A FORK lift truck driver who swapped his job shifting baked beans for writing essays has graduated with a first class honours degree in Politics and History.

Bob Hayes, 41, of Cross Barn Walk, Darwen, started work as a fork lift truck driver at Asda's Blackburn store and now hopes to study to be a teacher to help others realise their potential.

He is due to start his Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) in September at the Bolton Institute of Higher Education.

Bob has also deferred a place at Salford University to do a PHD, where he hopes to research communities in mental hospitals. He says this is a subject area which has been neglected, and he hopes to study both patients and staff, as well as the villages and surrounding neighbourhoods.

Bob said: "I wanted to get off the treadmill of a dead end job. Now I've finished studying I don't just want a job, I want to make a contribution to society." When I was awarded my degree I was absolutely ecstatic. I was over the moon, and it took a while to sink in. My degree was a mixture of essays, exams and a 12,000 word dissertation, which I wrote about the 1878 weavers' strike in Blackburn."

Bob's route into education began when he joined the GMB union on his first day as a fork lift truck driver, which encouraged him to start attending evening classes.

He was in his thirties when he started a year of full-time study at Ruskin College in Oxford, which claims to cater for "working class men and women who have neither loads of money nor qualifications."

After Ruskin College, Bob went on to study at Salford University. He was awarded the prize for the best mature student in the faculty of social sciences, languages and humanities, as well as the prize for the best politics and history student.

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