First of all, let me introduce myself. My names karl, im 28, from Gloucester and ive recently been offered the financial opportunity to take my C And C+E licenses. Its something ive wanted to do now for the past 5 years but could never, fully afford to do them. Im a fully qualified bricklayer but about 2 years ago, something beautiful but unfortunate happened in my life, which meant i had to give up work and around that time, work had slowed down to a stop, due to the recession (which in a way was a blessing). I Took a year off to take care of things and then about 4 months ago, i re-took my Counterbalance and reach truck licenses and went back to working in a warehouse for a company called Ceva logistics. And just when i think ive found a stable income in these hard times, The company announces that they are moving 200 miles away because “business would be more practical”. A couple of days later, i received a phone call from a family member whod heard about this and offered to pay for me to do my HGV licenses. This for me is a huge step and its been something that ive thought long and hard about, my wife agrees that i should go for it if i`m really keen ( i am 100% up for the new challenge) And i have no disillusions of “how hard can it be, sitting behind a wheel allday”. 
Now then, to My point of posting.
Im so glad that i found this site because, ive been racking my brains as to which company to go with. I did about 2 days research on reputable driving schools and the 2 names that jumped out at me were, C&G europe, gloucester and Universal.
I did come across a company called Advantage and their write up was pretty engaging, offering all kinds of discounts for booking with them, choosing back to back courses and so on so (just for research purposes) i left my number on an email, asking for prices on courses.
With-in 2 hours, i had a friendly young guy phoning me up and asking me questions on how serious i was about wanting to be a lorry driver and what sort of “candidate” could i be for his company, how would i be paying for the course,blah blah blah…(i think he called it an “assessment” interview) But in all honestly, this guys sounded like he was just out of training shorts and was reading everything of a screen…EVERYTHING!
After about 1 hour (and me being 5 minutes l8 for work), he hit me with the funniest thing ive ever heard, ""so i understand, youll be paying with your wifes card, As a favour to you i could phone her up for you to get the payment and start the ball rolling!“” I aint being funny but i hadnt even said what course/courses i wanted to do, so i had to stop him right there and cut him dead…
I got talking to a lorry driver that comes into load up about it, l8r on in the day and he told me about this site and what it was all about and im so glad he did, this was the first post i looked at and it saved me from paying money that i obviously would have lost, had i have gone with this “monkey-broker” firm. The company i have chosen to go with is C&G because, they have good pass rates, good accreditations and most of the local drivers took their licenses with C&G and rave on how good they are. Plus the fact that it has also been listed on this site and as professional drivers, i`m more likely to take your word for it.
I have my medical booked for the 21st of may which is costing £76 (my local doctors). I`m told that its reasonable but could be a little bit cheaper. What do you guys think, Personally i think its wrong that we should pay for something that will eventually work towards getting us a job but, if i gotta pay, i gotta pay.
My job ends in 2 months time and as soon as it is, im going to grab the bull by the horns and book my course (ill take my theory test before hand just so i can jump straight in, provi)ding i pass.
As a final, i just want to say that any help that any of you have, will be greatly received and i look forward to a long and knowledgable time here. I know that this is the right place to be at the time of my new career venture. 
