Gordon Kell, 75, becomes Newcastle University postgraduate

Jul 7 2009 by Katy Simpson, The Journal

A 75-YEAR-OLD has graduated as one of Newcastle University’s oldest students after seizing the opportunity created by an illness that left him in a coma for three weeks.

Inspirational Gordon Kell is celebrating completing a Master of Literature research degree, that focused on the use of Chinese labourers across the world from 1840 to the First World War.

The grandfather-of-seven, from Low Fell, Gateshead, went back into education last year for the first time since he left school at the age of 14.

He made that decision after he recovered from an illness which caused internal bleeding, and left him in intensive care for eight weeks and in a coma for three.

Finding his mobility suddenly restricted, the previously active and independent pensioner was determined to turn his limitations into an opportunity and so decided to immerse himself in books.

Although he had not been to university previously, Mr Kell was accepted as a postgraduate student at Newcastle University as a result of his professional experiences working in laboratories across the globe.

He became the second oldest student to have graduated from Newcastle University, pipped only by a 76-year-old who was awarded a PhD in July 2002. Mr Kell’s studies gave him the chance to pursue a lifelong interest in world history, a passion that first took hold when he joined the Army as a teenager.

He worked as a medical orderly on the Empire Windrush, the ship which carried hundreds of people from the West Indies to start a new life in the United Kingdom, before moving into the pharmaceutical industry in the 1960s.