Mount Racks

Harrison, 41, and a mother of four, has built up businesses that combine commercial opportunity with social change. Action for Employment (A4e) is her largest enterprise. It teaches skills to the long-term unemployed and gives support and guidance to small businesses. ‘If what I do doesn’t have a social angle, then I do not see a reason for getting out of bed,’ she says. ‘I have always seen business like that ? it is about creating new things and changing the world. ‘Entrepreneurs are risk-takers, they are the people who create something out of nothing. As long as I can remember, I was always finding new ways to create interesting enterprises. ‘My first tuck shop was just a little venture, you know, some small sweets sold to my classmates. But by the time I was 15, I had really changed the way it worked and I was making some real money out of it too. It was fantastic. ‘ Harrison admits that as a child, she was always up to something. ‘When I was growing up we had a great big, old house that we could ill-afford, so there was never any extra money. If I wanted a bike, it was off to the scrapyard to find the parts to build one. I used to think why me? Now I thank god for all the madness that was my household; for my dad, who always encouraged me to be self-sufficient and do what it took to get on in the world. ‘ At 18, Harrison abandoned her ambition to study medicine because of poor A-level results. ‘It was a big shock to everyone, including myself, but it made me realise that I didn’t actually want to become a doctor,’ she says. ‘I had spent my whole life fixing things or building things with my dad, but it wasn’t until my A-levels went wrong that I considered engineering as a career. After all, girls were supposed to be nursery nurses ? I was allowed to be a doctor because I was clever ? but really, boys were engineers and nobody would marry you if you did something different. ‘ Disarmingly, Harrison looks me straight in the eyes and declares: ‘I realised that the way to get ahead was to find a way round the rules. ‘ Then she rolls her head back with laughter. ‘To everyone’s disbelief, I simply called the university and told them how much I wanted to study engineering and asked if they would agree to see me. Of course, they did. ‘ A week later, a 19-year-old, leather-clad biker-girl, rode to Bradford University, ‘L’ plates attached, with barely time to wash the mud off her face. She excelled at university and had her own

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