My introduction to the education system was Stewarton Primary, in Dunlop Street, Stewarton. I can remember that my first teacher was Mrs Walker. This was followed by the local Secondary 'Stewarton High School' which was on Kilwinning Road, Stewarton. I loved school, although I must admit to being a bit of a handful. With no support or encouragement from my parents to do well, a number of teachers gave me fantastic support, including: Ruby Donnelly, George Herbert, 'JR' and Peter Gillies. This school only educated to 'Ordinary Grade' and I progressed to Kilmarnock Academy to sit my 'Higher Grades'.
Unfortunately my father presumed that I would leave school at the first opportunity, as my three elder brothers had, and start bringing in a wage, or 'digs' money as it was known. Whilst most families would have rewarded their children for being first in the class, I'm afraid my reward was to be thrown out of the house. This meant that for a period I slept in the Lainshaw Woods and worked at Lainshaw Mains Farm. I would start work at 4 am, milking the cows before going to school. Unfortunately during this year Western SMT who ran the buses from Stewarton to Kilmarnock and back went on strike. Although an alternative bus was sometimes laid on the nature of the strike meant that it was not unusual for the pupils from Stewarton and Kilmaurs to be told in the afternoon that there would be no bus for us. Instead they let us out of school early so that we could walk the 6 miles home to Stewarton. I would often need to hitch hike it into Kilmarnock and back on a Sat to play rugby for the Academy. In the school holidays I would often work from 4 am to 10 pm at the 'Farm'.
I wanted to continue my education but had no support, financially or otherwise to do so. Instead I successfully aplied to Denholm Ship Management Company in Glasgow for a sponsorship to become a Marine Engineer Cadet in the Merchant Navy. For some reason there were a lot of people in the Merchant Navy in Stewarton, including my eldest brother, Brian. However there was a mix up and the Glasgow College of Nautical Studies was full. I was therefore offered the choice between Aberdeen and Southampton. I jumped at the opportunity to go to Southampton and attended the Southampton Marine College on Argyle Road Southampton.
However the Merchant Navy was taking a downturn and within a couple of years loads of people were being paid off. I had only joined for the opportunity to get paid for going to college, so it didn't upset me. I decided to head back north and to study HND Enginnering at Bell College, Hamilton.
I then moved through to Edinburgh to work at Ferranti but I kept up my education interest by attending the Trade Union Sudies Dept at Stevenson College, Edinburgh on 'day release'. I did four ten-week courses in total: Shop Steward Courses 1 & 2, and Health and Safety Courses 1 & 2. course on Environmental Issues. I found this education to be a relavation and really appreciated the support from the lecturers including Ian Reekie, Ian Perry and Rab.
I also participated in a range of Trade Union workshops held by TASS/MSF including the Union Summer School at Bishops' Stortford, Hertfordshire.
I then briefly studied and taught Marxist Economics at the Workers' Education Association (WEA) in Edinburgh before moving on to Cannonball House at the top of the Royal Mile and the lighter subject of Irish History under the guidance of Ian S Wood. Ian was also an Open University (OU) Professor and gave me encourangement, over a beer or two in the Jolly Judge pub, to do an OU degree.
I did a pre OU study course at the David Hume Tower at Edinburgh University and decided that I would do a Batchelor of Arts (B.A) in Social Sciences. This included attending Summer School for a week at Keele University in Staffordshire. In my third year of OU studying I was fortunate enough to win a three week study tour of Nicaragua. As Crime and Society was one of the courses I was studying at the time, I was glad to see that the study tour included a trip to one of Nicaragua's prisons as well as various political parties, Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs), newspaper editors, health workers, fishermen and the May Day Rally and evening concert.
My trip to Nicaragua gave me the desire to learn the Spanish language and after completing my OU Degree, I enrolled at Broughton School in Edinburgh for Conversational Spanish evening classes. The Nicaraguan adventure had also exposed my photographic failings and the next year I attended Leith Academy to do a Scottish Vocational Qualification (SVQ) class in Photography.
I then returned to Stewarton to be with my sister and gained an SVQ in Desk Top Publishing at Stewarton Academy. By this time Stewarton had an Academy where pupils could complete their school education without having a six mile walk to Kilmarnock.
Following my sister's death I moved to Glasgow and completed an SVQ in German at Glasgow University.
I had over the years developed an expertise in Defence Diversification and Arms Conversion and have provided workshops and/or speeches on this at a number of educatutional establishments, including: Caledonian University, Glasgow; Nottingham and Trent Univeristies in Nottingham; Middlesex Universit, London; Lancaster University, Plymouth University; the University of Brest, France; the Military Academy in Lubjiana, Slovenia and the ISODARCO international school in Italy.
At this time I was working with a lot of academic colleagues and decided that I should increase my formal educational qualifications, so I undertook a part time Master of Science in Public Policy at Strathclyde University.
More recently I have undertaken a series of evening French Courses at Cardonald College, Langside College and Strathclyde University all in Glasgow. I also completed an evening Course on Geneology at Strathclyde Univeristy. In October 2008 I commenced a course in Portuguese at Strathclyde University.