fiona scott
Wiltshire
I was born in the 1960s in Somerset, UK the eldest of two daughters of Heather
and Nick Bune. My mum was a housewife and dad a welder after starting an early
career as a coal miner. The coal mining industry ran in the blood of my family
as both grandfathers and all of my great grandfathers were coal miners. I grew
up in a happy, loving home where money was always tight. There were no daytrips,
no foreign holidays for me – in fact we didn’t have a telephone until I was a
teenager and we didn’t have a car until I’d left home. At school I was one of
those children who sits in the middle, grey and unnoticed, yet plodding on. I
got seven O levels and a qualification in touch typing –my careers ‘adviser’
told me I should am to be a secretary or a nurse. Not a chance! However, I
didn’t do as well in my A levels as expected and ended up going to a more
‘lowly’ college of higher education, now Bath Spa University. I took a degree in
English Literature & History and loved it. I did well in my degree, getting a
high 2:1 and took a PGCE and trained to be a teacher though quickly realised
this was not for me. I always wanted to be a journalist – I used that year to
apply for any relevant job. I eventually got a traineeship on a local newspaper
in Somerset, then two years later moved on to a daily newspaper in Swindon,
where I went on to be crime reporter and then business editor. I was also
running as a volunteer a radio programme for Hospital Radio Swindon.
