General Chat

Forty years ago we touched down in Perth. Our daughter was not quite two and our son was nearly six.

In all that that time we have never revisited the UK, although there was a time early on when I had just started a new job in the North Eastern Goldfields when I did suggest that we treated our Australian adventure as a six to twelve month working holiday.

It's impossible to describe the conditions back then, but I will just say that the brothels in Kalgoorlie were still in full swing rather than the one remaining building having been turned into a museum as it is today.

However, looking back, it was an enjoyable experience living in Leonora and, at the time, being responsible for the enviromental health services of almost a third of the area of Western Australia.

I don't think you are missing much by not coming back. The UK is not what it was 40 years ago (in my opinion). I have extended family who went to Australia about 60 years ago and a sister who went to New Zealand just under 50 years ago and none of them would come back to stay. They all have much different and better lives than they would have done had they stayed here. All their families are doing really well and the work life balance seems much better for them.

Kath. x

You probably have an Aussie accent by now, so we wouldn’t understand you anyway :-D

I agree with Kathleenbell, I am visiting my old school friend in America as I do every other year and it is a much better place to be than England, I tell her what it is like and she said she wouldn't go back.

Allan, we went out in the late-1970s when our son was young. We spent ten years there and our daughter was born there.

We returned to England for work but kept our Oz house, renting it out for a few years before we decided to stay in England permanently.

I got to know a family who had done the same as us but they were only in Oz for a couple of years. One of her three children could not re-settle into our school system - after only two years. I lost touch when the mother changed jobs so I have no idea where they are now but I felt a little sorry for them as it seemed the one child was worrying the mother while the other two and the parents had settled.

We are lucky, I think, as our children have settled wherever we’ve lived and fortunately we never regretted the move there nor the move back.

One of our children lives a five-minute walk away, the other just over an hour’s drive and neither has had any difficulty finding work - in fact the older was head-hunted a couple of years ago.

We now have three grandchildren - one still at school near here, one who has already moved to London and one who is expecting to move during the summer (possibly overseas).

I have only good to say about our experiences both in the UK and in Oz but we are both ‘get on with life’ type of people wherever we’ve lived and I’ve made about 13 moves …. so far. :-D

Good luck with the rest of your life in Oz - and the same to your OH and your children. :-D

Allan ............... I know what Australia was like in the mid-70s, we lived in Melbourne for a little less than a year, but travelled all over, including to WA.

I came back to Canada knowing that I could have moved to certain parts of Australia if we decided to do that.

I say "certain parts" because there was no air conditioning at that time, and there were some brutally hot areas.

We went back in 1981, and lo and behold air conditioning was everywhere!

We moved here to Canada in 1968, at first for 2 years, but we knew very quickly that this was where we wanted to be, so here we are. I'm convinced that we have done much better here than we ever would have done had we returned to the UK, as had been our original idea.

We have experienced other countries as well .......my first 10 months out of the UK was in the US, and OH then got the job in Canada. We knew from our short time below the line that we didn't enjoy the life there ......... very little work/life balance, unless you were the boss!! Now I'm even more glad. Time in New Zealand also gave us a good experience for life there, although it felt a little more remote than OZ

What was funny though was that my daughter learned to really talk in Australia .......... she had about 20 or so words when we arrived, but putting sentences together etc happened down under.

We brought a little Aussie back with us :-D

It took about 6 months before she lost the accent.


The last time we went back to the UK was in 2008, before that we went about every 6 or 7 years. I noticed changes every time, but none of them ever enticed me back. Though I must admit that occasionally there are memories of thatched pubs in quiet areas of Devon. ;-)

Well done Allan and Sylvia and your families who have moved away and settled so well.
We moved around a lot with my husband's job and I thought very carefully before marrying, because I had been born and grew up in the same bungalow as my parents lived until they died. Would I cope with all the 'new' places?
We only stayed a year or two in each place, - some in UK, some abroad, then moved on, but eventually came back to England to an area neither of us knew, but made our family home here and have been happy.

This was right for us, with no regrets, but as long as both people in a couple want the move and to settle abroad, I would still advise 'Go for it'.

You can spend too long wondering 'What if?'.