European Social Fund in England

‘ESF helped to ground me, and showed me the way forward’

Nigel Hulme receiving his award from Geoff Russell,
Chief Executive of the Learning and Skills Council

After 45 years of alcohol abuse and homelessness, Nigel Hulme was looking for direction, structure and motivation in his life. Whilst on the ESF funded Personal Best programme in London his commitment was exemplary and he went on to complete the Level 1 OCN award, where he learned about health and safety and crowd control, in preparation for public event volunteering.

Nigel, a keen cyclist, was born in the UK but raised in India and South Africa. He returned to the UK in 1989. Between 2001 and 2006 he went cycling 20,000 km around the perimeter of Australia. He was drinking and in a very poor physical state. During this trip he had to be rescued by air ambulance and was airlifted from Broome to Perth (3000km). He was in a coma for three weeks. This was the turning point in his life and since his return to the UK in 2007 he has been in recovery.

Nigel was determined to re-educate himself so that he had the skills to confront alcoholism and drug dependency. His lack of self belief and consequent continued dependency has almost killed him several times.

Having completed Personal Best, Nigel is in the process of launching his own business enterprise fixing and recycling bikes and training disadvantaged people in cycle maintenance. “Squeaky Chains” aims to teach the mechanics of managing a bike to homeless people and ex-offenders and was featured in a recent Big Issue article. He also has plans to launch “Dr Bike” - a travelling cycle surgery aimed at helping staff from large organisations with their cycle repairs.

There is much potential for growth with this innovative new enterprise and Nigel plans to franchise the idea across various boroughs as people are trained. Nigel’s application to his personal development is inspiring; he also has plans for an extensive series of international cross-country cycle rides for charity.

“My alcoholism and drug dependency nearly killed me several times,” says Nigel. “ESF helped to ground me, and showed me the way forward. Personal Best gave me that first step and was the beginning of a new journey. My tutor was insightful enough to pick up on my great love of cycling and helped me to use that to rebuild my life. I’ve now been sober for 18 months and am looking forward to growing my business.”

In recognition of his achievements so far Nigel was the winner of the Personal Achiever of the Year (20+ winner) at the 2009 London ESF awards.