Two women...one dream

Both, however, have been single parents. All their lives they shared an identical dream. This month, for both Padma Amliwala and Toni Stacey, that dream came true when they collected their Open University degrees.

TOM KING reports

Padma's story

Toni Stacey groans. "You're not going to make me look intelligent are you? Because I'm not intelligent at all."

Well, if you associate intelligence with ivory-cloud academia, perhaps not. Certainly nobody is going to mistake Toni Stacey for a mousey virgin archivist or worry themselves unduly that the poor girl should get out of the house more.

Toni's hobby is taking 4-wheel-drive vehicles through swamps. Her walls are covered with pictures of large, noisy aircraft, another consuming interest.

There is more to all this than just a zest for roaring, oily machines. Toni works as a psychiatric nurse at Runwell Hospital, not far from her home. "You have to find a way to detach yourself from the work completely, some sort of different world, or you'd end up joining them (the patients)," she declares.

This doesn't stop her being fiercely proud of her work at Runwell Hospital, and she says: "I know they're always talking about closing the place down, but I've heard it all before, and we're a good unit - we must be, we get referrals from all over the country."

Yet she also has a knack of denigrating herself, albeit with the utmost cheerfulness. Of her initial education (Bromfords, Wickford) she says: "A university degree was not an option. I was never the brightest bulb in the box."

Talking about her present job she delights in telling you: "My boss likes me because I'm cheap to employ, live locally and lack ambition - the perfect qualifications." She tries to look insulted but roars with laughter instead.

Yet some things Toni Stacey does take seriously, and her Open University degree is one of them.

Although her degree is in Psychology, she doesn't go in for deep self-analysis about her motives.

"It's one of the few things in life I've really wanted to do and I knew I had to get on with it while I could - time is passing so fast," she says.

"Now I'd say to anybody thinking about taking it up, go for it, but don't expect it to be easy."

Toni took up nursing when she was 19. Six years later, she left work when she became pregnant.

Confronting a future as a single parent, she thought: "I'm not going to let myself vegetate, I'm not going to allow myself to become one of those women whose life is wrapped up in their children." The OU saved that from happening.

Once embarked on the course, it took her over. "The family had to get used to me having my nose in a book all the time."

Neighbours, family, anybody who didn't actually run away, would all be roped in for her psychological experiments. "I did so many experiments, neighbours stopped answering their doors."

Indeed, the course became such an obsession that, even when the chance to take a break did come up, she found herself avoiding it. Toni recalls: "When we went on holiday, I'd do the packing, then my partner would go through the suitcases, chucking out any OU books!"

About one thing, Toni is adamant. "People say that an Open University course is a soft option, but it isn't. It's hard work, especially when you become pregnant again half way through, as I did."

There is one other feather in her cap. Following the degree award, she has been accepted into the British Psychological Society, "now that I understand the subject and can talk the language."

She concludes: "Studying psychology in a structured way has certainly opened my eyes to one or two things. Perhaps it's even taught me that I'm a little bit brighter than I gave myself credit for."

Toni Stacey - not an egg-head

Padma's story

Padma Amliwala, a true Christian, likes to quote the saying: God never heaps on us more than we are able to bear. Maybe so - but she herself seems to have been carried pretty close to the wire.

Her award is a true happy ending, giving new value to cliche phrases like "triumph against the odds".

Padma says that her OU degree in Psychology fulfils "a teenage dream of getting a degree, which was prevented by cultural dogmas." When she talks about her past, you see what she means.

She was born and raised in Zambia, where she says she received an excellent schooling. "But I was a girl, my parents didn't want my education to go any further. And anyway, there was no university in Zambia." Instead, Padma found herself in an arranged marriage, three months pregnant, and sent out in advance to find accommodation in England.

"The marriage didn't work out," she says, "and I was left by myself, with my little daughter. Our living conditions, they were very grotty, with no hot water, no washing machine..."

Almost worse was the loneliness.

Padma remembers one Christmas that she spent in hospital. "Everyone else had visitors. For us, there was no one. I just went and locked myself up and cried."

She was, and remains, in constant pain from a rare lupus-like condition that affects the auto-immune system.

"It's a constant battle to stop the pain intruding into life."

She says this matter of factly - it doesn't sound like a complaint. "I get away from it by being mentally occupied," she says.

Through all her tribulations, Padma's conviction about the power and value of education never abated.

"You could say that I was subjected to just about every conventional disadvantage," Padma says, and she lists them: "Member of an ethnic minority, a woman, the one-parent family stigma, my illness.

"But," she says, "I knew one thing - education opens doors. People respect education.

"The concept of 'lifelong learning' is fashionable now, but it has always been a part of life for me."

She has worked her way up from a supermarket job to her present position as a senior systems tester with HM Customs and Excise in Southend, where she lives.

All the time, she constantly studied. She even took one exam in hospital.

The study wasn't just about career advancement. "I've always loved to learn," she says.

"Work satisfies my need for mental occupation to an extent, but I need more."

One of her qualifications is in car mechanics.

Her advice to would-be OU candidates is simple. Go for it! "Too often people have a negative self-concept - "I'm too old" is just one of them," says Padma. "But everybody's got some ability.

"I never set out to be a role-model. But now I have friends who are going through the mill just as I did. They see me and they're encouraged.

"I'd say to people: If something appeals, have a go. Don't start off with the word Can't."

Padma Amliwala - remembers the loneliness

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