'It was my dream to be a teacher... then I got sacked over a man's desire for revenge'

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

When the Salford home Margaret Pearson had lived in for 40 years was being cleared after her death a discovery was made. "She had old double cellars and we were moving a mattress.

As we did there were all these chalked sums and sentences and writing on the wall, and it was by me," her daughter, Carmen Wood-Hope recalls later. "My brothers and sisters remember me sitting them on crates in the cellar and teaching them.

It was always something that was in me." Carmen Wood-Hope was born to teach. "I love being around young children and passing on that knowledge - no use in having all this stuff in your head if it is not going anywhere," she says. "I can't remember a time when I didn't want to be a teacher and neither can my siblings." That clear ambition was achieved.

But in a case that has appalled M.E.N readers, Carmen would lose her job, her home, and almost lose her professional reputation - just for standing up for union members in a Greater Manchester school.