naomi24: thank you for your sympathetic reply. A long time after I was asked that question by my mother, I realised that she probably wanted me to begin work at 15, and to bring a wage packet into the house as soon as possible. The ironic thing is, when I was 15, she married again, and so she really had another wage packet coming into the house. But it was too late, then, for me, and I have spent many years going to night school to gain GCE's, but I felt that I was always running behind something, trying to catch up.