Early Life
Colin Burgon was born in Leeds to lifelong Labour supporting parents. He was educated at St Charles RC Junior School, a Catholic school, and passed the eleven plus enabling him to attend the St Michael's Catholic College in Woodhouse. In later life Burgon said that alighting the bus wearing a grammar school uniform in Gipton made him aware of the class system and made him "deplore structures that inherently deny opportunity to people".
On leaving school Burgon trained as a teacher at Carnegie College, Leeds, then studied at Huddersfield Polytechnic. Burgon worked as a History teacher at Foxwood High School (which later became East Leeds Family Learning Centre and was demolished in 2009) a deprived secondary school in the Seacroft area of East Leeds, where he was an active member of the NUT union. Burgon left teaching and the NUT in 1987 to work for Wakefield District Council as a local government policy and research officer. He was also a research officer with the GMB Union. Burgon is an honourary member of the National Union of Mineworkers and was made so after his support for the 1984-85 miners' strike. Prior to being an MP, Burgon worked with Elmet miners and their families both during and after the strike.
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