Background

This is where my roots are; I grew up in Havant, with a number of friends and family living in the local community. Over the years, I’ve lived in Emsworth, Leigh Park and Bedhampton. I was schooled here, as were all my children.  I have spent decades contributing to the arts at ‘The Spring’. In my spare time I’m a devoted fan of ‘The Hawks’; my father and I have been regulars at the ground since the start of the century – although, ironically, my daughter does play for Pompey!

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Professionally, I’ve been a full-time teacher for the last twenty years. Being a teacher, I genuinely feel I have experienced all the wonderful things that transformative social policies can achieve. Likewise, I’ve seen first-hand the impact of brutal cuts deliberately designed to undermine this. I’m a NEU Trade Union Representative and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. I’ve written for television and last year I won a national award for my contribution to the Arts in the Havant area, related to the suffragette movement.

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Ongoing social disharmony and inequality have been a feature of British society for as long as I can remember, but this is the first time I have felt that the Labour Party had a manifesto designed to address this. In my local area, I have been profoundly disturbed by the rise in school children going hungry, British service personnel sleeping rough on the streets and the rapacious expansion of unaffordable housing – built without due regard for the impact on local services, communities or the environment. I would like to do something about this.