I went to Fairway Primary school, Mill Hill, London, NW7.

My Secondary School was also in Mill Hill, this being Copthall Girls School.  I obtained 8 GCSE's and an GNVQ Intermediate in Health and Social Care.  The GCSE's I took were, English Language, English Literature, Maths, Single Science, French, History, Sociology, Design Technology.

After leaving school I attended Stanmore College, where I completed an NVQ level 2 Secretarial course.  I had to learn how to touch type, Teeline Shorthand and how to use Word and Excel on the computer.  I stayed on for a further year at this college where I undertook a Legal Secretarial Course.

This gave me good grounding for my first job, which was as a Typist,  within the Criminal Justice Unit at a Police Station based in North London.

In November 2001, I decided to go for promotion as a Tape Summariser, still within the Criminal Justice Unit at the same Police Station.  After doing the 3 tests (typing test, summarising test and spelling test), I was pleased to find out that I had passed all the tests with flying colours.  About 3 weeks later I went for the interview, which I passed too.  I was then left to do the training.   After 2 hard training days at home and another 2 training days at work, I was then made a Tape Summariser.

My employers, The Metropolitan Police, have an excellent web site which gives you news, history, information about specialist departments and plenty of images and sounds to download; it even tells you how to complain about police - now there is openness for you!