Trudi’s never been a ‘girlie girl’. She’s always enjoyed doing things that challenged her in one way or another, starting at school where she found she was good at sports and joined an athletic club as well as being an Air Cadet in her spare time.

Following this, Trudi took part in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme and completed the challenges required to achieve the Bronze and Silver Awards, having a great time on the weekend expedition to Bosworth Battlefield and enjoying a whole week in the beautiful Peak District.

The things Trudi enjoyed most about the Awards were being outdoors and getting mucky, cooking and eating campfire food then washing the pots in a nearby stream, and on one occasion being chased by cows! Basically, she loved it because it was completely different to ‘everyday’ life. She was able to bring her skills of map-reading and generally ‘being jolly and keeping up spirits’ to the team, and felt that the experiences ‘toughened her up’ and improved her confidence.

Trudi doesn’t hesitate to recommend the Duke of Edinburgh’s Scheme to other young people. She says it’s character building, teaches you tolerance, makes you appreciate nature, creature comforts and other people, and above all - it’s GREAT FUN!

After leaving school, Trudi worked in catering and as a Technical Sales Engineer in a local engineering firm. She’s recently left this job for a career in the Prison Service, again seeking new challenges with a desire to learn new skills that she can use to hopefully make a difference to someone’s life.

She’s absolutely loving her new job so far. The initial training period means she rotates through one week at a Young Offenders’ Centre followed by three weeks at college for the next two months or so – then she’s a fully fledged Prison Officer!

She’s done so much stuff in so little time her head is spinning, but here’s a taster... self defence, disarming guns and knives, restraining people, radio transmission, hostage situations, dealing with self harm, suicide and mental health issues. Then there’s all the usual communication stuff that goes with the job, dealing with people, and security stuff (which she’d have to shoot you if she told you cos she’s had to sign the Official Secrets Act!).

All the people she’s met so far are lovely and helpful and all work as one big team... not something she’s seen in any of her previous jobs - you press one alarm button and 50 officers are behind you within three to four minutes all ready to kick some ass. It’s well cool.

There’s also a physical training aspect that goes with the job – an hour circuit in the gym which absolutely killed her, and each of the restraint sessions at the college are 4 hours long, so in 8 days she’s already done 16 hours in a gym... not quite got that six pack yet, but working on it! She’s lost half a stone in a couple of weeks, but with all the gym exercise and 3 flights of stairs to go up to unlock everyone you can see why!

The college side of the training is good too – Trudi’s been achieving above-average results in the written tests, she’s made friends with some great people, and has found out that everyone in the prison service is a complete p*** head so she knows a few of you would fit in great!

The first week working with young offenders has been a real eye-opener for Trudi. Bearing in mind that these lads are only aged between 18 and 21 years, some of them are still quite scary. Others are quite cheeky though, and are ok with you if you’re ok with them. She’s already had a trip to the hospital handcuffed to a prisoner and watched a visitor try and bring drugs in – never a dull moment! 

The people she’s working with are a great bunch. They take the p***, but Trudi can give as good as she gets so she should feel quite at home!

In her spare time, Trudi loves gardening and is looking forward to growing her own veg this year. She enjoys spending time with her two German Shepherds, friends and family, and is really into Formula One racing – one of her wishes in life is to try it out for real! She’d also like to walk a Himalayan mountain trail and explore a few far-flung interesting places such as the Maldives and Mauritius.

Her heroine is Dawn French. Trudi admires her attitude to life in general – ‘this is who I am, like it or lump it!’

Find out more about joining the Prison Service here.