BY any measure the story of Bill Robinson's life is an extraordinary one. The illegitimate product of an affair between an English au pair and a married French mayor, he left school at 16 with one O level.

Today aged 40 he is chief executive of heralded youth service Connexions Gloucestershire responsible for dispensing life advice to the county's 46,000 children. SNJ reporter David Gibbs met the Nailsworth resident...

Bill Robinson was born in Brighton in the middle of the swinging sixties.

His mother had returned pregnant to England with him following an affair with the one-time mayor of Cognac town Angoulme for whom she had been an au pair.

He would not meet his father Pierre until much later in life and it would be brief and only the once - in a hotel room in Paris.

It was also to prove timely. Shortly afterwards the father he had almost never known died. It seems to have been an unsatisfactory meeting but crucial nonetheless.

"He kind of denied everything, even at that stage," says Bill. "It was a strange experience. He didn't really want to know. But even though it was an abstract experience it was very important."

Bill subsequently made contact with one of his French half-brothers and is still in touch. His father's wife, though, remains ignorant of his existence to this day, he says.

Bill's mother moved on with her life, closing the door on her youthful dalliance with the Frenchman, moving to London, then Oxfordshire to marry happily and have two more boys.

Suddenly it was no longer just Bill and his mother - a change in family dynamics that affected him deeply.

That and a profound disillusionment with the education system saw him leave school and home at 16. He bummed around for the next five years or so in a series of deadbeat jobs.

"I left home because it was a difficult experience with the whole step-parenting thing, from an exclusive experience to suddenly having two little step brothers

"I also left home feeling quite disaffected. I didn't feel the education system had served me well," he says, bristling with barely concealed bitterness at the kind of teacher once all too common, who blighted children's lives.

"It's amazing what adults say to young people about what they are capable of and their capacity to meet their potential," he says. "Those messages stay with you for life and can shape your view of yourself and affect your self-esteem. "I think I had quite a long journey back to feel alright about myself."

After leaving school he drifted into care work and, although he did not know it at the time, a vocation in the social services was born. "I was always quite drawn to looking after people," he says.

"I didn't leave school with any idea of what I wanted to do," he recalls. "The careers advice at school was hopeless - some ageing bloke in a blazer and slacks got me to fill in a form and said I should be in the leisure trade."

He moved on to work in children's homes while taking A level evening classes. Then in the late 1980s the school dropout won a place at Bristol University to study for a diploma in social work.

In 1992, 12 years after leaving school he graduated with a masters degree in social work and joined the probation service, working in the harsh inner city areas of Bristol and Swindon.

He rose up through the management ranks before being drafted in for the launch of Connexions in 2002.

Now happily married with two young daughters and living in Cossack Square, Bill appears the model family man.

It would require a psychic or a therapist to guess at the trauma he waded through growing up but it informs everything he now does.

"It's made me really focussed on having stability and normality with my own family because the ordinary was not really part of my terms of reference," he observes.

"And what it has given me is an empathy coming into the job with young people facing sometimes quite significant personal obstacles, which they need help getting over before they can think about what course or career to do.

"There's so much pressure on young people to make critical life decisions at quite early stages, really."

And this is what Connexions is all about - helping to guide youngsters through the turbulent waters of early life.

The organisation is a nationwide government funded super-charged version of the old careers service.

It is split into what amount to 47 regional franchises with personal advisers offering information, advice and support to youngsters aged 13 to 19 (up to 25 for those with special needs and disabilities).

In the two years since it was launched the Gloucestershire branch, with Bill at its helm, has blazed a performance trail that has earned government plaudits for its excellence.

"We provide, first off, a universal service for all young people, guidance and support around their decision-making. We're there for everybody," he says.

"We've got strong links with schools and colleges providing opportunities for young people to access advice.

"But it is not a repackaged careers service. It's a different thing all together. It's one door way into a whole range of existing services."

And young people are orientated all the way through the organisation with youngsters at board level and on every interview panel, including Bill's.

"We are an organisation prepared to seriously reshape the focus and direction of our services on the basis of what young people are saying," he says proudly.

He believes Connexions can fill the gap in young people's lives he felt so profoundly in his own youth.

"There was no service offering somebody to really talk to me about what my potential was, what obstacles were in the way of that, many of which were personal, and what support systems were around to help that," he says. "I think Connexions is changing the landscape.

To contact Connexions Gloucestershire Stroud & Cotswolds office at 44 High Street call 01453 757133. For its Gloucester-based head office call 01452 833600.