Mary Reid

I felt quite at home yesterday speaking to this crowd of students at Kingston College, having spent many years teaching there myself .

I had been invited to answer questions from the new intake of students to the Pathway course. They wanted to know what my job entailed, how much I got paid (fair enough - it's public money), who I managed, and what would happen if I lost the chains (oops! perish the thought). There were also some perceptive questions about local services and levels of crime in the borough.

In previous years the Pathway students have run events to raise money for the Mayor's Charity, so I was really pleased to be able to tell them that my charity this year would be giving grants to young people like themselves. I look forward to meeting them again later in the year and finding out how they are getting on.