Debra Kelly is Professor Emerita in the School of Humanities at the University of Westminster and a Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Global Cultures Institute at King’s College London. In this guest blog, she marks Update Your Will Week 2025 by sharing details about her own journey and her reasons for leaving a legacy gift to the Sutton Trust.

I’ve long admired the work of the Sutton Trust, having first come across the organisation during my co-directorship of Routes into Languages, a language widening participation programme that worked with schools and universities across London, which had strong alignment opening up more opportunities for students from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

Having spent my career in academia, I have witnessed the grammar schools, bursaries, unemployment and housing benefits, and career progression routes which I benefited from as a student in the 1970s being increasingly closed down.

I grew up in a town in the industrialised West Midlands, the daughter of a factory worker and a school dinner lady. Home became a council flat in one of the new tower blocks but for me, a new world opened up through some wonderful and committed teachers. I had an offer to be tutored for the Oxbridge entrance exams free of charge but in the late 1970s there was only one place for me: London.

I did end up at a London university. It was enough of a culture shock to be in seminars and lectures amongst mainly middle-class students (much more middle-class than the wealthier and socially connected pupils in my grammar school). My energy, however, was focused on my studies and on exploring all that London had to offer.

My path through university was not always smooth and after graduating, I just couldn’t work out the codes to gain the social capital needed to get a good graduate job. I didn’t know how to do it and had no connections who could help, advise, or support me. A range of jobs and people eventually led me back to higher education, but it took a long time to attain real social and economic mobility.

I became increasingly determined throughout my career to do what I could to counter this social injustice and to offer ideas, opportunities, support and understanding to young people with such high potential. For me, social mobility comes in many forms, with the ability to use education to enhance your own life and that of others around you.

Alongside my husband, who has made his own social mobility journey, I’ve chosen to leave a legacy gift to the Sutton Trust — an established charity with which I share a set of values, and which I believe has the ability to continue tackling educational disadvantage, social injustices, and barriers to social mobility.

In the current socio-economic climate, change requires financial commitment.

If, like us, you would like to contribute to the work of The Sutton Trust to break the link between socio-economic background and opportunity, you can do so by updating your Will to leave a legacy gift. Find out more information about how you can do that.

The opinions of guest authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Sutton Trust