Pat (61), of Carr House Farm, Barnoldswick, has completed a BA (Hons) in photographic media at East Lancashire Institute of Higher Education (School of Integrated Arts).

As part of her final-year work, she entered the D&AD competition with Vanessa Norwood, of Burnley, and the pair were delighted to discover their work, a photographic brief to heighten awareness of Alzheimer's disease, had been nominated for one of the prestigious awards.

Pat travelled to the prestigious awards event in London and said: "It was a quite high-key affair, all the top designers were there from the IT and design industry."

Pat admitted the award came as a complete shock to the pair and added: "As far as we were concerned, it was just a brief we had to complete for the degree. We submitted it and then forgot about it."

Pat ran the boarding kennels with her husband, Paul, for more than 20 years before closing.

"I had always been interested in art and took a GCSE at Nelson and Colne College before doing the art foundation course there," said Pat.
"I was leaning more and more towards photography by that stage and decided to go on for a degree."

Pat is looking forward to developing her career and has already been offered several commissions. "I am more interested in the environment and issues like Alzheimer's rather than hard advertising. But I am getting my own website and we will see what comes from that," she said.