Until 1944, higher education was fee paying and beyond the pockets of working class people. As a result, their children left school at 14 years of age, to find a job for the rest of their lives. And even the brightest could not find a place on the ladder to success. But the Butler Act provided free higher education for boys and girls from all backgrounds. And in bankrupt, post-war Britain, it was a landmark achievement that transformed the class system. In Greasy Poles and Glass Ceilings, the author describes being born into a family of farm labourers who could not read and write. But how the Butler Education Act helped him to grammar school and university, and into the professional middle classes.