EVERYONE remembers someone influential in their lives - the person who made the difference.

For Virginia Crosbie it was the teacher who recognised a love of learning in her and helped her through her eleven plus exams.

Many years later Virginia is now a successful businesswoman and the director of a group which aims to encourage more women to become MPs - and she credits that teacher, Paul Spendlove, with the beginnings of that success.

And when she made a recent return to her native Essex to give a speech at the North Essex Association, Virginia was reunited with Paul.

“I remember he asked me what a shape on the board was and when I said it was a polygon he said ‘no, it’s an empty parrot’s cage’ and I was enchanted.

“Paul gave me a love of maths and a love of learning.

“He sat with me every Monday for a year going through 11 plus papers and getting into Colchester County High School for Girls transformed my life,” she explains.

Virginia, who was born in Maldon and grew up in Tiptree, is proud of every job she has done - and there are few who can boast having worked as a dolphin trainer alongside legendary television presenter Terry Nutkin.

But this is exactly what she did as a teenager in her holidays - working with dolphins Sooty and Clyde on a regular basis at Woburn Safari Park.

“We would have parties for the children and they would get to meet the dolphins.

“One child actually jumped in before we could stop her but she got out fine,” remembers Virginia, whose mum worked at the Tiptree Jam Factory.

It is as far removed from politics as any job could be but at the heart of what Virginia believes is important is people and meeting new faces is not something she finds hard.

“I had moved seven or eight times by the time I was a teenager and didn’t find it hard to make new friends so I think that has stood me in good stead really,” she explains.

After graduating she decided to work in the healthcare sector, joining GlaxoWellcome and working in biotechnology before moving to the city as a healthcare analyst within the banking industry.

Now married with three children, Virginia says she wanted to be there for them when they were small and put a pause on her banking career, becoming the chair of a charity funding research into premature birth and miscarriage.

Now a maths tutor working with students from across the world, Virginia is heading up a group of people who are seeking to raise the profile of women in politics and get more elected.

Having become involved in the Conservative Women’s Organisation her life changed just over a year ago when she was introduced to Baroness Anne Jenkin, founder of the Women2Win group.

“She was introducing the Ask her to stand campaign asking for anyone interested in a career in political life to come forward and I put my hand up and signed up for the training the next day,” she says.

Both she and Lady Jenkin are straightforward about how challenging the training to become a parliamentary candidate is - it involves an intensive course filled with interviews and on the spot situations.

And when she was halfway through this course a snap election was called.

Virginia stood as candidate in Rhondda, Wales, near to where her grandfather had been a miner for almost 50 years.

Despite not being expected to win the seat, she achieved the greatest swing in voters, some 58 per percent, which made her more determined to make it to parliament in the future.

And while she was not successful this time, the woman who had been director of the Women2Win campaign was, and this left a vacancy.

Having accepted the role as its director Virginia and Baroness Jenkin are serious about finding like-minded women, who care about their communities and have got to the point in their lives where they have time, and the inclination, to give something back.

“It is particularly good for women whose children are older, who have had a career of one kind and are looking for another.

“I think you have to be quite a resilient person though,” she says.

Which she certainly proved during the campaign when refusing to be put off by not a single person turning up to her meet and greet drinks - although it did transpire later one of her opponents had invited Hugh Grant to his.

Community and a sense of place is clearly hugely important to Virginia.

Fiercely proud of her Essex roots, it is perhaps the first thing which helped she and Baroness Jenkin forge a fast and easy friendship, Virginia also feels a strong sense of community to the part of London she has called home for the past 20 years.

She can see the Grenfell Tower from her home and when the dreadful fire unfolded in June last year, days after the general election, she leapt into action to get support for the residents and their families.

She e-mailed friends asking for donations, with envelopes filled with cash being dropped through her letterbox that day.

Three days after the fire she contacted the Prime Minister directly to ask her to visit.

“I felt she needed to meet the residents face to face and they needed to know she cared.

“I arranged for her to meet a group of 16 residents and volunteers in our local church hall.

“She then invited us to Number 10 on the Saturday and I woke up on the Sunday to be told by my daughter I was on the front of all the national newspapers,” she explains.

Determined to help the young people in particular, Virginia championed them and urged others to offer financial and practical support in giving them work placements and summer work experience.

“I am a mentor myself so I really want other people to have a go at doing that too. You have no idea the difference it can make,” she says.

Now she is throwing herself into her role as director of Women2Win.

She says it is more important than ever to get more women elected - particularly in the Conservative party where women have not been as well rep-resented in parliament.

When the group was started in 2005 by Baroness Jenkin and Theresa May there were only 17 Conservative Women MPs - 9 per cent of all Conservative MPs.

Currently that figure is now up to 21 per cent but Virginia, and Anne, are determined to increase this - not least by adding herself to that list.

“My goal is to be an MP at the next election. It is my love of community that led me into politics.

“It is so important that other women know they can do it too,” she adds.