‘It’s not all it’s cracked up to be’: Modern-day ‘Ten Pound Poms’ reveal how they turned their backs on new life in Australia because of the ‘soulless’ pubs, 37C Christmases and missing English culture – as others say they have ‘no regrets’
- Brits who made the journey to Australia today told of their varied experiences
- READ MORE: British expat reveals six things that surprised her about life in Oz
- Are you a Brit who moved to Australia? What was your experience? Email [email protected]
Modern-day ‘Ten Pound Poms’ have revealed their mixed experiences of living in Australia as officials Down Under launched a cheeky bid to ‘steal’ 31,000 British doctors, police officers and teachers.
The government of Western Australia promises hard-working Britons can ‘have it all’ with higher wages and an enviable lifestyle, but today some who’d made the trip warned life in Oz ‘isn’t all it’s cracked up to be’.
Mangala Holland, a sex coach from Glastonbury, moved to Melbourne in 2015. While she loved the ‘easy way of life’ and made lots of friends, she told MailOnline it never truly felt like ‘home’ and decided to move back to the UK after five years.
Among the things she missed about life back in the old country was the green and pleasant countryside and English culture, including its ‘cosy, charming’ traditional pubs.
Others warned of Australia’s extreme weather, sky high rents, expensive prices and the tendency of Aussie drivers to ‘crawl all over your bumper the minute you get on the road’.
Mangala Holland, a sex coach from Glastonbury, moved to Melbourne in 2015 but decided to return after five years
Cassie Lansdell was raised in London and has been living in Sydney for more than five years. She now has permanent residency
Ben and Maz, better known as YouTubers The BAM Famalam – moved to Australia from a village in south-east England
Are you a Brit who moved to Australia? What was your experience? Email [email protected]
Love Island Australia star Cassie Lansdell was raised in London and has been living in Sydney for more than five years.
She originally came for one year but enjoyed it so much she decided to get permanent residency.
The influencer regularly shares pictures of her enviable lifestyle, from sunbathing on the beach to enjoying Sydney’s bar and restaurant scene.
Ms Lansdell said she joined Love Island because she loves Australians and wanted to get to know some Australian men.
‘I’m at the stage now where I’m kind of over partying every single weekend. That’s why I want to meet someone so I can settle down,’ she told Who Magazine.
Ritchie Neville, from boy band Five, has also made Australia his home.
He has spoken how much he ‘loves’ Australia’s stunning nature and frequently shares selfies of his sun-soaked adventures.
Ben and Maz, better known as YouTubers The BAM Famalam – moved to Australia from a village in south-east England.
While they’ve repeatedly spoken of how much they adore the country they also listed several drawbacks, including the extreme weather, sky high rents and high prices in the supermarkets.
Ritchie Neville, from boy band Five, has also made Australia his home
Andrew Granger, who moved to Western Australia in 2009, urged Brits to make the journey as long as they had a ‘spirit of adventure’ and were not looking for a ‘woke way of life’
Ms Lansdell originally came to Sydney for one year but enjoyed it so much she decided to get permanent residency
Ms Holland said a trip back to England in 2018 ‘planted a seed’ that it might be time to return home
Andrew Granger left the UK in 1992 and settled in Western Australia in 2009 after several years in the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.
Now based in Perth, he loves the Aussie lifestyle and urged other Brits to make the trip – as long as they aren’t looking for a ‘woke way of life’.
‘Tradies and health workers are very well paid. I am now 68 and happily employed in sales at a car dealership where I hope to work a few more years,’ he told MailOnline.
‘I would encourage anyone to make a move here. We are isolated from European problems, our trading relationship with China is improving and there’s tons of money sloshing around the economy.
‘The biggest problem is housing, as there is an acute shortage of rental accommodation, so I don’t know where 31000 people are going to live.
‘Still, if you have the spirit of adventure and are hard working, and not expecting a woke way of life, please come.’
Mangala Holland, who provides online sexual confidence lessons for women and is described as an ‘international orgasm expert’, settled in Melbourne in 2015 after several years’ travelling.
She told MailOnline: ‘As soon as I moved there I thought it was great and I’d be able to live there.
‘There’s a very easy way of life, with so much space and big skies. On Friday lots of people finish at 3pm for the weekend.
‘I was on a student visa so was able to work on my business while studying for qualifications at the same time. They have a strong entrepreneurial spirit.
‘I was really happy there for quite a while and I built a really good friendship network.’
Ritchie Neville, of boyband Five, has spoken how much he ‘loves’ Australia’s stunning nature and frequently shares selfies of his sun-soaked adventures
Ms Holland said a trip back to England in 2018 ‘planted a seed’ that it might be time to return home.
The 50-year-old found the summers in Melbourne ‘amazing’ but said winters were far tougher.
‘No one really knows that a Melbourne winter is as bad as an English winter. And the houses aren’t particularly well built, with no double glazing or central heating.
‘Then at Christmas there are plastic snowmen outside when it’s 37C. And in October – when I have my birthday – it is spring, which felt really strange.’
‘There’s something about being back on English soil and the culture here that’s really hard to explain.
‘It’s so green here and there’s a sense of home that I hadn’t felt over there. There are amazing, stunning places in Australia but it really does feel very different.
‘I’m not much of a drinker but the pubs felt a bit soulless.
‘They are big buildings painted grey full of slot machines and bit screens and with drive-through off licences.
‘I missed that cosy English charm and the way they are at the hub of the community.’
Mr Holland tried to return to the UK in March 2020 but Covid delayed her plans for six months.
There is a large online community for Brits who have moved out to Australia, including several forums where people share their experiences.
She said her family and friends were also a factor in her deciding to return.
‘My parents were getting older, so it was clear that if anything happened to my mum and my dad it would take two days to get back and a few thousand dollars.
‘There’s also something about old friends and people you’d known for many years.
‘I loved my friends in Australia but they would talk about their childhood and references I wouldn’t really understand.
‘Although I was made really welcome there, it was never really home.’
In the ‘Poms in Aus’ forum one user described her experience as a ‘nightmare’ and ‘the biggest mistake of my life’.
Police and defence industry minister Paul Papalia (pictured with Rafael Nadal, left, in 2020) highlighted Western Australia’s ‘wine regions’, ‘coral reefs’ and ‘culinary scene’
The NHS is battling shortfalls of 12,000 hospital doctors and more than 50,000 nurses and midwives amid crippling strikes. Pictured: A nurse holds a placard as members of Royal College of Nursing picket outside St Thomas’ Hospital in Westminster on February 6
Explaining she had been living near the Blue Mountains in Sydney for eight months with her Australian husband, she described the city as ‘overpriced and overrated’.
She also complained of the ‘unreliable’ weather and aggressive drivers who ‘crawl all over your bumper the minute you get on the road’.
A poster on another forum warned that life in Oz ‘isn’t all it’s tracked up to be’.
In a nod to the Ten Pound Poms scheme introduced after the Second World War, a delegation of government and industry officials will visit the UK later this month to lure workers away to fill more than 31,000 vacancies.
They are also on the hunt for miners, plumbers, mechanics and builders – up to £2,600 this year – will cost almost half in Australia, with the savings spent on 183 pints of beer, 110 roast dinners or 500 jars of Marmite.
Police and defence industry minister Paul Papalia also highlighted Western Australia’s ‘wine regions’, ‘coral reefs’ and ‘culinary scene’.
He said: ‘Our wages are higher and our cost of living is lower. Our health system is world class. You will be taken care of.
‘Many of our ancestors were sent from the UK to Australia as convicts. Now, it would be a crime not to make the move.’
But with the UK public sector facing staff shortages, the plan has been met with concern.
Steve Brine MP, chairman of the Commons health and social care select committee, said: ‘Any country is obviously entitled to import health care workers – as we do in the UK from elsewhere – but there’s nothing to say our people have to go.’
Another committee member, Tory MP Paul Bristow, said the Australians’ choice of the word ‘steal’ was ‘unfortunate’, adding: ‘We need to demonstrate the benefits of working in the UK to help them stay.
Steve Brine MP (pictured), chairman of the Commons health and social care select committee, said: ‘Any country is obviously entitled to import health care workers – as we do in the UK from elsewhere – but there’s nothing to say our people have to go’
‘It shows that we need to redouble our efforts to recruit new nurses, new doctors and demonstrate the benefits a career in the UK offers.’
Steve Hartshorn, national chairman of the Police Federation, said: ‘We need every officer we have in this time of crisis.’
He added: ‘The impact of these experienced and trained officers leaving will also affect the ability of those newer in service to learn and develop, and to provide the best service possible to the public.’
The Federation warned that as many as nine police officers a day are already submitting requests to transfer to a police force on the other side of the world.
Meanwhile, the chair of the education select committee, Robin Walker MP, said the plan demonstrates we’re in ‘competition’ with the global market.
He said: ‘Clearly we should be worried about the loss of any good teachers trained in the English system – the best way to address that is by making it attractive to stay.’
It comes as the British public sector faces severe staff shortages and crippling strikes.
The NHS is battling shortfalls of 12,000 hospital doctors and more than 50,000 nurses and midwives.
The British Medical Association revealed before Christmas that a third of junior doctors are planning to leave the UK – with the majority choosing Australia or New Zealand.
Professor Phil Banfield, chair of British Medical Association council, said the NHS is ‘perilously exposed to these kinds of tactics from other countries at a time when doctors and healthcare staff are in desperately short supply globally.’
Nuffield Trust Senior Fellow Dr Billy Palmer said there is a ‘risk it will spiral further’ with 900 doctors moving to Australia to practise in May 2022 alone.
Australia has a long history of immigrants from Europe, as well as the post-war scheme dubbed the Ten Pound Poms where Brits moved to the other side of the world, including these women who were members of staff of an electrical firm in Glasgow who have sent them out there to start a new life in the firms counterpart factory near Adelaide in 1947
Rachel Harrison, GMB National Secretary, said: ‘It’s no wonder NHS workers are tempted to up sticks to another health service which pays better.
‘The UK Government has allowed NHS workers’ wages to fall behind, which is a massive factor in health service’s record 133,000 vacancies and missed performance standards.
‘If Ministers want to retain the best asset of the health service – the workforce – they need to talk pay now.’
The Department for Health said the majority of UK trained doctors and nurses, work in the NHS.
Arriving on February 25, the delegation will hold events and attend job fairs in London, Edinburgh, Bristol and Dublin in an attempt to sell the Australian lifestyle to UK and Irish workers.
The new campaign focuses on the lifestyle appeal, promising: ‘The culinary scene is world class, the small bars plentiful, we have pubs and live music and theatre of all sorts.’
It even boasted that the UK-Australia trade agreement that comes into force this year will make workers moving even easier.
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