MARYROSE02 Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 I've asked this question many times of other people but when I asked myself I didn't have an answer. Whether it's because I don't know or I can't remember it suddenly became important (after nearly forty years), perhaps because I wrote ("am writing" is more apt and it was due in yesterday) about it for an Open University assignment. I suppose it was partly for an adventure (although I'm the most unadventurous person you could meet), or a (working) holiday, or a real desire to emigrate, or, most shockingly of all, something a mate suggested, to get as far away from home and parents as possible. I can't ask my parents and neither of my brothers know. I sent texts to a few of my friends and these are their answers: “For a year of fun – eight years ago.” :“Career.” ”I came to OZ for an easier life and to enjoy the sunshine.” “To study my PhD.” “Change of scenery and wanting to travel.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newjez Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 I didn't have any choice in the matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newjez Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 I didn't have any choice in the matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evandale Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 Married an Australian , managed to secure the job I wanted and decided on an adventure. Living in Tasmania ticked all our boxes and we are both very content with our choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NicF Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 After 13 years in the UK with my Aussie OH it was time to spend some time living near his family. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starlight7 Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 The weather.Sent from my iPad using PomsinOz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starlight7 Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 Good topic MRSent from my iPad using PomsinOz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LKC Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 Because we had the opportunity, but now it's time to go home. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LKC Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 Actually, thinking about it it should be 'Because we had the opportunity, and we've loved it here but it's time to go home'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quoll Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 Best opportunity at the time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VERYSTORMY Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 I was offered a job out of the blue and thought why not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Celt Down Under Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 Because of fear of the future with seeing what Thatcher was doing to the working class man, and Australia offered a bright new future, full of hope, and so it came to be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickyNook Posted June 11, 2017 Share Posted June 11, 2017 I didn't like my job, the bad weather or living in deepest, darkest Sussex and fancied a change so I got a WHV and came here for a year in 1979 - one look at Sydney Harbour all sparkly in the sun made me determined to stay for a while and 38 years later I'm still here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peach Posted June 11, 2017 Share Posted June 11, 2017 Partner is an Aussie, we'd made far away plans that we thought our kids should grow up here. Then we had kids and enacted the plan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MARYROSE02 Posted June 11, 2017 Author Share Posted June 11, 2017 Just now, Celt Down Under said: Because of fear of the future with seeing what Thatcher was doing to the working class man, and Australia offered a bright new future, full of hope, and so it came to be. If Corbo had won just a few more seats it might have been OK to go back! Actually, from what I've been reading in the Weekend Australian the election has been "Lose- Lose" for everybody. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MARYROSE02 Posted June 11, 2017 Author Share Posted June 11, 2017 Just now, NickyNook said: I didn't like my job, the bad weather or living in deepest, darkest Sussex and fancied a change so I got a WHV and came here for a year in 1979 - one look at Sydney Harbour all sparkly in the sun made me determined to stay for a while and 38 years later I'm still here. You must have arrived just after me then as I disembarked in Fremantle on 3rd November, 1978, and arrived in Sydney about a month later. But I liked my job in the UK, though I did not appreciate it until I came here, and I liked "deepest, darkest Hampshire" too. Perhaps my reason was "fancied a change" but I don't know. There's a phrase I've come across in my creative writing classes which refers to "writing about what you know to find out what you don't know" so perhaps a reason will "emerge." How did you make the transition from WHV to permanent residence/citizenship? I took advantage of the Australian Government's amnesty for illegal immigrants in 1980 (not that I was illegal, just inside the cut-off date.) I went back to England for twelve years but one of my brothers has been here continuously since 1979. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MARYROSE02 Posted June 11, 2017 Author Share Posted June 11, 2017 This is the writing exercise which inspired my assignment although I've written it in prose rather than as a poem if anybody fancies trying something similar: And below it is an excellent poem by Stephen Herrick called Trains which I think was inspired by a similar exercise. Writing exercise on memory Write the words 'I remember' at the beginning of a line, and allow a detail to present itself, which you write down. After the first line and its details, return to the beginning of the next line, write 'I remember ...' again, and go on. Allow the details of each line to freely associate and create the next detail or fragment. (You can take out some or all of the 'I remember' phrases when you go back to edit your piece.) * It is very important to use details, senses, fragments, so that you don't write about the past, but actually write the past. Don't worry about deliberately constructing causal or narrative relationships at first, allow them emerge of their own accord, then you can structure your piece more consciously once you have the material. Once you have written the exercise freely, see how you might structure it to give it a shape or form. It may be a poem, or a narrative story, or a set of interrelated fragments that can be read as a 'collage'. Trains (Stephen Herrick) we threw water bombs from the front carriage onto kids like us walking by the tracks step by step to school we stood on verandahs armed with slingshots and aimed for the guard's van we wrote Steven loves Wendy on any carriage Wendy might ride & waited at lunchtime for her passing we lit fires in Cowpers Paddock to blind the train we all had an uncle who was an Engineman we knew our brother's body was coming home in a freight van we placed apples on the tracks and laid bets on whether they'd squash or roll away we lost the bets we lay awake to hear the 10:15 to Kyogle its whistle drove us from clean sheets and the smell of moth balls we refused to ride in the same carriage as our parents we played chicken over Stable Swamp Creek with the all-stations-to-Beenleigh Afternoon Daily we knew the nurse who got dragged 500 metres into Sunnybank Station under the front diesel we walked that stretch and saw the bloodstains we read about the engine-driver's heart attack we never crossed at the overhead bridge we never paid the $10 fine" we left town one year before the first electric train blew its whistle on our childhood Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest The Pom Queen Posted June 11, 2017 Share Posted June 11, 2017 Adventure I think. At the time we also told people it was a better life for our children, I don't know if I actually believed that at the time but I do now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickyNook Posted June 11, 2017 Share Posted June 11, 2017 1 hour ago, MARYROSE02 said: How did you make the transition from WHV to permanent residence/citizenship? I took advantage of the Australian Government's amnesty for illegal immigrants in 1980 (not that I was illegal, just inside the cut-off date.) Same here. I squeezed in just before the 31/12/1979 deadline for the 1980 amnesty. They gave me a 6 month extension on the WHV and I was granted PR under the amnesty in April 1981. Became a citizen a bit later in 1989. I was very fortunate to qualify for PR in that way and I've always been grateful for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johndoe Posted June 11, 2017 Share Posted June 11, 2017 Married an Aussie so didn't have much say in the matter..................or in much of anything come to think about it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dv4 Posted June 11, 2017 Share Posted June 11, 2017 "Better life for the children"...as an Asian parent who grew up in a system where grades were all that mattered, we wanted a more balanced well rounded education for the children and when the opportunity arose to move...we decided to give it a try. The kids are loving it here and appear to be thriving. It's still closer to home(though..my understanding of the word "home" is probably very different to that of the kids') and the weather is great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benj1980 Posted June 11, 2017 Share Posted June 11, 2017 After coming over visiting friends we imagined where we could slot in! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MARYROSE02 Posted June 11, 2017 Author Share Posted June 11, 2017 Just now, NickyNook said: Same here. I squeezed in just before the 31/12/1979 deadline for the 1980 amnesty. They gave me a 6 month extension on the WHV and I was granted PR under the amnesty in April 1981. Became a citizen a bit later in 1989. I was very fortunate to qualify for PR in that way and I've always been grateful for it. I didn't know or had forgotten that deadline was 31/12/79 though I did remember getting a six month extension from November, 1979, then another six month extension. I would never have been accepted for PR otherwise, though my brothers might have done and one of them did get sponsored by his employer. I've been a citizen since OZ Day 1983 and haven't renewed my UK passport since that expired 7 or 8 years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MARYROSE02 Posted June 11, 2017 Author Share Posted June 11, 2017 I'm always asking people from overseas this question and variations of it - "Do you like it here?" "Do you want to stay?" "Have you experienced any racism?" (Nobody has ever abused me for being a Pom, though I thought, before i came here, that I would be a constant target for abuse.) Looking back, particularly to my first few years, I can't understand why I did stay. Funny but I was looking at some old photos from a 1990 holiday in England today and I remembered how I'd look at these photos in the 80's or 90's and think "I wish i was back there with Mum and Dad" but now I don't have any feelings of longing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beaty Posted June 11, 2017 Share Posted June 11, 2017 ...it's time for a pivot. B Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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