I came to Oz in '76 as a young engineer. I lived in Brisbane first which was great and then moved to Sydney.
I stayed in the same job for almost 10 years until my wife, a hairdresser, had the opportunity to buy the salon where she worked part time.
It seemed an opportunity too good to miss but with 5 year old twins and a 3 year old, we felt the only way we could do it was if I gave up my job and worked from home as a consultant. Is that a collective groan I hear from all the mums reading this?
We took out a second mortgage to buy the salon and borrowed more money to make improvements to it. It wasn't long before we realised we had over stretched ourselves and had to sell our house and move into rental accommodation.
We were just getting back on our feet when my wife's twin sister was killed in the most tragic of circumstances. She left behind a young husband and small baby. The husband, a wonderful young man, found he couldn't cope with his wife's death and one weekend when we were minding the baby, he ended his life.
We continued to look after the baby, a boy, and later with his paternal grandfather's blessing, we adopted him.
I'd never looked after a baby before and can honestly say to this day, it was the hardest thing I've ever done. Needless to say I didn't get a lot of consulting work done!
After about a year the house we were renting was put on the market. It was an old house, run down but with good bones and in a good street. Having lived in the house I knew it like the back of my hand and had often thought about what I'd do with it if I owned it. I put in an offer and it was accepted with a delayed settlement. By the time we settled I had the plans drawn ready to submit to council, plus all the quotations and material take offs done. Within a few weeks I was working on the house between taking the twins to school and looking after the other 2 terrors.
Looking back I shudder to think about what I took on. I tried to make a game of things and all the boys had their own little tool kits and used to follow me around "fixing" things. I bought an old ute and the highlight for the twins was loading the ute up with rubbish ready for our weekly trip to the tip. If they were naughty or wouldn't eat their dinner, I threaten to leave them with a neighbour whilst the rest of us went to the tip. That always worked.
There was no way I could keep the house tidy enough for inspections, so to get it ready for sale we had to move out. There was an old flat above the salon which hadn't been occupied for many years and we moved in there. My wife and I thought this was the lowest of the low but the boys loved knowing that Mummy was just downstairs so they actually loved it. Kids always see things differently from us.
We sold the house for a profit and I never went back to engineering.
Since then we've bought and sold houses, sometimes renovating and sometimes building. I've made some good decisions and some not so good ones, but thankfully, the Sydney property market has been good to us. We now have a unit near the city where we spend 2-3 days a week, and a home in the Blue Mountains where we spent the rest of our time.
Our nephew is now 19 and a fine young man. We think of him as our 4th son and he thinks of us as his parents.
No matter what has happened in the 31 years since I came to Australia I have never looked to blame anyone and I have never blamed Australia. In fact, to be honest I think my life has been quite easy.
My heart goes out to struggling families because I really do know what they're going through. However, I don't have any sympathy for people who come to Australia and then blame Australia the moment something goes wrong.
I also get annoyed, and some of my posts reflect this, when people come here wanting to leave behind the worst of the UK but complain when the best of the UK isn't thrown in as a bonus.
The shops here aren't as good, there is not such a wide selection and the small market here means things will often be more expensive or behind the times. As far as I'm concerned, you can either whinge about petty things like this, making you and those around you miserable, or you can work hard, be part of this country and see what you can do to make it a better place.
We're off to NZ for a week, a nice place to go for a holiday, but I wouldn't want to live there because they're too bl**dy good at rugby.
I hope you all find happiness in Australia.
Thankyou so much for sharing your story. We are in the process of trying to get to Oz with our two young boys (5 and 2) as we feel that Australia will offer us a more family friendly lifestyle over what we have living in the North East of Scotland. We are more than prepared to put in the work to make this a successful move but do realise that it won't be a picnic. I think that we have a realistic expectation of what Australia can offer us, but equally important, what we can offer Australia. If we are lucky enough to get the opportunity to migrate we know that initially we will be in a worse financial position and stressed up to our eyeballs but are prepared to go through this for the end goal. I think that most people feel as we do and are under no illusion that Oz is the land of golden opportunity. You have to work for what you want and thats regardless of where you live in the world.
Location: From Bury,Manchester To Jimboomba, Brisbane
Posts: 6,042
well oldpom ,i must say sometimes your posts did seem a little abrupt to me BUT after reading this i have nothing but admiration for you.You could easily have given up and admitted defeat ,but you have kept going and raised what sounds like a bloody good family.Full credit to you mate and more than anything well done for making something of your life after such a low,,
Cal x
Hi old pom,
What a fantastic post, you and your wife seem like truly wonderful people. Life is hard wherever you are, you wiill take the knocks, good and bad as best you can, but my opinion on being here in Oz and making it work is that you have got to want it in the first place, if you come here with any negativities then the smallest thing will become the BIGGEST hurdle!! Good Luck to you and your family for the future!
Wow Oldpom, your post was great to read. You have taken everything life has thrown at you and made the most of it. I do hope that when we arrive in Australia we are as strong as you when faced with the difficulties chucked at us.
Keep posting and letting us know how things really are.
Thank you
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Felicity + Michael - We're 'Pozzies' - Happy and Lovin' it!
Melbourne since September 07
Thankyou for sharing what must have been a difficult and hard part of your life. i want to second what Cal said. blinking fantastic.
Good luck for the future for you and yours.
hays
I am famous for that which my mother tactfully describes as "impatience."
I think yiou might suffer from the same condition?!:)
I find that the way to control it is to say to myself, "If you cannot think of something kindly and encouraging to say then the best solution is to stay out of the thread and say nothing at all."
Thanks for your post it was a good read and helps others to understand why you feel and say the things that your posts say sometimes, the problem with not knowing people personally is that you do not know their circumstances and why they take strong views on some issues, and of course now we do.
I have just inherited a new daughter (my niece) she is 14 and has had a pretty rough time of things. My niece lived in Australia and is now with us here in the UK, my worry was that she would not want to return to Australia because that is where things went wrong for her. Fortunately enough she does not take this view and does not blame the country but the circumstances and is happy to come back to Australia when we migrate there. Life is what we make it where ever we are, we have our ups and downs and sometimes we come to a time in our life where we just need a change of scenery and direction to give us new hopes and dreams.
I'm glad things worked out for you in the end Old Pom you deserved it too!!
Good luck for the future to you and all your family
You could easily have given up and admitted defeat ,but you have kept going and raised what sounds like a bloody good family.
Full credit to you mate and more than anything well done for making something of your life after such a low,,
:)
Sad but uplifting story.
