Introduction

Shortly after we married in 1987, Jackie & I emigrated to Australia. This was the fulfillment of a long term ambition for us, but it was really just the start of our story. These pages look back on the emigration process, the 20 years that followed and now our return to the UK.

If you are emigrating to Australia and Western Australia in particular then this story will be of interest to you, it's a warts and all story but not a tale of woe by any means.

No one has all the answers were migration is concerned, how could anyone claim that when the experience is so different for each of us. This page just tells of our experiences of emigrating to Australia. After all that has passed there are things that we know now that we would have liked to know before we went down under.

In the Beginning

In the beginning my dream of emigrating started at around the age of nine. This was mainly because my then best Friend (Andrew Nelson) emigrated with his Mum & Dad to Perth and he was very excited about it. That happened at some time in the 1970's. I have totally lost touch with Andrew '(if you know him i'd be fascinated to know what became of him), but my interest in Australia continued, it's culture, climate, terrain and life style of the country fascinated me.

Jackie wanted to move away from the UK. She had traveled a fair bit and like me felt a better life was to be had overseas. Another driving force for her was that her best friend had recently moved to America. My talk about what I had read about Australia's weather and lifestyle made it seem like a good choice to her.

The language advantages of the country again made it seem like a good choice. So we applied to emigrate never having been there or really knowing anyone there.

Pt1 The Application

I plan on developing this web site gradually (it is a very long story) so if you have any questions that might lead to ideas for inclusion or just general suggestions of things to include, then drop me a line. Come back regularly and feel free to ask me questions.