Born in 1946, in Murton, a mining village in County Durham, in the aftermath of WWII, Thomas was to find himself growing up in interesting times. Coming from a working-class family where his parents had struggled to make a good home in which to raise their children, he was to follow the same pattern in trying to make life a little easier for his own children. He experienced the educational system of the 1950s and '60s with all the failings encompassed...