TRUE-LIFE
Mariam Hijab, 27, Birmingham
Dressed in my black robe and square cap, I stepped on stage and took my scroll.
‘So proud of you, Mariam!’ my dad, Mohammed Istakhar, then 40, boomed from the audience.
I chuckled.
Typical Dad.
My mum, Nasira, then 41, stood beaming beside him, cheering, too.
It was July 2019 and I'd just graduated from Aston University, in Birmingham, with a degree in audiology.
The eldest of five, I was the first in our family to go to university.
I owed it all to Dad.
‘Couldn't have done it without you,’ I told him after, burying my head in his big broad chest.
Dad had always worked
