WHEN Allison Corbett says she can't stand crisps, it is with the conviction of someone who spent nearly eight years working in a crisp factory. The 35-year-old from Hartlepool needed the money and made some good friends, but she knew there had to be more to life. She often dreamt about training to become a nurse, but thought her lack of qualifications ruled her out.

While she got five GCSE passes at her local comprehensive school, any thoughts of staying on evaporated when she found herself pregnant at 17. Eight years on she was a 25-year-old married woman with three young children.

To keep her brain ticking over, she decided to enrol on adult education courses run by Hartlepool Borough Council. "I worked weekends at the factory, so during the week I had time to study. I did computer literacy and information technology, then I got qualifications in health and safety and office practice," she says. But, all the time, the idea of a career in nursing lurked in the back of her mind.

Allison says she blames her welder husband, Bill, for her making the move which has opened up such bright horizons for her.

"He'd just got back from a hospital appointment and said 'you keep on saying you fancy nursing and you are going to do it when the children are grown up, well, here's the phone number, do something about it now'," says Allison. So she enrolled on an access to health course at Hartlepool College of Further Education, with the intention of going into nursing.

At the same time, word began to spread that a different kind of medical school was being planned at Durham University's impressive new campus, which was taking shape at Stockton. Aimed at recruiting people from the North-East who have the intellectual ability to study and practise medicine, but who do not necessarily come from a traditional higher education background, the course reflects the Government's ambition to recruit and train more home-grown doctors, to meet the growing needs of the NHS.

While thousands more doctors are being recruited from overseas, Health Secretary Alan Milburn has made it plain that he wants to offer more opportunities to people from a broader range of backgrounds in this country to train, or retrain, as doctors.

Allison quickly picked up on the fact that something fairly amazing was happening on her doorstep and began to wonder how far she could go. What if she ended up as DOCTOR Allison Corbett?

"I found out about the medical course being planned at Stockton and spoke to a few tutors. They said that, going on the standard of work I was producing, they thought I could do it. They thought it would be very hard but, with the right attitude, it was possible," she recalls. Officials at the university told Allison it would be another year before the course was up and running, and asked about the content of the course she was taking at the FE college.

"There was no science in it, which was what I needed. She told me I could either go and do science A levels or do the full-time biomed course," says Allison.

Although she worried whether she could cope with chemistry - a subject she hated at school - she took the plunge and enrolled in the university's biomed foundation course.

"It was very hard, I wouldn't pull the wool over anyone's eyes, I did find it really difficult at times," Allison says. But with the encouragement of her tutors and fellow students on the course, Allison made steady progress.

To add to her nerves, Allison was one of a handful of prospective medical students to be introduced to Alan Milburn when he visited the gleaming new campus, giving his personal endorsement to the project.

Even talking about the possibility of passing her exams and taking up her place made Allison feel uneasy ahead of her crucial exams.

In May, she sat the biomed exams and nervously waited for the results, knowing her entire future life depended on the outcome. In July, Allison was called in and told she had passed and had a place on the new medical school course, at the Stockton campus.

"I just had such a sense of disbelief. I had to wait until the piece of paper landed on my doormat in August before it really sank in," recalls Allison.

She admits that even now she is seized with self-doubt. Is she doing the right thing? Is she going to fall flat on her face?

"I think I am always going to feel like that at times," she says.

Allison has now started the medical school foundation year proper and, a couple of weeks into the course, she can't think of anywhere she would rather be.

"Every new subject we go into, I think this is fantastic, this is really good, then we move on and I think this is fantastic as well," says Allison.

If she stays the course, and it will be six years before she can qualify as a doctor, she will have to decide whether she wants to work as a general practitioner or to specialise in a particular field.

"People ask me what kind of doctor do you want to be and, to be honest I can't really answer that at the moment, it is too early."

Allison is keen to stress her success would not have been possible without the support provided by her husband, her parents and her network of friends.

"It has taken a lot of hard work, commitment and planning, not only on my part but from my husband, my children and the rest of my family.

"It's quite simple really, if it wasn't for Bill, if it wasn't for my parents and my friends I wouldn't be able to do this," says Allison, who admits that it has been a struggle to afford annual course fees of £1,075 plus an essential reading list of just nine books, costing £300.

Job losses at steelmakers Corus hit her family earlier this year when Bill, a welder for many years, was himself made redundant. He has found contract work elsewhere in the area and the couple are keeping their fingers firmly crossed about the future.

If she makes it and qualifies as an NHS doctor Allison will eventually earn more than £40,000 a year, but it is the job satisfaction angle that really appeals to her.

Allison says the idea of being paid to help and heal the people of the North-East is a dream job.

"If I can get there is will be so rewarding," she says.

But she is certain that her roots will keep her close to home.

"My family is here, everybody I think is dear to me is here. I can't see me moving anywhere else. This is my home, this is where I will be staying," says Allison