At 16 I was at the stage of wondering what direction I was going to go in. Having a vocation was important in my family. My father was a doctor, his father was a doctor and I felt a certain amount of pressure to go into medicine, though I had a feeling that wasn’t right for me. My family came over from Pakistan and there was that idea that you don’t just go to university to study, you have to become something.
It was probably around them that I decided I was going to go for the law. Not necessarily because I wanted to become a lawyer but I thought it would probably satisfy my family but was broad enough so that I might use it to do different things.
I was sent to boarding school in England directly from Saudi Arabia, where we were living at the time. It was quite a shock to the system. I had grown up in a very international environment, we were an expatriate family living in the Middle East, we had friends from all over the world. Then I arrived in the UK when I was 12. I had a list for summer clothes and winter clothes and I remember thinking – winter clothes?
When I look back on that time, especially after my father died, I realised what a significant period that was, much more than I realised back then. If my parents hadn’t sent me to boarding school I might not have gone to university in Britain and gone on to have the career that I’ve had.
I’m very close to my mother. Both parents had high expectations of me but my mother was the one I could confide in. When I came home for the holidays she would come to my room at night and sit on the edge of my bed, and I’d put my head in her lap and we’d just talk about what had happened that day.
It’s strange when you have a very close mother-daughter bond but then you don’t have any daughters yourself.
I think most women do turn into our mothers as we grow older. I think my husband lives in hope that I’ll become more like her, because she’s much more patient, tolerant and good-humoured than me. She’s been a big influence on how I parent my three sons.
