Linda started her family when she was 17 and missed out on her chance to go on to higher education. She couldn't believe her good fortune when she got her chance later in life and was accepted as a mature student at university.

Linda had planned to do Advanced Highers and go to university, but then she met Ian and got pregnant. She settled into life at home looking after Ian and MaryJane, making friends with a group of other mothers. So it seemed too good to be true when her local council's Community Services and the WEA got together with the Open University to offer locally-based study courses.

"It was an amazing opportunity. We would all get together anyway. We could study together as a group, it was free of charge and they were providing childcare!

"About a dozen of us started the course. We were studying towards an Open University Social Science module. It was really, really interesting. I felt my brain was working again for the first time in a long time.

"We were all the same. We'd all left formal learning too young and regretted it. We could all see how we were growing in confidence, stretching our brains again."

Ian saw how happy Linda was too. He was doing flexi-time at work and they decided that they could arrange to be at home when MaryJane needed them, and Linda could apply to continue her studies full-time.

Linda was awarded credit points for completing the OU modules and her local university agreed that the learning she had acquired was relevant to doing a BEd in Primary Education.

"I'm still on cloud nine. It's more than 15 years since I left school and here I am a student again."