to the University of California San Diego for her middle year of her degree, culminating in being on the honours list at UCSD and being awarded a BA IIi honours degree. She majored in writing in her degree with several one act plays and Blind Elektriks - a play about incest, as well as plays for churches; and after submitting various scripts to London theatres was encouraged to follow professional writing and submit more plays for their interest.

Her life blossomed when she married husband David and had two gorgeous boys, Jason and Elliot, who were the focus and mainstay of her life, whilst keeping a professional front in both theatre, working for the Brewhouse Arts Centre running children's theatre groups, and the beginning of her professional youth and community profession with Derbyshire Youth Service.

Linda combined professional work in youth and community (building it up from sessional work in a wide variety of settings to full time work after gaining her Masters degree,) with the drama community work, sometimes paid but more often voluntary in various settings. Linda always supported young people in her church setting and for many years ran the large scale Christmas production which she loved especially in its all age format - using children as young as three up to people in their seventies and beyond.

Celebrating Diversity and Redressing Injustice

Linda loves exploring the world and different cultures and ways of living; and had always dreamt of working abroad with her family and children growing up speaking multiple languages, but this was not to be. So whenever she had the opportunity to show them the world she would grab this, and was very fortunate to travel to many different countries and continents. Wherever possible she would stay with her friends living abroad to experience the natural culture. Linda wanted passionately to teach her children respect for all different cultures, especially Old World cultures which are often now seen as third world or developing cultures. Linda would prefer they were called old world countries as in nearly all cases, these poorer nations were thriving often thousands of years before Britain was considered civilised at all, and before America or Australia were anything more than a twinkle in the eye of the indigenous populations. This respect has encouraged her to try and redress some of the imbalance of both finances and attitude towards poorer nations currently in the world and she fights any arrogant colonial attitude that still lingers with some western people, sadly often British ex-pats who she intensely dislikes and tries to avoid.

It's simply 'The Right Thing' to share resources

People are often baffled with her personal and family sacrifices for the sake of her work with those less fortunate in both the UK and internationally; but Linda sees this as both The Right Thing and an important extension of her faith. She believes passionately in equality and justice and by sharing her wealth financially, materially and educationally she feels she is making some small steps in the direction of fairness. It depresses her that so few people do the same.

Understanding and Compassion, Myers Briggs Type Indicator

Linda has a passion for understanding others and is passionate about not being misunderstood herself - thus the depth of content in this website; but alongside her passion for people being genuine and open, she is also a very private person who needs her own space. These contradictions within her led her to explore more about personality study and she fell in love with the MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) when her father introduced this to her at age 22. She has studied this widely and in 2012 she became qualified as a MBTI practitioner and has used it in her work as mentor in the UK and Sri Lanka. Incidentally, she is an INFJ.

Linda's Love and Laughter Legacy

Linda dearly hopes that her life will impact others in a positive way, and make life-changing difference to others' lives. She hopes that the positivity and love she offers will ripple out as people find hope and joy in their dark moments and pass these to others in due course. Her depressive moments make her life a struggle, which is also why she gravitates towards those in the darker places in life. She both empathises with their despair, and wants to make the most impact. As she often says, 'A tiny light shines the brightest in the darkest places'. See 'Wounded Healer' for more about her struggle with mental health.

Family life

Linda is proud of her two sons and their successes. She prioritised them in the early years as she was passionate about their personal development, enjoyed every moment playing and creating with them; and hated to give them back to school at the end of the long summer holidays. She gave them the freedom to coose their own paths in life, and is thrilled that both sons share a deep faith in God, and both have roles in church leadership. She was delighted to gain a lovely daughter with Jason's marriage to Lucy in 2011 and enjoys visiting them in their home city of York. Elliot Rose is a musician in his own right, playing all kinds of guitars which he taught himself, and keyboard, with two current albums available, and an EP due shortly in 2014, and his music can be found on the web page www.elliotrose.net

Linda is very grateful to her long-suffering husband David for his steadfast loyalty and devotion through all the years of illness and the times of separation. It is not easy being partnered with someone with mental health issues, especially forms of bi-polar which swing between hyperactivity and depressive lethargy. The couple celebrated their silver wedding anniversary in 2013.