GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

university! I went for an interview at a red brick university. I probably should

not name names, but it began with a B and ended with irmingham! (Laughter)

They were very supportive and welcoming about my ideas about where I

wanted to go with it with my studying and then I said, “I’m just off to check out

the nursery, because I’ve got two young children so I want to see what

provisions they’ve got” and she said, “Oh, how old are they?” I said, “Well, my

youngest will be just under a year old when I start, my eldest will be two”. She

said, “Oh, do you not think that maybe they need you to stay home for a few

more years?” I must admit, as a young mum that really affected me. I was

quite upset about that, probably for about 10 minutes, because then I was

furious and I have been furious ever since.

About a week later I went for an open day at Wolverhampton and I found

definitely where I should be with that, so that was a much more welcoming

place for me and I think is a much more supportive environment. I think part of

what Wolverhampton has taught me is the importance of community education

and access for everybody to be able to have their own education to whatever

degree that they want to do and that is why I am really thrilled to be involved

here, because the Educational Trust and the work that you are doing is

absolutely fantastic. I am really looking forward to being a part of it.

I just did a bit of work for my dissertation on the General Strike and that is when

I was really taken with labour history in my second year, so it was really

wonderful to focus on that, because it is so wonderful to see real working class

solidarity on such a scale and I have just finished that and I will be submitting it

in about a week, hopefully, when it is finished. I would like to do some

workshops on the General Strike, worker photography, if I can, and also with

your history as I go through with it. I would really like to get to know as many of

you as possible and your unions as well, because I want to know all about you,

because I am going to write about you, so I would really like to know anything

you have got to tell me, particularly with ideas of how I should approach the

history, because that is still very much in negotiations and there are so many

ideas and so many different ways that we can approach it, but it would be

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