Danny Douglas was an activist in the further education sector from incorporation in 1992 until 2010. He travelled the length and breadth of the country trouble shooting and dealing with “situations” in colleges raised by students and their representative bodies. He now does something completely different, running buses for a living, as well as being a director of the largest independent Coop in the country. However he has many reflections on the student experience and the structural issues of the culture war within the FE sector – the echoes of which have had some profound implications for higher education today.