Issue 14: The Dystinct Journey of William Jack (Pizza Rebillion)

Born to Canadian and British parents in Sydney, Australia, in the mid-70s, William recollects that he was "a kid of the world". His family frequently travelled between Montreal, where his father's family lived, the UK, where his mother's family was, and Sydney, where he attended school. William's love for food was sparked by the summer holidays spent with his grandparents in the UK. "I was a city boy, and my grandparents lived in the country in the middle of nowhere. They would have weird and wonderful things in their larder, which in England is a storage space where you store a lot of foods. They had pheasants or rabbits and things like that hanging in there. As a kid, I would help skin them or pluck them. They also had a country garden and grew their own onions, leeks, apples and other fruits and vegetables. They would show me around, and we would make things together."

The frequent travel, however, took a toll on William's early education. "I struggled with reading and writing, and my handwriting was bad. I got my b's and d's, and 3s, and 4s the wrong way around," shares William. The school barely took much notice of his struggles, and while he was struggling to catch up with the rest of his peers, William's parents decided to relocate to the UK to be closer to family. During this transition, William had to miss two school terms. "I went from a huge school in Australia with about 2000 students to one in the middle of nowhere in England with only 70 in the whole school. The last two years of primary school in the UK were years three and four. I joined the school in the last half of year three at 11. There were only six students in my year, so we had two year levels put together."