It finally dawned on me that perhaps the teachers were not just getting in the way of my good times, they were actually on my side
I arrived in Australia from the UK in 1983, at the sprightly age of 14. Unbeknown to me I was a historical figure, the very last of the £10 poms.
My parents and I were a family full of beans about a new life but just over a year later tragedy struck when my mother was killed in a car crash. My father and I were left to carry each other in grief. We were wildly unprepared. At only 35, my dad did his best to solo-parent while at school I went off the rails – all booze, sex and drugs. I couldn’t care less about education, had no interest in what lay beyond schooling and crashed out of year 12 with no grades.