Mike Stevenson: “I was born to a Scottish-Irish father, and a Lebanese mother who had grown up in Egypt. So it was quite a mix to be born into as a cultural being. I spent three years in Pakistan between the ages of three and six-and-a-half. On the way back to Scotland, we got caught in Egypt. It was at the time of the Suez Crisis with the British government. I remember the troops on the shore of Port Said; we got out just before the Suez Canal was closed. 

I came back to Scotland, which I barely knew because I had traveled to Pakistan at age three. I found it cold and gray. 

Settling into school was extraordinarily difficult for me because I had started kindergarten in Lahore, Pakistan. Evidently I spoke pretty decent Urdu. I can only remember a few words of it now. It's so incredible how children just absorb information in extraordinary ways because they are so adaptable. 

I ended up attending a total of three different primary schools and I hated it. I hated the whole school experience. 

When I went to high school, it wasn't any better. I just could not settle myself. I was fidgety, distracted, disinterested, and bored. I was constantly thinking of the Beatles and The Rolling Stones, and being a rock star. I wanted to stand on stage, and at the age of thirteen that's exactly what I did. I started a band. At school, none of that counted for anything, because you are judged entirely on academic grounds. So it was no surprise that by the age of fifteen, I was asked to leave school on no uncertain terms. 

My parents were going through a divorce and it was horrible. It was nasty. I escaped to London to get away from it all. I got a job in a shop selling furniture and it was all going well until it wasn't. Apparently, none of the customers could understand a word I said because of my Scottish accent. 

So I was sacked three days into my first job. 

I ended up sleeping out for about a year, which was quite formative in negative as well as positive ways. It was a challenging and threatening experience where I learned that I could survive and found out who I was as an individual. After that, I went through an extraordinary journey.”

Have a listen as I interview my special guest Mike Stevenson.