Learning for me means the Open University. I left school after my (what was then) O levels. I did find my way to the local FE College and completed my A levels but didn't take the opportunity to go to university (I would have been the first in my family to do so) and of course in those days you received a grant. But all my peers were working and earning money so I decided against staying on. I didn't have a clear idea what I would study anyway.

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Move forward a few years and I was at home with my first baby but I somehow found my way to the OU. After seven years, with the help of a supportive partner, and two more children, I got a BA (hons). With this I did a year in a business information centre which was a condition to being taken on to do an MA in Library and Information studies at UCL.

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But learning meant more to me than just the end game. As well as giving me some kind of structure and focus during those busy years it was also a source of wonder and delight outside the rough and tumble of family life. At the week long summer schools I would sit in a lecture theatre at a university and listen to a tutor deliver a lecture on Renaissance art or Shakespeare, perhaps 19th century literature and I would pinch myself. I felt it was such a privilege and something I never took for granted. The Open University had given me a second chance.