A browse through the Telford College prospectus set Andy Roden on a path that would take him to the heart of the railways industry – and a wide-ranging career spanning journalism, broadcasting, magazine editing and beyond.
“I have to blame my mother here,” Andy says. “She saw details of a media course in the Telford College prospectus at a time when I wasn’t sure what to do next with my education.
“I had enrolled at New College for A levels, but it wasn’t right for me. My mum said to me ‘You like writing, why not have a go at media?’. So I did, and Telford College turned out to be the perfect environment for me.”
The decision proved pivotal. After completing the media course at the college in the mid-1990s, Andy went on to study marketing at the University of Wolverhampton before landing his first journalism role.
He eventually secured a news editor role at International Railway Journal – the rail industry’s global bible – which brought him to Cornwall in 2005, where he has been based ever since.
He has been a transport journalist for well over 20 years, sub-editing Hornby Magazine for many years alongside his work on Modern Railways, where he is currently deputy editor.
Andy has also edited magazines, written books and is a regular commentator on national and regional TV and radio on rail issues.
It’s the perfect job for someone with a lifelong love of railways. He volunteered at the Severn Valley Railway while he was at university, and explains how this passion began: “My dad was taking me to Severn Valley Railway when I was in the womb. He thinks coal, smoke and steam got into my bloodstream before I even arrived in this world.”
Andy, who was raised in Wellington and attended Charlton School, said: “There isn’t a single thing I was taught on that Telford College course that I haven’t used at some point. That’s the difference between vocational and academic study.”
He speaks warmly of tutors drawn directly from the industry during his time at Telford College, including radio lecturer Alan Phillips, a long-time reporter for BBC Radio Shropshire.
“All of the lecturers, bar the academic side, were ex-industry or freelance. That’s the sort of experience you cannot gain from a textbook or an academic syllabus.”
Those fundamentals proved their worth when Andy walked into his first high-pressure newsroom. “When it came down to having to write a news story in a fast-paced newsroom, I could give it a reasonable stab.
“And when I found myself running a campaign to save our sleeper train here in Cornwall not long after moving down here, my media training meant it wasn’t nearly as much of a shock to the system as it would’ve been.
“There’s an argument that says the media course at Telford College played a part in helping to save that London to Penzance sleeper train.”
Now, as an editor himself, Andy sees first-hand how much the foundations of learning matter and what happens when they’re missing.
“The best thing you could teach any of the kids on that course today is just how to distil your ideas and communicate them clearly. That gives you a head start in anything.”
His message to current students is simple and heartfelt: “There are so many careers where you don’t need a degree to do them, and ours was one of them. That Telford College media course, looking back, really was superb. It taught me so much.”
(Downing Street picture by Paul Bigland)
