[blazey]

This is a nice thread. Up until year 8 of high school I was always an extremely attentive student, worked hard and loved learning and then became disillusioned, felt unchallenged and decided that I would focus on music rather than academic study. It was the collective inspiration from my form tutor, the late Fred Bentley and my physics teacher Mr Wickham which kept me thinking about my academic ability.

On the day of my GCSE results I was still intending on leaving the school to go to college and study music when my English teacher Miss Masterson persuaded me very directly to reconsider and go and do A levels.

I knew I would hate them before I even started, and I did. I picked them badly and ended up despising the college, but in my second year and I chose AS Fine Art alongside the subjects I hated. I had a brilliant tutor called Alan Forsyth who, although didn't quite get me attending college every day or convert me into an eventual art graduate at university, he did manage to make me see that there was light at the end of the tunnel I hadn't particularly enjoyed travelling through. He was fun, unconventional and had a particular streak of rebellion about him. He was, and still is, a fascinating gentleman who unfortunately had to leave teaching entirely due to retirement and family commitments. A great loss to art students in the area I'd say.

Whilst at college I lost my friend Adam Riaz and his strength is an inspiration still when I'm feeling like everything is too much. I could only ever hope to be half the person that he was during such straining times.

I find it harder now that I am actually at University. There are a great number of people who bring different things into my life. I'm almost overwhelmed by the levels of positivity that are suddenly now brought upon me after so many years of doubt due to my slightly 'loose-cannon' nature. Slightly might be an understatement... but I have to say that there is a department here that I've talked about before, which supports students from a wide range of backgrounds but most often students from some sort of difficulty that would make pursuing university difficult, and I think they are the biggest inspiration because they so genuinely care about widening opportunities for those students and giving them the most positive taste of university life they most possibly can whilst NEVER plugging Lancaster University itself, and I think that is brilliant. They're equally wonderful employers to me and provide me with top class support, and I think it is a nice reminder to me to see that there are people who DO want to educate and work with people from places like Accrington, Blackburn, Burnley, etc and further afield (as far as London in some cases!) that don't necessarily have the best opportunities in life but like everyone deserve a chance to shine.

So yeah, I think like it has been said that EVERYONE shapes you in some way. I could have taken this question the other way and talked about the negative parts that have shaped me, but in fact I think this is a nice opportunity to give some praise to, not just those that shaped us, but those that actually went out of their way to help make a difference to us specifically and so selflessly.