WITHOUT being able to go into detail, my son was left in huge debt by the dishonesty of someone he loved and trusted.

He was also left with three daughters to bring up alone as well as trying to keep a full-time job.

It has taken him many years of struggling to get himself out of debt, in spite of a lack of a pay rise for two years to help save the company he works for.

Through the experience of being in debt through no fault of his own, he brought his three children up teaching them never to owe money or to spend more than they had in the bank.

One of the children has been described by the educational authorities as being ‘exceptionally bright’.

She is now in the sixth form and studying for A-Levels with a view to going to university.

She has been working every weekend to save money towards the expected cost.

However, since the coalition Government came to power with their huge increase for university fees, she realises that if she goes to university now, she will be faced with thousands of pounds of debt before she begins life as an adult. There is also no guarantee of a job afterward to even be able to start to pay it back and even if there is, she will eventually want a home of her own and have a mortgage to pay.

She is torn as to what she should do! She has already experienced hardship as a child and knows what it’s like to have bailiffs knocking at the door and taking things away.

She has seen how hard it was for her father to cope with bringing her up and her siblings while trying to pay back the debt he was left with.

She wonders if she should forego her chance to go to university or start her adult life in tremendous debt.

So, if only for my grand-daughter’s sake, I am so grateful and proud of the sixth-formers who have been marching to protest against these inhumane student fees which this coalition has produced.

After all, it is they who are going to be mostly affected, not today’s students. Therefore it is they that should make their voices heard. I support them, and I wouldn’t blame sixth-form teachers if they decided to join them!

The coalition is mistaken if they think that we OAPs of today are going to be kept quiet by giving us bus passes and cold weather fuel grants.

Don’t they realise the most of us would do anything to see our children and grandchildren have the chances which most of our generation did not have?

There are a lot of us and I will fight to stay alive until the next election to vote them out for what they have done to our loved ones’ lives.

I came from a working-class background and university wasn’t even in our vocabulary. We won’t forget.

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