My mother cried when I won a place at university. It was vindication of the momentous decision taken ten years earlier to uproot the family from our homeland of Sri Lanka and emigrate to Australia so as to give me, an only child, an education that would expand my horizons, not shrink them.

The move was tough on all of us. For my father it meant sacrificing a career as an aircraft civil engineer who travelled the world. It is now in the annals of family folklore that while on a work trip to England, he dreamt of the winner of a horse race at Goodwood during a jet-lagged nap, and with his winnings, bought a forest green Morris Minor which he had shipped back to Sri Lanka.

I have a memory of him driving the car up our neighbour’s long drive, his hands on the wheel as he pretended to play the trumpet, my friends and I squealing with laughter. The car had to be left behind in Sri Lanka, and so did my father’s career.

In Australia, his qualifications were not recognized so he worked in a factory, operating machines that pressed blobs of black vinyl into flat, shiny records. Later, he sat an exam which got him a government desk job. Better, but nothing like what he had before. My mother also worked in a factory to begin with, standing on her feet all day, helping to assemble cars, until she, too, sat the civil service exam that qualified her for a secretarial job.

As for me, the change from a small, unsophisticated hillside town to brash, 1970s Sydney was a shock. There were plenty of Italians in my year group, but no others with brown skin. But it was not just children that could be mean. A woman I sat next to on a bus told me that at eight years old I was too old to believe in Santa Claus.

Still, I worked hard and in Year 6 was top of the school, my name engraved on a board that is still there today. At secondary school, I was a prefect and in the top ten. And then to Sydney University. When so much has been given up for you, you have to make all the sweat and many, many tears worthwhile.