I left school after 'O' level maths, so when I began my degree I was two years behind the other students. I had never done calculus or even trigonometry. Fortunately, the 'new maths' had just been put into the syllabus, and nobody had done any matrices, Venn diagrams, logic, etc. To fill in my missing knowledge, my tutors very generously gave me private lessons in their own time, free of charge. I think they were a bit bemused by my choice of subjects, as nobody had ever combined Maths and Eng. Lit before and they had to come up with a special timetable for me. At 27 I was older than most of the other students, and my daughters were 4 and 2. After four years of domesticity, I thought I had died and gone to heaven - all that debating, learning and being with adults.