Oxbridge should be for anyone

Caroline's mission to urge others to follow in her footsteps

- ROB PARSONS

GROWING up in the Timperley area of Trafford, the working-class daughter of a clothes factory machinist and an airport cargo worker, Caroline Burt had parents who wanted her to have the opportunities they'd never enjoyed.

Neither of her parents went to university her mother lived in the slums of central Manchester before they were cleared after World War II - but they saved so she and her brother could have the education they wanted.

It was only as a bright teenager at Loreto Grammar School in Altrincham, after passing her 11+ exam, that she started to think university, let alone Oxbridge, could be on the cards.