Geoffrey Lee, 55, was 12 when he came to Australia, where he worked in his uncle’s fruit shop while he put himself through school. Today he owns a grocery shop and a café in Ermington, in Sydney’s west.

We always had three or four kids helping out in the café shop after school; washing dishes; peeling potatoes, sweeping the floors and refilling the fridges. They were mainly the kids of poor migrant families, looking for a bit of pocket money – some parents would come and ask me to give their kid a job, just to keep them on the straight and narrow.

Bill started working for us in about fifth class. Because of my own experiences, I always encouraged the kids to study and to read, read, read. My own education was hampered by my poor English skills and I didn’t want to see that happen to other kids. When things were quiet, or after work, I would sit down with them and go through their homework. Some of the kids might not be too good at school, and I would try and teach them how to run a business. I tried to encourage them to do what they were good at.

When Bill first started working for me, to be honest I didn’t think there was much hope for him. He was a nice kid from a good Muslim family, but his communication skills were very poor: he spoke only Arabic at home and I couldn’t get him to read anything. The best hope for him, I thought, would be an apprenticeship as a panel beater.

I have two daughters and both of them are very bright and both went to a selective high school. One of them topped the state in two subjects and went straight into medicine at university. Bill came to me one day, when he was in year 9, and said he wanted to become a doctor, like my daughter. I said I would help, but that it was probably too late for him to become a doctor. He brought in his reports: second last in every subject, and he was at one of the worst schools in Sydney. He asked me how much he needed to read each day- was one page enough? I told him my daughter read many books each week.

He was a bit shocked, but he was so keen. I got him to read everything from newspapers and magazines to novels. He began reading one page a day, then three, then ten, then 150. He would do this every day, without fail.

He had a book and would write down all the words he didn’t know, and then learn them to improve his vocabulary. At night we would sit in the shop and go through his homework. On the weekends the shop was closed, but I would have to sort through the tomatoes to refrigerate the ripe ones. Bill would sit with his books; it was easier to study there because there were so many people living in his small house.

The school he went to was so bad, he had to virtually teach himself. It was a disgrace really. But his determination was amazing. At the end of year 9 he won a prize for most improved. At the end of year 10 he came first in a couple of subjects. In years 11 and 12 he came first in every single subject and was dux of the school. I was so proud of him and thought he might get a [university entry score] of 85. When he rang me and told me he got 96, I couldn’t believe it, it was like a miracle. I cried.

He just missed out on medicine, but he did a medical science degree and then honours; he had a high distinction average but even that was not enough to get into post-graduate medicine the first time. But he never gave up. He did some tutoring at the university, travelled overseas to Lebanon and then came back to drive a water truck while waiting to get into medicine. It was a Neverfail water truck and I used to think, ‘That’s appropriate for Bill because he’s the never-fail man.