This year has been……………………………………….intense, but rewarding! My course – Fashion Design – has been great. There has been so much to learn, so normally I would wake up around 7am and go to sleep anytime between 12am and 2am, including the weekends, but in a way its great because you get the chance to go…

“Thanks to the language skills I gained following my scholarship and my time in France, I was involved in the export trade for many years throughout my career”. At my school it had been compulsory for ‘A stream’ students to study French and Latin.  Ideally, I would have preferred to study French and German but…

At age 21 I travelled by train to Belgium to begin a six month John Speak Language Trust Scholarship.  I studied French, stayed with a local family and worked for no pay whilst studying.  In return for submitting a report each month (written in French) to the Bradford Chamber of Commerce, I received the princely…

  Opening a recent news bulletin from the Leeds Chamber of Commerce, a reference to the John Speak Trust immediately caught my eye.  I grew up knowing about the scholarships because my Dad was a fortunate recipient 65 years ago and the photographs and his tales about time spent in Northern France were a magical…

“It was wonderful to see that the Trust is still going and providing the same opportunities to young people after all this time.  May it long continue to do so”, Derek Platts.    Sixty years ago in 1954, I was 23, had recently completed my national Service in the RAF and was working in my…

My John Speak scholarship took me the capital of Spain, Madrid, to support me as I took part in a year’s internship within the Spanish multinational company NH Hotels. After previously studying in the North of Spain for 5 months, my year working as a trainee Buyer within the International Purchasing Department of NH was…

My advice to anybody considering a bursary to travel abroad would be to grab the opportunity while you can! After having finished my degree in French and Spanish with Interpreting at the University of Sheffield, I knew where I wanted my career to go. Since the age of 16 I have wanted to be a…