MARK WORRALL

At the age of 10 everything changed when my father decided to emigrate to Australia. We boarded a ship on a misty February day and watched England disappear into the mist as we sailed off to an unknown world. We sailed for 5 weeks, lost a passenger overboard, which made me realise from an early age just how quickly life can be over, through numerous storms, and eventually to Adelaide in Australia... I always missed England and at 16 flew back to England by myself. It was scarey landing in Iran at Tehran and the plane being immediately surrounded by dozens of men a dressed all in black holding AK47s... I worked in a steel factory, sawing steel girders up all day on an industrial saw. I worked landscaping playing fields, digging trenches by hand up my ankles in mud and water. Next was industrial cleaning, 60ft up a wobbly ladder and in the roof of filthy factories over open vats of acid with no harness, they helped me decide to carry on studying.