My family lived in rural Kashmir. A beautiful place, but little work. There was a shortage of labour in the UK so Pakistanis were invited to come to the UK. Big strapping guys from rural Kashmir were thought to be particularly suitable for heavy manual labour jobs such as the steel mills! So my father came in 1968 and worked for a steel plating company in Slough. In 1984 I came to join him with my mother and three siblings. After a week in Slough I was packed off to visit an aunty in Sheffield. I liked Sheffield, because it was green and hilly like Kashmir. So I stayed and went to school here and a year later the rest of the family joined me.

School wasn’t wholly successful for me because of language barriers, but at college I studied leisure and tourism and motor vehicle engineering. Now I drive a taxi and work voluntarily as a football coach, for the One Nation gym and at the Madina Mosque.

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