This isn’t the only time I’ve planned to leave Australia, though it has certainly been the most contested. My mother says fate has something to do with it. I was young the first time; I was only 19.

The dream was to work in motorsport, a fantasy sparked after watching the B-grade film Catch that Kid. The movie featured a much younger but already sullen-faced Kristen Stewart, and that guy from High School Musical who wasn’t Zac Efron (Corbin Bleu?). The film was picked out by my younger brother, Yasseen, in our local Blockbuster knock-off. It was part of a short-lived family tradition of hiring a movie once a week, for all the family to enjoy. Yasseen’s choices were often eccentric at best, but this movie introduced me to the world of go-karting, and the idea of driving fast. I fell in love with the sport, and with the high school musical guy who was not Zac Efron (Corbin Bleu). My parents were less in love with the idea of funding a career driving fast, so I turned my attention to a more realistic option: designing the cars. To design, I needed to move to England.