Like my parents before me, I arrived in another country with only as much as I could carry. It was colder than I was used to, and a thick coat was one of the first items I bought. I knew no one, everyone I loved was thousands of kilometres away, somewhere sunnier and warmer.
Without the promise of work, home or livelihood, I had packed up my life in coastal Sydney and moved to Birmingham – dubbed the “Venice of the north” for the canals snaking through the city and its suburbs.
