A Day in the Life of an Expert by Experience

My name is Farz and I was born in Iran. I left my home country at the age of nine years to get to the UK with my mother and sister. Due to political strife going on in Iran at the time, my mother was under great stress during her pregnancy with me and one could say that I was born as a stressed baby. I was put on medication between the ages of three and seven. I don't know what the medication was, but I was told later that I had a temper and couldn't talk at all. I could only stutter and it was apparently so severe that I couldn't say the word “mum” until I was around six or seven years old.

I was consequently a very lonely kid, isolated from everyone, couldn't communicate or make friends. I spent most of the time by myself, breaking my toys so I could fix them again but, somehow, I never did. I loved toy cars and learning to tell the time but one could say that my childhood was mapped out before I was born.

My dad left Iran first in order to come to the UK to sort a safe new place for us as a family. He was unsuccessful and in fact, deported back to Iran, despite he and his family being in danger there. My father was so worried that he decided to send me with my mum as well as my sister this time, thinking we would be safer and less likely to be deported. Our journey plan was complicated, but we hoped it would not take more than three days. We first went to Kuala Lumpur, then on to Singapore, and eventually as far as Taiwan. In the end, it took us four months to get to the UK. We really were in dire straits then as we only had enough money to keep us going for the first three days.

When we finally arrived in the UK, quite exhausted and frightened, hungry and cold, with no belongings, we claimed asylum and became refugees. We were housed in bed and breakfast accommodation in Hackney for a bit, before being moved to a house. We had no money for the first two weeks, relying entirely on the breakfast that was given every morning. It took two weeks to get some money from t