Pensioner Betty Hetherington spent much of her life feeling digusted with herself because she had never learned to read or write. STEVE PRATT meets the woman brave enough to go back to school at the age of 62.

Betty Hetherington points proudly to the dozen or so framed awards and certificates hanging on the wall of her terraced home in Tantobie, near Stanley. A plaque on the mantelpiece in the living room notes her "personal achievement in computing".

Anyone achieving such recognition would be justifiably proud. For Betty, 70 next month, it means so much more than pieces of paper or bits of engraved wood.

"If you'd said when I was 62 that by the time you're 70, you'll have got awards and what-have-you, I'd have said you're joking - you're not talking about me, you're talking about someone else. It's still not real."

What this great grandmother has done is learn to read and write in her sixties. And, after achieving that, she's returned to college to study computing and art.

"I started back at school at 62 and have never left. I don't intend to leave. I'll be going there with my zimmer," says Betty, who features in Tyne Tees Television's programme about adult learners, Learn To Live, tomorrow.

She laughs as she says it, but learning through the national Return To Learn scheme has taken courage and fortitude. It may seem irrational to those who take such skills for granted but Betty holds herself responsible for not being able to read and write.

Ask how she managed everyday life lacking the ability to read and write, and she replies: "I didn't".

If one of her daughters was off school and needed a sick note, she had to get another of her children to write it.

Shopping posed another problem. Everyday goods were recognisable from the packets. Otherwise she would take a note or a picture and match the letters or illustration to items on the shelves.

"You feel degraded. You feel unworthy. I watched other people pick up a magazine and read it. It was lovely to watch them and I thought, 'Eee, aren't they clever?'," she says.

"They were so clever and I was so dim. You feel that way. You can't ever describe to someone the real feeling of disgust and anguish with yourself. You hide yourself in the corner, and make lots and lots of excuses. Only people in the same situation know."

She lived with the situation so long that even recalling it makes her tearful. She apologises, explaining: "I'm feeling ashamed of myself again".

Her lack of reading and writing skills was none of her fault, more the result of poor schooling in Barrow, where she was born. At her first Catholic school, she was taught religion in English or Latin but not to add up two and two or write her own name.

A move to another school proved no more helpful. "We were so far back that teachers would say, 'you can go and tidy that cupboard'. They did teach us to write our own name and address, but the reading was like 'the cat sat on the mat in a hat', like babies are taught," she recalls.

It was pointless her sitting the 11-plus examination because "I couldn't even pass a garden gate".

She married twice, had four daughters and passed 60 before even realising help was available. That only happened by accident when a teacher was late for a pottery class she was attending at Tanfield Lea.

"There were some books and I picked up a children's story of Jane Eyre. When the teacher arrived, I asked if I could take it home. She said did I want to read it to my grandchildren? And I said I wanted to see if I could read it," she says.

"She came over and said, 'don't worry, there's a class here, you can go to that."

So Betty went back to school and her passion for learning was ignited. Not only can she read stories to her grandchildren now, she can write them too. Her ambition is to have her stories published.

"It was about three years before I started getting recognition. I don't feel clever, I'm not clever. I'm trying, and trying hard, to achieve something. I know my capabilities. I still want to improve," she says.

"My family were like me - they didn't know there were places you could go to learn. I've had a lot of encouragement from my family, friends and other pupils I've made friends with. If I said I didn't think I could do something, they'd say, 'yes, you can, we know you can'.

"Some people were asking me if I did it to show off. Others said why was I doing it, it wasn't as if I was going to go out to work. I did it because I wanted it for me. Me alone, not anyone else, not even my family.

"I wanted to prove to myself that I could pick up a book and read it, pick up a paper and read it."

Now she's willing to talk about it to encourage others in her position to have a go.

"If there's something you want to do and don't know how, there's someone in this world that does and will help you. It doesn't matter if it's to write novels or paint or maths - go for it," she says.

"You're never too old to do something. Age is just a number. If you really want to do it, do it. But you've got to want it and not let other people stop you by saying you're wasting your time. You have to prove to them you're not.

"That's a damn good boost. It's either they are going to win or you are going to win. You have to say to yourself, 'I can't do this, others can. Why?' and then do something about it, and have the last laugh."

* Learn To Live: Tyne Tees, Sunday, 4.50pm.