ABSTRACT
It’s a cliché because it’s true. I am where I am today because of Geoff Pearson. When I met Geoff I was a mature student aged 25, with dubious motives for being in higher education. Had I not contracted dysentery in India in 1980 I would have carried on travelling round the world seeing Jack Kerouac looking back at me from the mirror. Dysentery introduced me to people who suggested I should ‘go to college or university’ (it’s a long story involving tropical medicine waiting rooms). No one had ever suggested I should or could go to higher education. I knew lots of people who had been to prison and a few who had been admitted into psychiatric institutions but I didn’t know anyone who had gone to university. When I asked my dysentery friends why I should go to university, they said, ‘because you read books, the student grant is twice as much as the dole and you can stay in bed all day’. So, in September 1981, I found myself in Bradford, West Yorkshire. I had chosen Bradford & Ilkley Community College because their advert showed a backdrop of the recent inner-city riots (or ‘uprisings’), the beer was good, the cheap and cheerful curry houses were a revelation and it was less than one hour’s drive from my mum’s newsagents in Bury, Greater Manchester.
