Keith Johnson sits cross-legged on the sunny Gold Coast lawn, the sea crashing on the sand a few metres away and a dozen seagulls gathering behind him for a stop-work meeting.
'It is all about the quality of life,' the small, bespectacled ex-painter from Stockport explains, as the discussion extends into philosophy. It’s now three o'clock in the afternoon in the land that is sunny one day and perfect the next and Keith said he’d done his few hours' work. He would toil just one more day that week making hamburgers or chip-butties for English customers at the little kiosk he helped run; and the odd milk-shake and frothy cappuccino. And that would be it.
He was on his way home to his pool; he and his wife would dine well, relax, listen to country & western music for a bit and then drift off to bed.
It wasn’t ever thus..
Keith is 53. He retired thirteen years ago. 'Nothing,' he said, tapping his fingers on the grass, 'is handed to you on a plate. You've got to work for it.'
He’d done just that; to the point of becoming a workaholic and on the verge of a breakdown.
'I had a flourishing paint contracting business in Melbourne and was working 25 hours a day, eight days a week and had 12 men working for me.
'I had done this for three years when I went to the doctor one day, because I felt a bit off; he said when was the last time I'd had a holiday? I said: "What's a holiday?"
And he told me if I didn't stop doing what I was doing I'd very soon be on a permanent one...I was stressed out.
'So I sat down and analysed my life. I reckoned I'd immediately cut down to working four days a week. We went for a holiday for three weeks and I came back with a completely different attitude to life.
'I'd work only four days a week. Now I had three days a week to plan. I bought a trail bike and went riding into the mountains.I bought a boat, a caravan, learned to water-ski and played squash. I already had two vehicles; all achieved by working so hard in Australia; it couldn't have happened back in England.'
Keith said he had drawn up a plan when he made up his mind - one winter's day in 1972 - to migrate from Stockport. He had written it all down, converting dollars to pounds to get it clear. He would, if things went the way they should, retire at 40.
'It was down on paper. It didn't matter if I died at 40, if I'd done all I'd set out to do, that would be enough.' He chuckles. 'Strange, wasn't it?
'When I got to 40 we immediately sold the business, got into the caravan and went round Australia. We reached Toowoomba, outside Brisbane, bought a small holding with a few cows on it and I did the place up. We sold it, bought another a bit bigger, out West, and did the same.
'Then we moved to Palm Beach and bought a nice house and I spent three weeks painting it, bringing it up to my standards. Then I sat back and said to myself: "Well this is it! I'm here! I've retired."
The bliss of being lazy lasted a fortnight. Keith began to twitch. 'I knew I had to do something.' So he wandered down to the seaside at nearby Broadbeach and met a man who was looking for somebody to help in his snack bar, "Scoundrels On The Beach".
'He wanted to know if I could cook, and operate a cappuccino machine. I said of course, but I could do neither. I picked up how to make a hamburger easily enough, but the coffee machine was a bit more complicated. I said: "What about showing me the way you do it so I can see if it's any different to the way I make cappuccino?" He did and I picked it up from there.
'I work for him a couple of hours a day, two days a week. And it's great. I go to computer school on the other days; just to keep up with what's happening; the world's future is going to be about computers. I'm not a millionaire and I never want to be. Big money only creates problems.
'What I'd like to do is tell others about my own experience; to give a bit of advice to people contemplating making the big step to the other side of the world as I did.
'See, I was lucky to have an Aussie mate in England and he gave me a bit of background before I left which gave me an insight into Australian thinking. I asked him if it was true that some Australians did not like English people.
'He said basically that was true. It was caused by the attitude of some Poms living here who kept saying everything was done so much better "back home".
'He was right. When I got to Melbourne I heard it over and over again. They always referred to England as "home", when, so far as I am concerned, "home" is where I live, not where I've come from. I avoided those traps and found I got on.'
Keith's leathery face breaks into a grin when he remembers his first Aussie-Pom confrontation. 'We were buying our first home and I thought I'd wander in and meet the guy who was to be our new neighbour. As I walked down his driveway I could see him working in his garage. I could already sense a bad atmosphere. He looked up and asked me what I wanted?
'I told him and he said: "You're not buying that bloody house. It's not for sale." I said: "Well, I've just taken a contract out on it," and straightaway that bloke hated my guts.
'In the end, he and I became the best of mates. The answer? Beer. I decided if you can't beat 'em, join 'em; and I knew he liked his beer. We had a few together and all the barriers came down. He had a big chip on his shoulder - not just about Poms, but about people. I offered him friendship and he took it.'
Keith glanced at his watch. It was swimming time and he liked to stick to his plan. In neat shorts and running shoes he trotted off, scattering the seagulls. They ruffled their feathers and went on with their meeting.
