Ely Cathedral played host once again on Saturday to the graduation ceremony of hundreds of Open University students from across the East of England And 50-year-old Ian Hill, from Soham, was among them as he collected a degree in history.

The graduation ceremony is an annual event marking the completion of degree and post-graduate courses by students from across the country.

Ian said: “Having been brought up in a working class family during the 1970s, upon leaving school at 16 I was encouraged, almost expected, to go out and get an honest job, rather than go on to further education.

“Although working in technology, I’ve always been passionate about history, so decided to set myself a study goal of BA Honours in History.

“Getting started wasn’t easy and during my early studies both my parents died from cancer within eight weeks of each other. As a result, I only just scraped through my first exams.

“By 2013, however, I was just 30 points off my goal, and on the October last year I was offered my degree, an upper second class BA(Hons) in humanities with history. A few weeks later my certificate arrived, and is now hanging on the wall in my bedroom. I look at it every day, and still can’t believe I actually did it.”