Post by simmo123 on Jun 2, 2017 11:49:58 GMT
The Simmo’s early life in Aussie
Hi members, just to make a change of subjects while I get my music computer sorted out, this reflects of life in Aussie during & from the late 60’s here are a few of my memories of these times as a ten pound “pommy” migrants.,
I did post this a few years ago but it may be of interest to some of the more recent members, many things have changed since I originally posted this one on the site
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I guess that you could not get a more multicultural society than what we have in Australia, starting from the hordes of migrants that emigrated from the UK & Europe in the late 50's & 60's ( including myself & family ) all with high hopes of starting a new life for themselves, unfortunately in Australia at that time there was a bit of a backlash against new migrants by the Aussie population, one good reason was that after arriving & spending the compuIsory two year ruling that was in place at that time there would be shiploads of disgruntled migrants heading back to there homelands full of stories about the Australian way of life etc & how they could not wait for the two years stay to arrive which mean't they would be able to leave, paying there own fare of course.. If you could not wait for the two year ruling then you could leave sooner but the catch was that you also had to pay back the original fare that you arrived on which had been subsidised to 10 pounds.
On many occasions we have seen friends neighbours workmates & families leave the country to head back to the UK,some before the two year ruling while others would be counting the days off until they could head back to the mother country. In a lot of these cases we would run into them in our ;local shops etc within months after seeing them leave the country, in other instances these families would do this several times before they decided where to settle. Naturally this was a very expensive exercise.
For myself,Patricia & the then two boys we never even got close to heading back to mother England, even when I used to spend long periods away from home with whatever job I could get that paid the bills etc, we realised that it was the best choice for our family. Patricia never saw her mother after leaving & it took us almost twenty years before we could afford a trip back,& that was just the two of us. Gary our middle son who was just ten & a half months on our arrival has never been to the UK in the 50 years we have been here, but he is a big Man United supporter, eldest boy Neil went back for a short stay with he's then girlfriend, they were based in Birmingham,they went for 6 months but stayed for 12 years, he had a record/cd shop in a shopping centre in a place called Yardley.
I have to cut this post short as I have to go out but will continue asap.
Hi again ,
Getting back to the migration subject, our government has adopted a stronger message to the people smugglers who are responsible for bringing boatloads of refugees to our shores, a lot of the refugees that were coming in illegally were deemed to be a threat to our country as they had no ID etc ,the new ruling that has been in place for a while is to turn the boats around & take them to an Island away from Aussie where they can be processed just in case there are any terrorists amongst them that would be a threat to our country. This approach seems to be working as the number of boats has been reduced. The families that have been accepted are blending into our communities very well & they are getting a lot of support from local authorities etc.I am not all that interested in politics but as pensioners we are quite happy with our lot. We do get quite a few perks ie, reduced council rates on our home, travel concessions etc discounts on water rates plus a few other discounts all of which give us a reasonable lifestyle. Mind you a nice little lotto win would not go astray. In conclusion ,never had superannuation, thankful that we own everything ,house etc, no hire purchase, live a simple but comfortable lifestyle, got great friends, kids ,grandkids etc so what more could you ask for, life is far too short to be carrying a lot of useless baggage around with you.
I guess I get a little carried away sometimes but Hey at our age why not.
We personally got value for our investment of ten pound each for Patricia & myself & the kids were free.
PS...the times have changed since I posted this on the site, at that time I joined the hangout to advance my then very basic knowledge of midi’s etc.I am sure that a lot of the older members can remember me becoming involved with all of the workings of backing tracks, in fact I was probably a bit of a pain in the butt at times.
Moving forward more years than I care to remember I still love being involved with the music scene, even though the memory is becoming a little faded I still enjoy getting out in front of groups of elderly ( & some not so elderly) folks who for whatever reason find themselves locked in to life a lot different to what a normal lifestyle is, some not even aware of their surroundings while others refusing to accept the fact that this is how life is going to be in the future, the one bright side is when they have a distraction with the likes of performers like myself who give them an hour of entertainment away from the distress they must be feeling from being parted from their partners &families.
Time for a coffee break..I hope this post is not too distracting from the music scene but it certainly is good for my little memory loss problem to go back on the good old times.
Regards to all Simmo
Hi members, just to make a change of subjects while I get my music computer sorted out, this reflects of life in Aussie during & from the late 60’s here are a few of my memories of these times as a ten pound “pommy” migrants.,
I did post this a few years ago but it may be of interest to some of the more recent members, many things have changed since I originally posted this one on the site
****************************************************************************
I guess that you could not get a more multicultural society than what we have in Australia, starting from the hordes of migrants that emigrated from the UK & Europe in the late 50's & 60's ( including myself & family ) all with high hopes of starting a new life for themselves, unfortunately in Australia at that time there was a bit of a backlash against new migrants by the Aussie population, one good reason was that after arriving & spending the compuIsory two year ruling that was in place at that time there would be shiploads of disgruntled migrants heading back to there homelands full of stories about the Australian way of life etc & how they could not wait for the two years stay to arrive which mean't they would be able to leave, paying there own fare of course.. If you could not wait for the two year ruling then you could leave sooner but the catch was that you also had to pay back the original fare that you arrived on which had been subsidised to 10 pounds.
On many occasions we have seen friends neighbours workmates & families leave the country to head back to the UK,some before the two year ruling while others would be counting the days off until they could head back to the mother country. In a lot of these cases we would run into them in our ;local shops etc within months after seeing them leave the country, in other instances these families would do this several times before they decided where to settle. Naturally this was a very expensive exercise.
For myself,Patricia & the then two boys we never even got close to heading back to mother England, even when I used to spend long periods away from home with whatever job I could get that paid the bills etc, we realised that it was the best choice for our family. Patricia never saw her mother after leaving & it took us almost twenty years before we could afford a trip back,& that was just the two of us. Gary our middle son who was just ten & a half months on our arrival has never been to the UK in the 50 years we have been here, but he is a big Man United supporter, eldest boy Neil went back for a short stay with he's then girlfriend, they were based in Birmingham,they went for 6 months but stayed for 12 years, he had a record/cd shop in a shopping centre in a place called Yardley.
I have to cut this post short as I have to go out but will continue asap.
Hi again ,
Getting back to the migration subject, our government has adopted a stronger message to the people smugglers who are responsible for bringing boatloads of refugees to our shores, a lot of the refugees that were coming in illegally were deemed to be a threat to our country as they had no ID etc ,the new ruling that has been in place for a while is to turn the boats around & take them to an Island away from Aussie where they can be processed just in case there are any terrorists amongst them that would be a threat to our country. This approach seems to be working as the number of boats has been reduced. The families that have been accepted are blending into our communities very well & they are getting a lot of support from local authorities etc.I am not all that interested in politics but as pensioners we are quite happy with our lot. We do get quite a few perks ie, reduced council rates on our home, travel concessions etc discounts on water rates plus a few other discounts all of which give us a reasonable lifestyle. Mind you a nice little lotto win would not go astray. In conclusion ,never had superannuation, thankful that we own everything ,house etc, no hire purchase, live a simple but comfortable lifestyle, got great friends, kids ,grandkids etc so what more could you ask for, life is far too short to be carrying a lot of useless baggage around with you.
I guess I get a little carried away sometimes but Hey at our age why not.
We personally got value for our investment of ten pound each for Patricia & myself & the kids were free.
PS...the times have changed since I posted this on the site, at that time I joined the hangout to advance my then very basic knowledge of midi’s etc.I am sure that a lot of the older members can remember me becoming involved with all of the workings of backing tracks, in fact I was probably a bit of a pain in the butt at times.
Moving forward more years than I care to remember I still love being involved with the music scene, even though the memory is becoming a little faded I still enjoy getting out in front of groups of elderly ( & some not so elderly) folks who for whatever reason find themselves locked in to life a lot different to what a normal lifestyle is, some not even aware of their surroundings while others refusing to accept the fact that this is how life is going to be in the future, the one bright side is when they have a distraction with the likes of performers like myself who give them an hour of entertainment away from the distress they must be feeling from being parted from their partners &families.
Time for a coffee break..I hope this post is not too distracting from the music scene but it certainly is good for my little memory loss problem to go back on the good old times.
Regards to all Simmo