This April, after four years as a Union Support Officer with unionlearn in South West, I started a new role as a Learning Campaign Support Officer (LCSO). The main part of the post is to find stories, draft case studies and encourage blogs about all the brilliant work union members are doing to encourage learning at work.

One of our first tasks was to write a blog, introducing ourselves to the great wide world of union learning – so this is mine.

It's my first blog, and I wasn't sure what to start with – and then, during a workshop at the South West TUC AGM in sunny Croyde Bay, I got to thinking on how I ended up here – on the Devon coast discussing working class education surrounded by a inspiring bunch of trade union members and a theme was born: "What's trade union learning even done for me?"

Well the answer is quite a lot – but, as the song goes, let's start at the very beginning.

I was born in Lambeth – growing up on one of the large council estates that boarder the south circular in Tulse Hill. Leaving school at 16, I landed an apprenticeship as a Workshop Technician with Imperial College – thanks in no small part to some very good links they had built up with inner city schools. At 17, I joined the ASTMS union and studied on day release for 4 years to gain a HNC in Mechanical and Production Engineering.

And that was about it as far as formal learning went – though it was always interesting work, at the end of the day it was a job.

Fast forward another seven or eight years and the branch health & safety (H&S) rep in my department retired. I'd always been active in the branch (by now MSF), even doing a stint as membership secretary, but not too much. Somehow I got voted in as the new H&S rep and sent on a TUC stage 1 course at South Thames College.

I really enjoyed this – it was good to meet different people from different workplaces and different unions with different experiences, but all with same aim of supporting colleagues in the workplace.

Back at work I became involved with branch safety committees and signed up for a TUC Diploma in Health and Safety, again at South Thames. This was a year-long course in the evenings that really got me back into learning.

After completing the course I thought, OK – what next? I've been in engineering for over twelve years; maybe a change would be good. During this time, I'd developed an increasing interest in environmental issues and was involved in local campaign groups around Lambeth. Maybe I could develop skills in this area.

I ended up on a part–time degree course at Birkbeck College studying Environmental Management for four years. That helped me find work with Groundwork West London, Sustain and Friends of the Earth after a raft of redundancies swept through Imperial College.

At the same time I began getting involved with the Workers Beer Company thanks to the TUC tutor on my Diploma course, and began working at festivals in the summer. Through this, I met loads of great people, which ultimately resulted in me organising aspects of the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival after I moved to Dorset years later.

This is my story and, as a new LSCO, my main role will be to tell the story of others who are involved in workplace and union learning. I'll be there to help support or promote learning events organised by union learning reps across the SWTUC and SERTUC regions to spread the word of how trade unions help workers and the communities they live in.

I'd love to hear from union reps and officers about all the great work they have been doing – my one criticism of trade unions is that we don't blow our own trumpet often enough.

I drafted this blog on a bus winding through the hills and valleys of West Dorset returning home from supporting a ULR in Bournemouth and a community skills project in Dorchester, something I would have never dreamed of whilst growing up in south London. I feel I can truly say I wouldn't be where I am today if I hadn't taken a TUC course on health and safety in Putney all those years ago.