My name’s Edward Rudge but I like to be called Ted, and I’m currently 65 and I live at Shirley in the West Midlands. Birmingham born, all my life spent in Birmingham, worked in Birmingham.

At the Birmingham University, that’s where I studied. I did 6 years study there, and I ended up with a Bachelor of Philosophy, two certificates of higher education, I then went on to do other things that the university recognised and put me up for this award with NIACE.

When I left School I was 15, I was born in 1940, and my tutors at the school I belong to were… I don’t like to say the wrong words. But they were people who were not teachers in my eyes; they were there just to monitor you through. They taught you to read, they taught you to spell, they taught you to write, but there was no pushing, no effort. So on leaving school all you were was factory fodder, they just wanted you to work in a factory and earn your living.

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