I have had what might be called a portfolio career. After leaving school I briefly trained as a quantity surveyor but as a young woman in a man’s world that defeated me so I became a student nurse. Having qualified I went to Berlin for a year as a nanny and on my return went to college for secretarial training. This became the starting point of my career in education becoming the Head of Faculty of Business and Management Studies in a large Further and Higher Education College until I accepted redundancy when it merged with another college. I then taught in secondary school for a few years until we decided to sell up, go to France and set up and run a holiday business which we did for 9 years. Returning to England we did some property renovation, buying, doing up and selling on 5 properties before settling near Bristol. Since then I became a town councillor for 5 years and was Chairman for 2 of those years.