My name is Catherine cough and this is season three of relatively the podcast all about potentially the longest relationships of your life.
I'll be bringing siblings together to talk about the connections they have as adults, as well as what it was like growing up together. This week we're talking to Dr. Nick Arif, who's a GP but also the resident doctor on ITV and BBC, and her criminal barrister, brother Irrfan.
This is his first podcast, hear me say hello, hello, how are you?
I feel like she's bossing you around. Even now.
She always does why change the habit of a life time,
which I'll also talk to them separately to get a more private take on the relationship.
I was about five years old. When my parents asked me to when my mom said to me, you're going to look after him. He's your responsibility
had not been for her example. When we were growing up. I don't think I could have gone you know, I don't think I could have gone on to achieve the sorts of things that I have now achieved. I'm his biggest fan and he knows that. Brothers
and sisters are never straightforward. The family moved to the UK from Pakistan when the gap was a little girl, allowing her to swap cotton fields for the classroom. their father's an Imam, the longest serving in the country. In fact, a passionate believer in education, she and her equally accomplished brother, talk about leaving home making a new one dodgy careers advice sibling respect the Spice Girls and Tintin. But we really set the tone in this episode, by describing their roles in the family before hearing the story of their flight to Heathrow, one rainy April,
I'm Big Sister, Mum, Dad, friend all rolled into one. I'm the eldest of five. And that comes with a lot of responsibility. That is part of being an immigrant family that first came to this alien country many, many years ago.
She is your typical, older sibling in the family. She has been very much the third parent, for us for the younger siblings. And she set the standards from a young age in terms of you know what to achieve and how to achieve it. Now I often say this to her that had it not been for her example, when we were growing up, I don't think I could have gone on to achieve the sorts of things that I have now achieved.
So if Nygaard is the archetypal, older sister, what role do you play in the family? Are you the responsible one, the party planner, the serious admin guy, what's your particular groove?
I think I'm probably the mediator in the family. I'm probably the person who you can have a serious conversation with.
I asked him if and to describe what his role is in the family. And I wonder if you could imagine what he might have said, Nick, get
the deck of the pack was yeah, he's just the most sensible one. That's the only way I can put it. Is that what you said to you? Well, my sense yeah. I
said, I'd like the dad. My kids come to like to think that I'd be the most responsible like, yeah,
and this isn't this might sound morbid, but it's not really morbid. It's, I've often thought that God forbid if something happens to me and my husband, then our fan would be the guardian of my kids. Like that's
gnarly. That's very nice.
Yeah, you did.
Do you have any nicknames for your brother?
No, but they have nicknames for me. Go on. So I'm not calling to get in the house. I'm called by d by d is a word that means sister,
which is a term of respect in our language, which means dear sister,
if you're older, you never call them by name. So Eman calls are found by John and so forth.
My sister My eldest a nigga is the only one that gets we were calling me her fan.
Our fan many, many years ago, shorten that to barge, which makes me feel like a massive ship. Barge coming down.
It's like a wide load really to wide
load. Then as a term of endearment because I am, I won't deny this I'm a strict sister. When it comes to education and achievement. I am very strict. So that's why I said very early on. I'm the mum and the dad and everything rolled into one. He then started calling me pops
Oh, I didn't really call you pause him ran really called you pops it
And then you started to call it but I would
do it just to annoy you then I would do it just to annoy you but my my thing has always been very respectful I always call you big budge you know when we're having a laugh and a joke face normally but
yeah, so I'm known as barge wide load and pots, which is basically manly man.
So tell me, um, how old were you when you came and where did you come from?
I was nine years old. And we came from Pakistan, with subsidy farmers back in Pakistan. My grandparents grew mangoes and sugar canes, and we would sort of swim in the little canals that we used to have a lot of the time, I would have to accompany my mother to the fields and she would pick cotton. So my earliest memory of my brother Irfan is when she asked me to look after him in said fields while she was doing her work, and I was sort of big sister role. So in going, I will look after him and make sure that basically he survived the day, you must have been teaching. I was about five years old, when my parents asked me to when my mom said to me, you're gonna have to look after him. He's your responsibility.
And as a mum Now, does that make you sort of come up a bit short and think, wow.
Yeah, I think the kids these days, I feel like an old person saying, children these days have it's so easy. My son, my eldest is 11. And I still sort of think many, many times and before I have to leave him in responsible of his siblings, I mean, he's brilliant. He's a very sensible, 11 year old. But I've got a seven year old and a three year old. And I have to sort of say to him, is this something that he is capable of? He's great at just looking after them. But yeah, those days that it was a whole other kettle of fish.
And so what about your childhood there? Describe it a little bit more. You're on a farm, There's cotton. What else was it like?
I just remember being absolutely free to do what I wanted. I had my grandparents house. So my dad's family, and then also my mom's family, and they lived in the same village. And a lot of these buildings were mud hut building. So it's cool 38 foot there. In the Punjab area, we speak Punjabi fluently, still now at home. It was lovely being able to have all these groups of cousins who were just also my best friend as well. And then I remembered my father. So my father is an imam. He left Pakistan, once he got his master's in religious education to lead the Muslim community in Buckinghamshire, in Cheshire, because there was no Imam here at the time.
And then my father would come back to Pakistan and visit, you know, you know, once a year for about a month each time. And over the successive years, I and my younger brother Imran were born.
And he was just this mythical figure in my life. I never really got to know him until I moved to the UK. And then gradually, I got to know him as Oh, this is my father.
So my mother then had to leave her siblings and her nieces and nephews and her parents not knowing whether she would go back where she would return or at what time when, when she was effectively moving here with a husband, who was still relatively a stranger to her.
And my father said to my mum, we're going to England, and it's my mother had thought that this was going to be spring tight. And so he said to her, it's a beautiful country full of greenery. You'll love it there. It's absolutely amazing. So she just thought fabulous, we're going in April, it's going to be gorgeous weather. So she dressed us all in summery clothes. And I remember having this pink summery dress on with flip flops. And we arrived at Heathrow and I can't tell you that. It was biblical rain. It was pouring it down. I think there's a miniature flood that's my mother's got my me, my other brother our fan. And then she's got a cradling my third sibling Imran. And she just was aghast if I'm violent. And she said, I just remember her being very, very annoyed that this was how much rain day was
that she talked about the journey from Pakistan to Chesham when you will move over to join your dad. I wonder. I mean, you were very, very little. But I wonder if you have any snatched memories of either the journey or early days here, please. I
think I was about three years old three to half when we came here. But I do remember asking my mum, when we came in from Pakistan. Did we sort of stop off at a hotel because I remember we were there was a flight and then we came off the flight and I just have this vague memory of being a really young boy walking down some plane stairs, because it wasn't you know that you had to actually walk on the tarmac to get to the plane. And then having having breakfast in sort of some kind of weird environment and that time to me, and she confirmed to me that we did catch a flight from from Milton. And we stayed overnight in Karachi and then got a flight from there to Heathrow and she was really surprised that I was able to remember that.
That is amazing. Now then, how did how did your life change? than if your nine year old Nick acts, you were, you know, roaming free with a gaggle of cousins and swimming and irrigation ditches and eating mangoes or whatever. And then you arrive what in the home counties in England? How did your life change?
Well, firstly, it just rained like this country is not friendly with. But I didn't care. Oh my goodness, it was just this amazing adventure that we had gone on. And I had my siblings with me, but it was just more the fact that that I would be sent to school was the thing that really sort of made me so happy. Back in Pakistan. Traditionally, girls aren't sent to school. Unfortunately, that is still the case in some village areas at the moment, when weather often tells me how my male cousins would go off to school. And for hours and hours and hours, I would cry, and lament the fact that I've been left behind. So she tried to think about how we could move to the city. But then that also became slightly problematic because of safety issues about sending girls to school in the city. And so the fact that I could come to the UK, and there's a sense of safety, and freedom, meant that my father was willing and happy and encouraging me and my mum had to go to school was just this immense liberation. And when I got into school, the teachers were so kind, and they were willing to teach me this new language, as long as I nodded my head, and I learned the word yes, very quickly. And the children in the class who also speak Punjabi as well, they were really keen to teach me the language, dare I say it was mostly swear words that I learned. Nothing changes, nothing, nothing changes, honestly. And then I was like, Okay, I can't say these words, because the teachers will be horrified. But I'm
pretty presumably by the time he started school and followed in their footsteps, that was all quite sort of normal for you. You didn't have to do that transition that she did from not going to school and crying about it to going to school and being overjoyed. It was just quite a smooth passage.
Yeah, I mean, the kids are very resilient. Now in the in the early years, they tend to go with the flow. I wasn't coming with this baggage of memories from Pakistan that my sister was, you know, for me, it was as if my life and started in the UK. And that's all, you know, remembered.
So your mum, like, despite being slightly misled, perhaps about the weather in this country, given that she was keen for you to learn, it sounds like in terms of opportunities for her female child that she won overall bringing you hear?
Yeah, she was she was really, I actually reflect back on I think that there was, there's two sides of my mother, she was incredibly lonely when she came here. And before she left Pakistan, she recorded all her siblings and her parents voices on a tape recorder. And she would listen to their stories. And we would hear them we would hear the voices of our uncles and aunts and and you know, nein, nein, nein, nein our grandparents. And that was our link back to home. But I was getting on with my life in the UK and learning English and getting to know my friends here. But now older they get at this age reflects back on that because I do remember her playing the recordings over and over and over again. Because it was a good four or five years before she went back to Pakistan. Once we came here. She was incredibly homesick. And now I recognise that. But also, she was really excited that her children were learning something getting an education, and this was for free. In Pakistan, you'd have to pay for an education. So she was getting her children were thriving. And it meant that slowly over time, unfortunately, inevitably, this gap appeared between us
not understanding the culture here, not knowing the language, not being able to have the freedoms that you would associate with when you're a self sufficient, independent person. She was utterly, you know, dependent entirely on my father. And my father's role was quite demanding. And he was asked for the home quite a lot, being a leader in his own community. And so my mother, I imagined with us kids for the first five years must have been incredibly lonely. And I can only recognise that now and see that, you know, which is why we sort of, like now do whatever we can to make sure that we were on my mother quite a lot. Yeah, you know, she, she, she she kind of made all these sacrifices in the early years.
Yeah, I mean, imagining sort of 1819 2024 year old your mum, what a selfless woman to see that her children would benefit so hugely from something which was so difficult for her.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, she could have dug her heels in she could have said, No, I'm not I'm not leaving my family here. In Pakistan, and you know, why do I want to go to some unknown country where I don't know anybody don't know anything uncomfortable where I am, you know, she she had a very good life that she she was supported by all of her family. And she came from a rude large family, six brothers, six sisters,
where she had a village to raise a child literally,
at all, and so all of that support gone overnight, where she single handedly than raising three children effectively.
There was a gap between the Western ideology and also what she had grown up from Pakistan and the way that girls should behave. And sort of finding that middle ground has been choppy at times. But I think we do pretty well. She's very understanding. But the concept at the time was was that the idea is is for the girls is to just get to the point where they're 1718 or 19, education wasn't the priority it was the idea was that will get them married off. We live in a culture in in, in the UK, in some communities, and I'm part of that community where the parents have this innate feeling. And it's a cultural feeling more than anything, is that you get your girls married off early, because that's your fault as far as it's translated as responsibility. So the idea is my parents would have this responsibility hanging over them saying, well, we need to get in the gaps married off as soon as possible. Whereas I was very much acutely aware that now I know the words that says patriarchy, and misogyny, I want to get away from this. And the quickest way to get away from this was to get into education.
Okay, so then when did the idea dawn on you, you know, what, not only am I going to come over here, learn English settle in, integrate bridge the gap between my siblings in this world as an English primary, middle and secondary school in my home life and my mum as an Imams wife's world, but also I'm going to aim really high. I'm kind of a doctor. When did that happen? Oh,
I'll tell you a really funny story. So I learned English first in the family. And I was the oldest one so I would have to translate a parents evening for my parents, Mrs. precharged, God rest her soul. She's no longer with us. She said to my parents, I don't think the GATT is going to do very well at all. She came too late in this country, she hasn't caught up with the rest of the children in regards to her level of education that would expect for a 12 year old. And it would be better off if you got her integrated into your community and then do the things that you do. Which is, you know, harking back to she knew very much that in the Asian culture, the community because she'd seen this with multiple girls that she, she taught throughout her years that they will be taken out of education at 17 and married off. I had to translate that word by word.
I was gonna say was the temptation not to be like Mrs. Preciado says, I'm
gonna be the prime minister.
Well, you could be this week, let's be honest, you could step. I'm sure the call is coming this afternoon.
Crazy times, but I and but I'm such an honest individual. And so I happily translated that to my parents. And my father then cuddled me in the car later on saying, Oh, don't worry, we'll still marry you often. And that's sort of instilled this anger and annoyance going, but don't wipe me off. Don't wipe me off. I'm 1213 years old. Just don't do that just yet.
This season of relatively is sponsored by find my past the online home of the 1921 census. By 1921. People from all over the world had begun arriving in Britain to start new lives. People like the remarkable Dr. Harold moody. Jamaican born Dr. Moody graduated top of his class studying medicine at King's College London and set up a practice working from home after struggling to find a job. Perhaps there's an inspiring story in your past find out in the 1921 census exclusively available online at Find my past.co.uk
Can you remember any maybe this is back to the farm in Pakistan or maybe it's back to the early days in Cheshire, I don't know. But maybe musical or food or some sort of tethering thing that would remind you of family life.
The thing that me an fo bonded over get this was Tintin in other Tintin comic books. Yes. Oh, my goodness, we loved it, Tintin comic books, and then Astrix afterwards. So when we were younger, we would share the Tintin books together because we'd go to the library, we had a one visit on a Saturday and one would take us because she learnt the route to the surgery, which was on the way to the library. So she realised that that's a route that she could do because she couldn't read. Like any names of streets and stuff. And so when I learned to read, gradually, my brother learned to read
I remember getting into Tintin snow with a dog and Captain Haddock and, you know, calculus, Professor calculus and all that kind of stuff. Oh, I remember getting into those books quite early on and as a way to improve my English but with pictures,
and actually for his birthday when I think he was when he was 30 We got the complete set of Tintin books for him, and I guarantee he's not open one of them
is too busy being a criminal.
But that was our childhood thing that we bonded over.
And which I've still got a full setup by the way. Because you know, every now and again, when I want to take a trip down memory lane, I do like reading.
And then the other thing that we really bonded over music wise and he'll hate me saying this was the Spice Girl. The criminal barrister, he used to love the Spice Girls or
any particular Spice Girl and particularly identify more with scary sporty
goodness. I think. I think every guy like Tinder Come on. It is hot.
No, I just I just remember ginger spice being the more outrageous Oh, yeah. That's where you remember it was on the front of the Sun newspapers and things like that. Which one of my teachers actually you should read quite a lot. When I was at the middle school. Oh, yeah. Mr. Wallen used to remember. But no, I was actually always quite fond of baby spice.
Oh, Emma Bunton, and you know what? I've met her. She's a delight. She was
this? I mean, yeah, I feel like she would be the best friend out of them. Yeah, this might be better for a good night out. But I feel like she'd be the best friend. I don't know. Anyway. Spice Girls psychology is not what we're here for. You say old and again, it looks back at young. And again, you must look back now and think flipping egg, you know, you've already come from a farm somewhere in Pakistan, which is, you know, it Dilek and beautiful, but very different to coming into the education system here, learn the language assimilated, and then set your sights high, and then put your flipping head down nose to the grindstone, all the other expressions and, and done it, you must sometimes think, where did that resilience and that determination come
from the resilience came into the fact that I will make the best of what I've been given here in the UK. And the other bit of the resilience came from the fact that I come from a community and a culture, which unfortunately, still persists though, we have a lot of misogyny and patriarchy. And the way to get rid of the shackles of that was to make sure that I got an education, education was my freedom, it was my freedom to sort of kick back at that a little bit. There's a rebellious part of me, there's also the idea that I want to be independent, wherever I go, I'm known as the Imams daughter before, I'm known as anything else. And I don't mind that I, I adore that I do my father's work and his his leadership and his spirituality. And we're very, very close. But I want it to be some an individual in my own right, and to get a title, which goes beyond my gender. So when you're a doctor, you're not a male or female, you're just a doctor. And that's how I felt. When I was at the middle school. We did a careers fair at 1415. So I went to the careers teacher and said, What career can I do? That will mean I'm in the longest time in education. So my parents don't feel pressured by funds to get me out the house. And also, I've got a good excuse to say, but I'm having an education. And he looked at it and did this algorithm. And he said, Nick, you'll make an amazing Undertaker. On the questionnaire, I must have said wanted to help people. And I was interested in fashion because I was interested in fashion. So you know, dressing up dead bodies is perfect, isn't it? So who and he then sort of sat me down and said on a serious note, though you don't go to grammar school, you've come very late in this country, the idea that you're going to be able to go to medical school because medical school is as prestigious as he still is. And so he was sort of really setting this the tone that this is so unachievable, let's set the bar really low, young lady, because your hopes will be dashed. But for me to being told, I can't do something was the impotence to say, okay, the challenge is on. I've got GCSEs and a levels, I'm going to prove you wrong.
And I'm going to hazard a guess here, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that I'm about to talk to your brother, the criminal barrister, that there's a little bit of familial resemblance. Just taking a guess.
Yeah. And we're such great supporters of each other. He's been on his biggest fan. And he knows that
we looked at her as the example and she, you know, she didn't let the family down. You know, I can only imagine now, what burden must have been on her young shoulders. That sense of responsibility that she must have had as a young, sort of five, six year old moving to this country, integrating into the local schools, and then sort of realising from a young age being very focused, very determined. that, if she did not set us a good example, then you know, maybe that would affect how we progressed.
I think that when you're doing it and you're in the midst of it, you don't realise that you're, you are having to be the grown up. And we we grew up really fast, didn't we? I remember you growing up incredibly fast, because you were the first boy. So my father would take him to the mosque, and he was the, you know, the old older son and having to take those responsibilities. But I don't begrudge any of that, because I think that's what put us in great stead for our careers later on in life. And we are very much this. I feel like I'm same as I was at university or a level probably a far more settled now. And secure. But I'm the same person, if that makes sense. What about Yeah, fine. What do you think?
Yeah, I think I think fundamentally, at our core, we're the same people. Yeah. And but but I think really, you know, the way that our lives have panned out, I think that we've got a certain inner strength. Would you agree with that? I think that we were a lot more resilient than most kids are our age, I think we were growing up. Now that I can see it in sort of young kids that I represent, I can see that they simply just have floated through life. And they haven't been tested by the realities of life, such as, in the ways that we were. And now we're at a stage where we were, I think, a lot more comfortable in our position.
And I think that we are siblings, or the five of us, actually, we are really close to tomorrow, it's going to be IID. And all of us are going to be together, we speak to each other daily on our WhatsApp group. It could be like sending it to the stupid things like means but whatever we we think we share things constantly. And we do you see each other on a weekly basis, despite our really busy family. I don't know what their friend told you. We literally live walking distance from each other, all of us are still all of us. Because there's only us as a family here in the UK, all our cousins, grandma or our grandparents are no longer with us anymore. But everybody is in Pakistan still.
That is amazing. You I mean, in a way. It's not. It's not lucky for your parents. It's kind of they're reaping what they sowed.
Yeah. Would you agree with that? Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, the burden, but I also think it's because we ourselves feel a sense of responsibility to them. And I think that they've instilled that within us when we were growing up. And, you know, we appreciate the sacrifices that they've made over the years. And so we want to now be around for them. It's like, you know, I often think of it sometimes I was talking to my dad about this. And I said to him often, you know, it's, it's like, you run a business for 2530 years, and now you're sitting back and the business is paying you back. Yeah. You know, like, now you get to relax, and you're in your early 60s, mom's in her mid 50s, late 50s. And, you know, for the next 2030 years, hopefully you guys around, and you guys can now just sit back and relax.
And they put up the grandkids. Offence got a daughter? I've got three Iran's got two children. So it can't relax that much. No, no, but my mom is so great. And because all of us are so close to each other. Like, we Babysitting is a shared, they will say, you know, village, it's a really, really Yeah, it takes a village to raise a child. And that's sort of what we have become in our own little close knit circles with our kids now. It's almost like they're living in each other's pockets, but very independently at the same time.
And finally, I wonder if you can remember and ask this question of everybody. And I haven't, because of the sort of slightly different way that your family worked with you guys being better at English and translating at parents evening and sort of having that sort of not authority, but that position, often asked about funny rules that parents had in the house, and I'm sure your parents must have had them I wonder if you can remember any particular rules that maybe at the time seem serious but now like about that your parents put in place?
There wasn't where we couldn't go to the cinema. I remember that. Yeah, going to the cinema because just because our parents just didn't see the need for it and didn't understand that that was a thing to do. So I don't remember going to the eating out. Do you remember we used
to Yeah, I remember the first time that we got to take out was when you passed your GCSE?
Yeah, that was the first time and that was that was like Okay, let's go let's have a KFC or whatever it was. Chicken bucket. First time I just had I got nine. That's five nine A's merited a takeout from the local KFC you can even leave that. And so the first time I ever went out to eat was McDonald's and I was 18 at university and I had to get help get my friends to help me to order Mickey D's Can you believe that? Because we just would never go out my parents just thought it was so good food. Um, cook food was that they still say the same expect home cooked food is the best is unnecessary. It's unhealthy. It's a waste of money, which completely you know now, as a mom I agree with because we rarely I rarely take my kids out or eat. And the other rule that they had was that we could never go to sleepovers. And I agree with that now, we never went to our friends. And that I think was the difference between us and white friends. Because when we weren't the Mistborn together, me and our fan, we were the only I would say we were the only Asian brown kids, weren't we? Yeah. And everybody else was white. And so they were like, come over for a sleepover. Or we're gonna go to this party. So we never, my parents just said no, but weirdly enough, I don't ever remember being upset by that I was actually quite grateful that I didn't have to go to sleep anyways. So movies, takeouts sleepovers. What else didn't they like us doing? It really? Oh, we have to go to every wedding. Oh, do you remember? Oh, my goodness. Okay. So Catherine, every summer is like wedding season. For Pakistani families, we would have to go to all the weddings with all the aunties and weddings last three days. And I remember that used to be so annoying, so problematic. Although the food was, was burning was brilliant, wasn't it, the food was always good. So yeah, having to make sure that we come to all the cultural events and religious events was something that my parents said you must keep doing. And I think that was their drive to keep us connected with our own culture as much as possible, because they knew that we were getting the Western culture from school. So that was their way of keeping us connected to them. And it worked. And it worked. It has and, and now we have the best of both worlds where we're privileged and indulged and very, very lucky and we know it.
Thank you to air fan and the GATT, who gets the final word.
I think that the idea that education which is given to us for free, I can't like I keep coming back to this evil with my children now is such a privilege that we as I my sort of goal was to say to all my siblings, you have to hold on to this and grapple it so my brother Irfan is a criminal barrister, my brother Imran, so the other baby that my mum had in her arm when she came to Heathrow airport that many years ago, is now a chartered accountant and works for Heathrow. My sister Saba is a dentist. And my youngest brother Ali is a paediatric nurse working at Addenbrooke's Hospital and has worked throughout the pandemic, looking after sick children. So the fact that we are literally the migrant dream, and I don't, I'm not embarrassed about that. And I feel very British, but I also feel very Pakistani, but I feel very, very grateful for where I've been able to come and land, my roots and the gifts that I've been given. So precious. So if there's one way that we can give back being that migrant family to our communities, is by making sure that we have vocational roles, that means that we can give back freely.
The very last episode of this season is with Tom Ward and his sister Charlie next week. Thank you very much for listening. If you've enjoyed the season, please do rate review, subscribe, or share it with a brother or sister. thank you to Tony to tickle him for letting us use her amazing song. This is a pocket Production and Sound Design is by Nick Carter at MC sonics.com. I'd also like to say a huge thank you to our sponsors for this season a relatively find my past for digging into their extraordinary records and uncovering surprising and often revelatory family stories. Find My past is the only place online where you can access the 1921 census. So if you want to start your family tree or add colour to what you know already, then find my past book co.uk is the place to do it.
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