Lisa Anne Pope

NHS/University and Local Authorities pay 8 weeks full pay and then half pay plus SMP for up to 26 weeks. What about people who are on long service leave - or long term sick leave - you can get up to 6 months full and 6 months half pay with the NHS for that?

I know my sister came back to the UK using her Australian passport as the British one had expired and after about a year she got a letter saying she had to leave the UK - so she went back to Australia and returned on her British passport which she had renewed. I think the main problem with travelling on an expired passport is that some airlines want one that is at least 6 months valid but if you are flying out on a valid Australian passport that shouldn't be a problem. I haven't any experience of trying to get in on an expired passport, so I think the main thing to remember is to enter the UK on your British passport and not an Australian one. My husband lost or had stolen his British passport on the plane once and he managed to get in without it.

Used to live in Melbourne from 88 to 95 in the Western side - started off in St Albans (only because my gran new someone who had a son who moved there - 6 months was enough) and moved to Essendon which was a much nicer area to live and closer to the CBD with better public transport (trains and trams). I would live in Essendon again if I was to go back to Melbourne, assuming it hasn't gone down hill since I left. We also stayed in Airport West which wasn't as nice but not much further away and cheaper to buy - but was OK at the time I was there.

My memories of Melbourne are snow flurries in the suburbs and scraping ice off the windscreen in June/July, mouldy walls and condensation pouring off the inside of the window.

It is certainly more expensive than it was when we returned in Dec 1999. My estimate for electricity for next 12 months is £1994 (a 2 bed room flat all electric) going on useage of previous 12 months. It cost us £50 per month when we first came back. Food prices have got more expensive - you don't get the very cheap deals on value brands that you used to (ie 8 p for a tin of beans etc). I would imagine though that the prices for electricity and food have also gone up in Australia. I find the cost of fuel for the car really expensive here and public transport also much more expensive (I live in a rural area). I do earn less money - I am earning the same money now as I did 14 years ago in Australia doing a job 2 grades lower than I currently am now. However, I got one of those infamous "Together" Northern Rock mortgages - ie no deposit and 125% enabling me to buy a house with an income of less than £12,000 per year at the time. The cost of the house was only £38,000 and is now worth £90,000 so I definitely benefited from that practice, although many lost out buying more than they could afford.

I think feeling like this is very common. I first went out to Australia with my family when I was 17 and hated it so got a job and saved all my money for a ticket back to Scotland. We left behind two grandmothers, my cousins had moved to South Africa and they were left with no children or grandchildren. I missed them both and spent a year living with them in my hometown and I am so glad I did that because I really appreciated the time I had with them as I knew they wouldn't be around for ever. I met my husband to be in the UK and went back to Australia to get married. We lived there for another 3 years before returning to Scotland but only lasted 12 months before we headed back and decided to move to Queensland and it enjoyed it there much better than Melbourne. My brother-in-law died suddenly 4 years later and my husband was not able to attend the funeral and it was just so awful being so far away and not really knowing what was going on. He wanted to go back as his mum was taking it quite hard and so we returned to UK in Dec 1999 and have been here since. I must say that from then to now has been a much happier time for us. We came back with one daughter and have had another 4 children here. I love the area where we are living and we managed to buy our own house here which we were not able to do in Australia. However, my mother-in-law passed away nearly 3 years ago now and we have no close family left in the UK. My family still live in Australia and our children are desperate to and live there and meet their grandparents and cousins who they have either never met or can't remember so we have decided to head back next year. We have decided though that we are not going to sell our house here, so we will always have a home if any of us wants to come back. Sometimes you need to go home.

There will probably be information that the police have that will not have been released I would suppose. I find it interesting that opinion today seems to be not to let your children out of sight - I remember going on holiday to the then Butlins in Ayr (now Haven Craig Tara I think) in the early 1980's and remember the red coats going round the chalets at night (when the parents were out enjoying themselves at the various things going on in the camp) and reporting back on babies and children crying. There were large boards with numbers on them which were light up with a sign - "baby crying in chalet no ......" so the parents could go back and settle their child! Also a point to note that children are abducted from their homes while the parents are there in bed sleeping or just in another room. There was the young girl in England who was in the bath and someone came in and took her out of the bath under her parents nose. I lived in Melbourne in the Airport West/Essendon area during the "Mr Cruel" child abductions and murder - girls taken from their bedrooms at night while other siblings were in the same room and parents in their bedroom and taken to a house somewhere on the flight path to Melbourne Airport. Despite all the publicity about the girls reporting hearing planes overhead - we never had a visit from the police at all (and we were on the flight path) - the only thing was a flyer put through the door asking if we had noticed anything suspicious going on???