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.