Jonathan Sheppard @toryradio - Twitter Profile

almost 3 years ago

👏🏻👏🏻 Great stuff mate. Some of what you write echos very strongly! You have decency by the barrow load… something often sadly missing in some of our representatives.

Mike Rouse @mikerouse

about 3 years ago

I’m not perfect, but I’ve lived a real life. Growing up, I learned to code from library books whilst helping care for my mum from the age of 9 who had several strokes and epilepsy. To make ends meet as a family I’d help my step-dad deliver phone directories, and then started work first with a paper round, then a job at the local chip shop. Coding was a hobby, but I wanted to make it my work too. Nobody helped me. I took a business plan to venture capitalists once and they rejected me because I was 17, had no team and they thought my plan assumed that text messaging services would survive beyond 2003, and they saw WAP taking over. How wrong they were - but there was nobody in my life to tell me to keep pushing. My dad died from cancer in 2004, my step-father was abusive and my mother was never warm in the first place. I’ve been burgled, mugged, and I’ve been held hostage at gunpont during an armed robbery at the place I was living in 2009. The police didn't bother - it was a rough estate and could have been anyone, they said. I've witnessed and responded to a fatal road traffic crash involving a young man crossing the road. The sound of his body hitting the windscreen will haunt me forever, as will his final moments before dying. But I managed to get his brother, who was there and in shock, to sit with him and hold his hand for those last few moments. I've had a challenging life. I've been homeless and jumped from job to job. I've been on benefits and I've also worked as a public sector contractor. I've had highs and lows. Despite the many challenges, I’ve managed to find happiness and stability. My family is my bedrock, and I’m so proud to be a dad to two wonderful daughters. I’ve struggled with my weight since the age of 9 but I’m making progress, understanding and managing addictions to junk food and managing binge drinking through abstinence for instance. Give my parental issues, the people in my life who helped and inspired me the most were my Conservative Party colleagues. It was the now MP for Torbay @kevin_j_foster and @AllanRAndrews who got me a job at the Coventry Conservative Club when I was on my uppers. It was @toryradio who gave me my first break in politics as a web designer. It was @kentaylorcovent who first taught me how to be an agent and campaign manager. It was @montie and @samuelcoates who brought me in to television production at 18 Doughty Street Talk TV. And it was @IainDale who largely mentored me. It was @Donal_Blaney who has probably provided me with the greatest ladders of opportunity as a conservative. The list goes on. I've seen first-hand the compassion of Conservatives, and as someone who has climbed the ladders of opportunity extended for me, I recognise my responsibility to build ladders for other people and help them climb them. That’s why I applied to Coventry North West for the next general election. And it’s why I’ll apply for other seats if it doesn’t work out. I believe Parliament will benefit from people who have lived a full and challenging life - because we absolutely MUST defend the bottom rungs of the ladders, which appear to have been disappearing at an alarming rate over the last 30 years. Anyone suggesting I’ve not got ‘real’ life experience is in for a shock.

mikerouse's tweet photo. I’m not perfect, but I’ve lived a real life. Growing up, I learned to code from library books whilst helping care for my mum from the age of 9 who had several strokes and epilepsy.

To make ends meet as a family I’d help my step-dad deliver phone directories, and then started work first with a paper round, then a job at the local chip shop.

Coding was a hobby, but I wanted to make it my work too. Nobody helped me. I took a business plan to venture capitalists once and they rejected me because I was 17, had no team and they thought my plan assumed that text messaging services would survive beyond 2003, and they saw WAP taking over. How wrong they were - but there was nobody in my life to tell me to keep pushing. My dad died from cancer in 2004, my step-father was abusive and my mother was never warm in the first place.

I’ve been burgled, mugged, and I’ve been held hostage at gunpont during an armed robbery at the place I was living in 2009. The police didn't bother - it was a rough estate and could have been anyone, they said.

I've witnessed and responded to a fatal road traffic crash involving a young man crossing the road. The sound of his body hitting the windscreen will haunt me forever, as will his final moments before dying. But I managed to get his brother, who was there and in shock, to sit with him and hold his hand for those last few moments.

I've had a challenging life. I've been homeless and jumped from job to job. I've been on benefits and I've also worked as a public sector contractor. I've had highs and lows.

Despite the many challenges, I’ve managed to find happiness and stability. My family is my bedrock, and I’m so proud to be a dad to two wonderful daughters. I’ve struggled with my weight since the age of 9 but I’m making progress, understanding and managing addictions to junk food and managing binge drinking through abstinence for instance.

Give my parental issues, the people in my life who helped and inspired me the most were my Conservative Party colleagues.

It was the now MP for Torbay @kevin_j_foster and @AllanRAndrews who got me a job at the Coventry Conservative Club when I was on my uppers.

It was @toryradio who gave me my first break in politics as a web designer.

It was @kentaylorcovent who first taught me how to be an agent and campaign manager.

It was @montie and @samuelcoates who brought me in to television production at 18 Doughty Street Talk TV. And it was @IainDale who largely mentored me.

It was @Donal_Blaney who has probably provided me with the greatest ladders of opportunity as a conservative.

The list goes on. I've seen first-hand the compassion of Conservatives, and as someone who has climbed the ladders of opportunity extended for me, I recognise my responsibility to build ladders for other people and help them climb them.

That’s why I applied to Coventry North West for the next general election. And it’s why I’ll apply for other seats if it doesn’t work out. I believe Parliament will benefit from people who have lived a full and challenging life - because we absolutely MUST defend the bottom rungs of the ladders, which appear to have been disappearing at an alarming rate over the last 30 years.

Anyone suggesting I’ve not got ‘real’ life experience is in for a shock.

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Jonathan Sheppard

@toryradio

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