Lewis's Story

"Basically I had a hard school life as such as I couldn't really concentrate.

I struggled with Dyslexia.

There were no opportunities or people really trying to help me, I feel like there were no facilities in place trying to help
people with that where I went to school.

So instead of being very academic I chose to be back wayward and not focus on learning too much.

So then I ended up going to College and Bumpy twice a week, which I found good as I got to put my hands and my mind to something that I enjoyed doing and that released a lot of tension.

I didn't mind getting out of bed to go to do them things and then basically all I left school with were the College and the qualifications that I got from Bumpy.

Kind of gave me something that I thought then I decided that yeah, well I like tinkering with motorbikes, I like doing a bit of mechanics so then I went on to join the military.

When I joined the military I did five years service operational tours and then from that I had little girl but if it was not being for places like Bumpy and College courses put in place for children that didn't really want to learn, or found it hard to learn, then maybe I would have never thought about going in the Army and maybe I'd have just going off rails altogether, because it's places like this that give you a chance and don't judge people.

Like Julian, that didn't judge you, that just took you for who you were and yeah, you might be a bit of a little git, but as long as you are respectful to him and staff then you were judged no further than that.

Then yeah went on to do five years military service and I left military and then took up a job on the railway as a train mechanic and that's what I've been doing ever since."