junglegeorge45

Hear, hear!

Japonica

Well written. What a fantastic post...

No kidding. Well put!

Gypsy.

Absolutely brilliant post.

Thanks

BobCatVe

Maoris, Japaneses, Irishs, tribal people and Venezuelan people like me; we all are humans beings, we all should be brothers and sisters. That's a real utopia, it isn't!

I'm not British, but I reflect myself in your writings. It would be great if people who want to change their home land, had your sensibility toward different cultures.

I wish I could express myself better, but English is not my mother language. Thank you so much for those moving posts.

wannabe in oz

MR Otool i find reading your posts fantastic, so if your not to busy please keep writing

creepycrawley

Way you say it, perhaps?

slapphead_otool

Thanks Wanna be in Oz. Here is a bit for you about leaving England for the first time:

I remember leaving England in the late 1970s.

It seems like about five years ago.

Grease had come out that year. The Bee Gees were singing “Staying Alive”. I had seen Queen at Bingley Hall, so close I could have touched Freddie Mercury. Bob Segar was singling about Hollywood Nights. It had been a good summer.

Then the summer turned to autumn, the leaves fell off the trees, and winter arrived.

A friend picked me up in the early hours of the morning, took me to the railway station. I remember those yellow neon street lights making the falling sleet glisten. “you won’t be missing this will you” said my friend with a laugh. But I felt a bit of a traitor, leaving the country when things were getting tough.

It was the start of the Winter of Discontent. The talk on the car radio was all doom and gloom. Strikes and hardship.

At the station it was freezing cold in the pre dawn. I arrived early, and the train was late. I remember the pain of the cold in my fingers, and icy breath on the platform. There was nowhere warm for fee paying passengers to wait. The tea shop didn’t open until after my train was due to depart. But the train was late. The tea shop opened late anyway. I had just bought a coffee when the train pulled in. I left it behind in the rush.

This total uncaring contemptuous attitude of a government organisation tempered my thoughts of the UK for many years later.

The train seemed as cold as the platform, I don’t think the heating worked. I started reading a thick compilation of James Herriot books.

By then there was an underground connection all the way to Heathrow. The printed instructions given to me by the company had bus timetables, but someone had drawn a line though this part and written “catch the tube” in big letters.

At Heathrow I called my family. I would be lying if I didn’t say that I wanted them to say “Don’t get on the plane, come back”. They didn’t.

I took off my parka. Remember when they were all the craze? I left it on a seat at the terminal, almost as an act of symbolism.

About eight hours later I landed in Dubai.

Very few people went there in those days, unless they had to. I had to look it up in the library to even know where it was. I had no idea what to expect.

It wasn’t the Dubai of today, that the Middle east expats on BE know. Dessert, a large creek surrounded by leggo block houses. There were hardly any tall buildings, the airport looked like it belonged in the movie Casablanca.

There was no walkway connection to the plane, a set of steps rolled over, and we walked down onto the tarmac runway. The heat was staggering. Hours ago I was in cold overcast England, now I was in night time Dubai, and it was sweltering.

A minibus picked me up and took me to the donga. A house shared with two other guys. Both were older than me, and far more experienced. Think “two men and a baby”. I was the baby….


Unlike today, there was no familiarisation briefing. You had a chat with the camp boss, and then you were on your own in a very different land. Everyone looked after each other, and I am eternally grateful to those guys for looking after me. They explained things, sorted things out for me, told me who to watch out for, and who could be trusted.

Almost all of the expats were British, with a few Dutch and Germans. In those days there was still a lot of goodwill and respect for the British in the Middle East. Not that long ago we were 'protectors" of the protectorates of the region, and the locals only ever saw military or foreign office personnel. The sudden rush of oil wealth attracted expats, most of whom were initially ex military or foreign office types. They knew the ropes, kept themselves under control, and didn't pee off the locals. True they did stupid things, but the espirit de corps of the expats kept things under control, and we were expected to keep under the radar and clean up our own mess.

This was pointed out to me a few months into my contract, when an expat nurse called Helen Smith died in Saudi. I was told that seasoned expats would have handled it differently…..

The housemates walked me over to the club for a beer. The guys were a rough lot, mostly professional expats who worked all over the world and called a suitcase home. The first thing the younger ones asked was “did you bring any records?”. There was always a shortage of the latest pop music, and guys would bring whole collections over to be endlessly copied onto tape. The all in one record player, tape player and radio were all the rage. They called them “kidney machines”. I hadn’t bought any records. I had a couple of beers then walked home. Tired, in the dark in a confusing mess of identical houses and with no street signs, I got lost. I had to walk back to the club in some embarrassment, and get someone to show me the way.

The club was a second home. We seldom cooked in the house, instead all the single guys went to the club, gossiped, played darts, had dinner and drank beer.

There was very little night life in Dubai, apart from some bars in the hotels like the Red Lion. We were not keen on drinking in the city too much. Dubai drink driving rules were zero tolerance, and the jail was a hell hole in those days. So we drank in the site club. Many of the guys were hardened drinkers, but I never remember anyone missing work because of it.

I had my first of many Christmases away from my home and family. I stood at the bar feeling so sorry for myself on Christmas day. The guy standing next to me showed me a photo of his wife and kids back home in Wales. It must have been much harder for him. We took a bottle of southern Comfort and sat outside to watch “Shampoo” on the open air cinema the guys used to run. I can’t remember much of that evening.

We were very isolated. Newspapers arrived 2-3 days late and were passed around everyone. There was no internet, no email, not even fax machines. No mobile phones. To call the UK we had to walk up the hill to the satellite station, wait in a queue, book a call and stand in a booth hoping that the family were home.

We had a shortwave radio, and we religiously listened to the BBC world service, especially the news and of course the football results.

We listened to the news in Iran, as the Shah fell and the revolution occurred. I remember people were worried about its effects. Iran was less than 100 miles away, and there had been several disputes with Dubai and the Trucial States in the past, over Islands and oil. I stood on the beach at Jumeirah and saw the sun go down. About 90 miles away a country was in turmoil. I had never been so close to a critical situation. Jumairah in those days wasn’t a big Costa Del Sol holiday beach. It was just a deserted stretch of sand with the main road behind it.

I remember being worried. I drove back to the club, and old hands were discussing the situation. Some of these guys were ex Trucial Scouts, a sort of private mercenary army employed by the UK to police the region until a few years before. Their confidence was reassuring. The problem passed.

The other big news on the BBC was the “Winter of Discontent”. The UK seemed to be falling apart at the seams. The advice from the old hands was “keep away, make your money and invest wisely”.

And then it was over. My contract ended and I returned to the UK as a very different person. I had lost that vision of the UK as utopia, and was more realistic.

One final odd thing happened. Part of my role had been decommissioning old plant, and we had sold it as scrap to a local Dubai Arab. He refurnished it, and used it to start Dubai’s building boom. I had met him several times, and he always was courteous and polite, if perhaps distant. On our last meeting I told him I was leaving, and he offered me a job. The pay was very good, but I would lose the perks of being a company sponsored expat. I declined. He went on to be one of the richest men in Dubai. Maybe I would still have been there, and very rich.

I passed thought Dubai a few years ago. The old airport had gone, and most of the old leggo houses had gone as well. The city looked huge, with high rise buildings everywhere. Was it really where I had lived long ago?

Since that first contract I have never really thought of anywhere as home, nor had much allegiance to any country. My easy acceptance of the Australian lifestyle was because however hard it was, it was easier than Dubai in the 1970s.

In 2005 I was in a sordid bar in Jalam Felatan, Blok M, Jakarta. I saw a guy across the room, and I recognised him from those Dubai days. He was still trawling the world on contracts, living in some god forsake part of Indonesia, building mobile phone towers. We had a few beers and talked about the old days.

I was happy that he remembered me.

Fly Away

Wow, just fabulous. Keep up the posts. You should consider writing professionally.

creepycrawley

Having a chat with the PM in the lift isn't necessarily a positive about Australia. In any case, I very much doubt that would happen in Australia in the 21st century.

Again, don't think an anecdote like that has any relevance to modern Australia. Doubt that would happen in today's world.

In many ways Australia is 20 years behind. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes it's not. People seem desperate to get here cos they think more sunshine hours will greatly improve their lives. For some it clearly does. The lack of population is both a good thing and a bad thing.


How many more times does someone need to say ''it isn't England''?? Patronising, perhaps? Surely people know this?? You also assume that people make a clear cut choice to live here - many come here because of a job, a marriage or another family circumstance that basically dictates things to them. I don't think people who miss the UK think that it has no down sides. Honestly, no Brit could possibly think that when you have a tabloid press as negative as we do in the UK. And likewise don't make the popular mistake of assuming that people who ''don't like it'' can ''just leave'' - it's often not that simple. I also don't think many people actually do write ''endlessly'' about how bad they think Australia is. Certainly no more than the many who like to write endlessly about how shit the UK is and how they are glad to have left it behind, never to return etc. Naming no names.

creepycrawley

Why? Cos you like what he says?

Fly Away

No because he is an excellent writer. I am of an age when I can remember what he is talking about. I lived in Sydney for a year in 78/79. he brought back to me many memories. I have never lived in Dubai but found his writing evocative and interesting.

Please do not think I am am the same as you or have the same life experiences.

creepycrawley

Where did I suggest that?

slapphead_otool

The post was an indication of Australia at that time. In the same year you wouldn’t have got within 100 m of the hotel Margaret Thatcher was staying in, and I am bloody certain not into the lift unaccompanied.

The job offers, depends what you do for a living and the circles you move in. if you are a Tesco shelf stacker and you are at a Merchant Bankers party, you wont get a job offer. If you are a Carbon trader at the same party, then you may well get poached.

The story is still very true for mining and outback engineering. You are more likely to be offered a job thorough the network than via the newspapers or agents.

Re “this isn’t England, I really feel some people aren’t prepared for the change. You only have to read some of the posts here, especially from people attempting to get visas, to see that they are going to end in tears.

As for living in Australia being dictated to them by job, marriage or family circumstances:

Go read my posts above. I was in Dubai because of a job. I arrived here because of a Job. And I am not in the UK with my family…. Because of a job!

I am determined to make the best of what life hands me, either in work or personal circumstances. The glass is neither half full not half empty, but a welcome drink.

slapphead_otool

Many thanks Fly Away. I appreciate the comment.

wannabe in oz

i hope your busy writing slapphead_otool, i think your posts are great.