Don’t Tell Me I Can’t… …graduate in my 50s

When Faith Eckersall started working after college, she didn’t plan on returning to the classroom

s I paraded across the stage at Central Hall in Westminster, I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. After opting not to go to university when I left college in 1984, I thought the chance of becoming a master in a particular field had passed me by. But here I was, in December 2015, at 50 years old, receiving my degree in Creative Writing from Brunel University.

Growing up, going to university after college wasn’t as common as it is today. With a love of writing and a keen interest in the news, I’d set my sights on becoming a journalist, so moved out of the family home in Hampshire and started an apprenticeship at a weekly paper in Berkshire.

The pay was horrendous, and I had to take on additional jobs as a cleaner and waitress to make ends meet. But writing was what I loved, and I told myself everything I was learning would one day help me to achieve my dream of writing a book.

The next few years were hectic, and after I married in the early 1990s and had my children, life got busier.

I tried to write my book in my spare time, though I gradually came to realise that writing as a journalist was very different to writing as an author.

‘I’d love to learn how to write a book,’ I told my husband one day in 2013.

‘You should go to university, then,’ he suggested.

It wasn’t something I’d thought about, convinced the opportunity to do so had been and gone. But as I began to look

Ainto it, I came across a course at Brunel University – a parttime master’s. I was sceptical at first as I hadn’t any qualifications higher than my A levels. Nevertheless, I decided it was worth a shot and sent in an application showcasing my journalistic work.

‘I got in!’ I beamed to my husband just a few months later.

Juggling studying alongside working and raising a family would be hard, but my gut was telling me it’d be worth it.

I dived into my savings and, come September, made the two-hour trip from from where I lived to Brunel University. As I looked down at the lanyard dangling from my neck on my first day, I was nervous. I couldn’t quite believe that at the age of 48, I was a student again. But when I realised I was one of several mature students on the course, my nerves slipped away.

I enjoyed every minute of my course. I learned different styles of fiction writing, different aspects of publishing and how to structure a novel.

When I graduated, I knew it heralded the start of a new chapter. In June 2018, I won the Grazia and Women’s Prize for Fiction First Chapter Competition. I started a food blog, hampshirefoodie news.co.uk, and I finished the novel that I’d been wanting to write for so long, which is now in the hands of an agent.

I’m so glad I made the choice to study at university when I did. It was a

Faith was thrilled to graduate in 2015 wonderful chance to meet lots of people from different backgrounds, and I’m still in contact with many people who I met on the course. For me, returning to education was the key to unlocking my mind and my true potential. I’ve managed to achieve one of my lifelong dreams, and now I’m only too excited to see where else my new skills will take me.

‘I WAS SCEPTICAL AT FIRST’