This story goes back to when I was probably about seven and we were off in the car in the Austin 1100 with my parents, and my mother announced that they were going to do something called the ‘Open University’.

I didn't know what this was, but they said “We're going to learn as adults.” So the next thing that happened was a radio recorder arrived, and I started playing records on the record player and recording them and making my own radio programme. It was a radio programme that my parents could listen to and laugh about, because there were huge gaps in between making the announcement and finally getting the record player to work and getting the needle on to the record player. So there were some ‘continuity problems’, let’s say!

The next thing that happened was Mum and Dad got some jam jars and they laid them on their side in the garden on the table. They put bananas inside the jam jars, and they covered one of the jam jars with muslin, and the other jam jar they left open, to work out where fruit flies came from. Were they inside the banana or did they find the banana from the outside? So this was like basic science, natural science I suppose.

Mum and Dad carried on doing their natural sciences with the Open University, and when I became an adult I got married, and my wife and I were expecting our first child…and what did I do? Like a fool, I went to the Open University and I said, “I want to do a course - ‘Living with babies and toddlers’.” So I did this first course, I think it was in 1989, and a little while later I ended up working in childcare. So it's surprising how your education can really influence your employment, and something like that can be progressive in your life.

In my later life, I've done courses with the Open University. Some I've passed, some I've failed. I failed economics, which I'm very proud about, because if anybody understands economics now, you'll know that the people who have passed economics are running the country, which is slightly worrying!

I'm not running the country, but I'm trying to run my own life as best I can. For various reasons, through health problems etc., I've had to not work for a few years. So I turned with a vengeance to the Open University, to give me some kind of therapeutic learning, you could say - daytime activity, that kind of thing.

I went to the doctor and I said “I'm going to study psychology and I'm going to study counselling, because I want to help other people.” He put his big fat hands up and he said “Please tell me you won't be counselling anyone!”

So I said “Well, I'll do the course anyway.” And I did a social sciences degree which included a bit of sociology, psychology, counselling and also criminology.

And I thought “I'm quite enjoying this, I think I'll carry on.” So I did another degree with the Open University - humanities. It was philosophy, art history and religious studies. I thought “I'm still enjoying this, I think I'll carry on.” So I did an English Lit degree with the OU – learned a bit about Shakespeare, a bit about Percy Shelley, Tennyson, Virginia Woolf - lovely learning! And I finished that degree and I thought “I’m still enjoying myself.”

And here I am right up to the present day - I'm doing a degree with the Open University and I'm sure you'll be very pleased to know its history!