I am 67 years old this year and my first work experience was when I was 14. I was still in Bishop Gore school and joined The Swansea Youth Theatre which was a local drama group held in the YMCA on the Kingsway. I joined them and found that theatre was my passion.

In between productions I had nothing to do, so I asked the manager of the Grand if I could help out backstage. He visited my parents to check that it would be alright, they said ‘yes’ and that’s how I started at the Swansea Grand Theatre.

I would have been 16 at the time, and I would go down after school and on a Saturday night after the last show had finished to strip the set down. My first job was straightening nails. I would take them out every Saturday night and straighten them, and then they would go back in the bag ready to use on the Sunday because the theatre had no funding in those days.

I eventually left school and worked there full time. But I wanted to do lighting, which in those days was controlled by something called a Grand Master it took up a whole wall and had great big wheels and this was what controlled all stage lighting.

I continued to work in lighting for a number of years and when the chief electrician left I stepped into his role, I was now 20 years of age.