In 1988 I migrated from England to Australia.
I arrived at Brisbane airport on September the 1st 1988, just in time to catch the last days of Expo 88.
It had been a long slow process, getting to Australia. I had never even visited the place, but had decided, based on all the anecdotal evidence I could find, that this was where I wanted to live. At the time, England seemed to be going steadily downhill, and the long, cold, dark winters were just depressing. Maggie Thatcher was still in power, and everyone seemed to want to leave the country!
How much nicer the prospect of wide open spaces, a warm climate, cold beer, shrimps on barbies and a better paid job in a new country on the other side of the world was.
I had attended a couple of information evenings that had been put on in Brighton. These sessions were great for finding out more about Australia, as of course, back then there was no Internet.
I had always wanted to take up scuba-diving, and was fascinated by the Great Barrier Reef. The prospect of being able to go sucuba-diving on the Great Barrier Reef was a major drawcard for me. One information evening I went to at the Queens Hotel in Brighton, had a marine biologist put on a talk and slideshow. This bought a little of the Great Barrier Reef to where I was living, and helped me decide that Australia was the place I wanted to live!
A friend of the family had moved his family to Brisbane in 1973. They had all come back to England in 1984 for medical reasons.
They stayed until 1987, when they all went back to Brisbane. In 1986 I spoke to them about my plans to move to Australia. They all said how brilliant life was over there, and that they couldn’t wait to get back. They were very encouraging, and insisted that I come and stay with them if I managed to get out there.
Well, that was it. I was now set. Brisbane was where I wanted to go. Looking at the place on the map, it looked reasonably close to the Great Barrier Reef, and only an hour’s flying time to Sydney. The ideal spot, and I now had somewhere to stay!
The Application Process
It was mid 1986, and the decision had been made to emigrate! At the time I was in another marriage, so it was really a joint decision. The good thing was, we were both in our early twenties, so we figured that if things went pear shaped, we were still young enough to bounce back.
At the time, I didn’t even know what a migration agent was, so we had no guidance to help us with the application.
What we did was go up to Australia House on The Strand, and pick up the necessary forms. All of these were duly filled out and submitted.
One of the stipulations that was made very clear in all the paperwork was that no communication would be entered into regarding the progress of the application. This was very frustrating, as it seemed to take forever before any sort of response was forthcoming.
Basically, we were using the points system to apply for resident's visas. This meant accumulating enough points to be considered (much the same as it is now).
Eventually we received a letter telling us that we needed to organise and pay for medicals. We did this, and dutifully took them up to Australia House to be submitted with our application.
After this, the next stage that we were expecting, was to be called into Australia House to be interviewed. This never happened. Instead, we got a letter asking us to send in our passports. We did.
After about six or seven weeks we got our passports back in the post with our Australian residents visas pasted into them. The whole process had taken almost a year, and now we had the visas, the whole thing suddenly became real, We were really going, and our visas stipulated that we had six months to wrap everything up, and get ourselves out there. If this deadline was not met, the whole process would have to start again.
Our house had already been sold. After the request came for us to send in our passports, there was a fair certainty that we had been accepted. This meant that we had to work out what we were taking with us, and was being sold or left behind.
What to Ship
When deciding what to take with us, there were a few really obvious things that were just not worth taking. These included european white goods that just weren't available in Australia. So, if we had any problems with them, there would be no support. The TV stayed behind, as Australian TV was broadcast on a different frequency to the UK.
Old and large furniture items were sold or given away. What we did take was most of our electrical equipment (like stereo’s kitchen appliances etc) as Australia uses the same voltage as the UK (240v). All that was needed were plug changes.
In the end we used a company called Avalon Overseas to pack and ship all our possessions. We leased half a container, and it cost us the princely sum of £850, including insurance! (Even in 1988 this was a decent price.) They did a great job, and everything arrived on time and in one piece.
The Hard Bit
All the paperwork, removals and travel arrangements had been dealt with. The day of departure drew near. Amongst all the excitement, the realisation of leaving behind family and friends was looming.
The hardest part of the whole process was saying goodbye to everyone at the airport. Make no mistake, it isn’t easy to leave all your loved ones behind, not knowing when you might see them again.
In my case, it took seven years before I got back to visit the UK. Now I spend at least three months there each year!
