Great grandmother's GCSE joy

9:30am Friday 29th August 2008

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A 70-YEAR-OLD great grandmother who left school at the age of 15 is celebrating after gaining her first GCSE.

Annette Willis, of Maple Grove, had her mind set on taking the English Literature exam after studying alongside pupils from 17 to 25 at her local college over the past year.

Mrs Willis never got the chance to take exams so it was something she had always wanted to do.

After hours of nervous anticipation last Thursday morning, Mrs Willis was able to pick up her result paper at Wiltshire College Trowbridge and was delighted at her grade B result.

"We had a bottle of champagne and my husband Harold and I opened that and sat in the garden and celebrated all afternoon," she said.

"I wasn't going to go and pick my results up but I had been on a bus going through the town that morning and I knew the bus was going to go past the college.

"I couldn't stop myself getting off and going in to find out if I had passed.

"When I opened it I realised I didn't have my glasses and had to ask the woman on reception to read it to me, I didn't even know if a B grade in English was a good mark."

Mrs Willis, who has two children, three grandchildren and two great grandchildren, said her family were very supportive and her husband had urged her to follow her dream.

"I got on well with the other students in my class, they were very nice and they thought it was great I was studying so late in life," she said.

The former telephonist and purchase ledger never got the chance to gain a qualification when she was younger and had started her working life at 15.

She said: "When we were just about to leave school we were told to write to companies and ask for work.

"I never got the chance to do any exams."

Mrs Willis will now start studying for a maths GCSE in September.

She said she enjoyed writing essays as part of her English exam course, but found analysing poetry unusual, as it wasn't something she had done in the past.

"All my grandchildren thought it was cool that I wanted to do something like this," she said, "I am looking forward to starting to study maths in September.

"I just hope that times tables are still the same and it doesn't get too technical and then I should be fine."