In a recent thread Dai mentioned living in 4 different countries, and I know from other posts that we have UK born members living in Sweden, Italy, Australia, Japan … and many, many more. If you’re one of them, or for that matter anyone else whose life has taken them to a country other than that of their birth, how did that come about? And how is it working out for you (or not if that’s the unfortunate case)?
I’ve moved around Britain from childhood in Glasgow, to teens in North Wales, to adult life in northwest, then southwest, then eastern England. Although that makes me a nomad among my friends I’m an amateur by the standards of many on here. Tell us your stories if you’d like to share them.
As my user name suggests I am from Wales, the valleys in the south.
I moved to a foreign country as a student, England! Went to university in Liverpool, then after graduation moved to London, I didn’t like that job so went back to Liverpool and did a Master’s degree (both degrees in Electronic Engineering)
At the end of that was talking to a friend at the university who told me he got a job in Switzerland indirectly through another former student. I thought that sounds interesting and I applied for 3 jobs in Switzerland, and got one of them moving there in 1987.
After 9 years for personal reasons I moved back to the UK (Bristol) Again that job didn’t work out and after 3 years I went back to Switzerland in 1999.
Then I met the woman who would become my wife on a business trip and decided to move to Canada in 2005 to be with her. I had no job offer or real idea of a career path here, didn’t even have any immigration status in Canada at the time. We got married, had a child, but I was still not working. In the end got a job with my old company that I had worked for in Zurich in New York state which was relatively nearby to where we lived (Montreal).
To cut a long story short I was made redundant after 2 years (place closed down) and I moved back to Canada, first to Toronto and then after we broke up to Ottawa for a job where I have been for 10 years. I think when this job ends and/or I retire I would like to return to Toronto and also maybe spend part of the year in the UK. Pension stuff is complex when you have lived in 4 countries!
For some reason I never think of Switzerland as being a real place, maybe because I don’t think I know anyone irl who has been there. I guess relationships/marriage will be the reason behind a lot of international moves.
Oh it’s real, a bit like a giant theme park, but it exists, a country with 4 official languages.
I think Jake Burns of Still Little Fingers was once asked why he had moved to Chicago, he said “there’s normally a woman involved”
@Gatz I’ve been there several times and we have met, first time was 28 years ago. Have family members there on my other half’s side.
I’ll tick that off the list, and make a mental note to ask anyone I meet if they have even been to Lichtenstein or Luxembourg.
Both those too.
Damn. Papua New Guinea anyone?
I’ve lived in Bonn for 20 years (come 15 March this year). That’s longer than I have lived anywhere in my whole life. It’s working well for me. Starting off here as a TEFL teacher to business students, I took advantage of the city hosting the United Nations to get a job processing and drafting correspondence for the Executive. I’ve been working in different roles for 15 years now and I love the diversity of colleagues and the work we do. I am very lucky. My children were born in the city, which greatly pleases my Mum who has always been a Beethoven fan. It’s a small place, where many people know each other and I feel well embedded here. Climate-wise, it’s similar to the UK. I am temperamentally northern European and until 2016 didn’t think it really mattered where in that geography I lived – it’s all physically quite close together.
I moved from London to be with my partner, who had a job in this area. The job I had had was coming to an end, so it felt right to try this. I’d lived quite an itinerant life till then. Before being in London, working in reverse, I had been in Essex for 2 years. the USA for 6 months, Bradford for 4 years, India for 6 months, Southampton for 3 years, Basingstoke for 1 year, Brussels for 1 year, Reading and Switzerland for 5 years, and initially Salwarpe for 12 years. Though I wasn’t anywhere before that, I was conceived in South Wales.
I came to Sweden because of the climate. Those mild, sunny winters really appealed!
Ok, I’ll be honest. Another reason to come here was to escape the clutches of that vile woman Mrs Thatcher.
When she leaves Downing Street, I’ll probably think about coming home.
She’s still going strong, pal.
I lived in Sweden 1999-2000 and I could easily have settled there if it had been an option. So civilised compared to the shit-hole most of England has become. And you have proper weather as well.
Although yer Guardian’s always banging on about how Sweden is replete with quarrelsome youth.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/04/why-sweden-is-failing-gang-violence-rapper-sebastian-stakset
These things are relative bruv. Stockholm probably by now has a gang problem equivalent to somewhere like Colchester.
What’s Swedish for “Booyakasha!”?
The Guardian is quite right to write about the gang violence here in Sweden, @gary. Something has gone very badly wrong. That article nails it well.
There are far too many guns for sale on the black market. And far too many teenagers sent out to kill on the orders of the gang bosses.
I showed that article to our son (now 20) and he told me (to my great surprise) that Sebastian Staket’s mum lived on the same street as us when
we lived in Kärrtorp. And that he’s talked to Sebastian several times. He’s got great respect for him.
I’ve just compared Sweden and Italy on my computer’s internet. Sweden has a much smaller and less dense population (but I think I remember an AWer mentioning in another discussion that it’s very concentrated in specific areas/cities). Over recent years its murder rate has constantly been more than double that of Italy. True, Italy has the Mafia and gangs and delinquincy seems to be on the increase in some areas, but one thing I’ve always loved about Italy is its general lack of violence. I still feel very safe walking around the city streets in the evenings (not that I ever do). I’m aware that, ironically, this is due in some ways and to some extent to the very things I’ve mentioned elsewhere as getting on my nerves (Italy’s lack of multiculturalism, its obsession with the family, its deference to the church).
That is very sobering to read @Gary. Twice the murder rate of Italy!
You’re right. The majority of the population is in the big cities of Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö/Lund and Uppsala.
86.3% is urban!
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/sweden-population/
But I’ll now surprise you by saying that I feel perfectly safe walking around late at night. Why would anyone waste their time attacking me? I’m not worth mugging. And as an old geezer, I pose no territorial threat to the local youth gangs.
Many of the murders here are kids killing kids or other young adults. What is scary is that sometimes these murders will happen in broad daylight, for example in the middle of a crowded shopping centre. Bystanders have been injured or killed.
Law and Order is quite rightly a very hot topic. Swedish prisons are now so full that there was recently a fairly loony suggestion that we started renting prison space abroad!
I’ve lived in Singapore for more than 30 years now (moved here in April 1993), which is longer than I lived in the UK.
After university in Manchester (like @dai above, also Electronic Engineering) I had been working for a few years at a semiconductor company in Oldham who supplied chips to the disk drive industry. One of the major customers wanted technical support at their factory in Singapore and, having no commitments, I took up the offer on an initial 2 year posting…..
After about 4 years working in this role, I was poached by the some of the ex-US sales team to provide a similar role for a Japanese semiconductor company supporting another disk drive company, which then led to a job with them, which continued until I took early retirement a few years ago.
Having gotten married in Singapore and both my kids were born here, it really is home now – even though it is supposedly one of the most expensive places in the world to retire in ! That said, my elder boy is currently at university in the UK and my younger boy will be going to university this year, also likely the UK, so we are looking at maybe spending some of the year in the UK (and coming back to Singapore when it’s cold, wet and miserable in the UK!).
I was born in The Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading. I grew up in Shinfield and then moved to Earley (both suburbs of Reading). My first house was in Lower Earley (less than a mile from my parents house).
I then moved to Tilehurst (in West Reading). My work is 12 miles from my current home (still in Tilehurst).
My mother was born in Slough (about 20 miles from Reading), but to add a bit of pizzazz to the story, my father was born in Bexhill, Sussex – but from the age of 4 grew up in Slough.
Not very travelled am I ?
As I was at school on the Shinfield Road from 81 to 86, it’s possible our paths crossed without ever knowing it.
Ryeish Green? My primary school was in Shinfield (Whiteknights), but my Secondary School was Maiden Erlegh.
My sister lives in Earley. Get back a couple of times a year
No, Leighton Park. Looking at the map, very close to your secondary school.
Indeed, and about half a mile from my house then.
Michael Foot, David Lean, and Jim Broadbent also went there
Also Laura Marling, not that I know any of her songs. I’ll redress that now.
I feel we should have some sort of ceremony where I hand over the Dullest AfterWorder Trophy.
The reason reason I asked, other than curiosity and a long running plan to harvest your passwords, is that I vaguely remember studies that said the majority of Britons live less than 20 miles from their place of birth but the average is over 100 miles. If both are true those who do move will need to have moved well over 100 miles to bring that average up (I’m about 350).
About three miles away from my birthplace here.
Mrs M was born in Warkworth and considers this the deep south. (Yaboogaman etc)
Many years ago, I worked on a debt recovery conference where one of the speakers said that, at the time (late 90s), most people, once adult, didn’t move more than 14 miles due to family ties and commitments.
I grew up in Harrow, NW London, moved to the Milton Keynes area for 3 years, then Godalming area 10 years, then Worthing, currently 22 years. I had a couple of sniffs at moving to the US but nothing came of them. I’m quite glad now really, seeing what the US has become.
I was born in New Zealand but moved to Australia in 1981 in my late twenties, following musical friends and colleagues who’d made the same trans-Tasman trip. I’ve been here in Sydney ever since, although Mrs H is also a Kiwi who I knew as a friend before I moved to Australia. Our 3 kids were born and grew up here. Interestingly Daughter No 1’s partner, and father of their 2 kids, is a Kiwi.
People think NZ and Australia are virtually the same country, and I suppose if you’re thinking in global terms they are – stuck down in the South Pacific, both originally British colonies. But to me they’re very different, and I think that stems in part from Australia starting out as a penal colony whereas people went to NZ because – er, they wanted to. Also the landscape/flora/fauna are completely different, as are the indigenous people. The Maori people have a common language whereas the Australian Aborigines have hundreds. The relationship between the two countries is friendly enough except on the sporting field, where Australians HATE to be beaten by little brother NZ, and NZ LOVES thrashing big bro’ Australia.
Despite Australia being my home for 53 years, I still feel like a New Zealander. It’s an odd sitting-on-the-fence position to be in really,. While I in general care about what happens here, it’s not enough for me to join a political party or take to the streets to protest something. I wonder if others have that feeling – emotional belonging to the place you were born rather than adapting to a country you’ve lived 2/3 of your life in?
“Emotional belonging”, is that a thing, I wonder? And can it be genetic, a quasi-muscle memory of the DNA? I was born in Sussex, trained in London, worked in and around Brum and now Lichfield, some 20 miles further north of there. Yet I consider myself a Hebridean Celt. It isn’t entirely affectation, tho I dare say a fair amount may be. My mother was the real McCoy, Matheson actually, as McCoy is a Sutherland name, but why don’t I have such a pull to my father’s line, which actually came from, um, Sutherland.
Born in Sarfend-on-Sea, moved to London as soon as I could afford it (which was when my salary went up from £10 a week to £12) and lived there for 35 years or so. Then the Eden Project thing happened and we moved to Cornwall, where I buried the previous Mrs thep and met the current holder of the post.
She was (and still is) Australian, and after 5 years together in Cornwall we moved to Oz in 2014. For quite a long time I thought of myself as living in two countries, flitting back and forth as the mood took me, but as the years have passed I have come to realise that Oz is where I want to be. I love going back and seeing the fam or course, particularly the twins, but unlike Mousey I don’t feel all that much of a connection with the place I was born, particularly at the moment. Plenty wrong with Oz of course, and no wildlife wants to kill me in the UK, but I feel comfortable here. In fact when I go back next month I’m going to ship my embarrassingly large collection of old Penguins, Pans etc etc back here so I can have them near me for 9 months a year, not 3. This is a significant event, and will be regarded as such by my family, particularly my daughter, who has never forgiven me for moving here in the first place. But can’t be helped – it’s one of the inevitable consequences of falling for someone who comes from 10,000 miles away.
Nobody’s ever said, ‘You’re not from round here, are you?’ to me, which came as a surprise, but in fact there are loads of Brits around, including our AusPost delivery guy, who is as Welsh as a person who couldn’t be any more Welsh and insists on talking rugby to me and I pretend to be interested.
That’s interesting that you’ve whole-heartedly embraced being an Aussie at such a – er, advance age.
Maybe it’s different from me in that your country of birth and adopted country are so far apart.
Time for another Antipodean Mingle methinks!
Well, don’t run away with the idea that I sing Advance Australia Fair every morning before breakfast. Living in two countries is a major pain in the arse – bank accounts, tax, pension, 2 Apple accounts, 2 eBay accounts and so on – so there’s a certain pragmatism in my attitude. Talking of arse, another calculation is that if and when I get to the point when I need someone to wipe mine for me, on the whole I’d rather it was my wife who did it and not my daughter. She (my wife) is 14 years younger than me and still working with a mortgage to pay, aged parents and two grandchildren of her own, so moving back to England isn’t really an option for several years at least.
PS: yes, an Antipodean mingle would be a fine thing. Fortunately for you Sydney would seem to be the obvious mid-point. Although I suppose since nearly everybody would be getting on a plane it doesn’t much matter where it is. Gold Coast airport is a mere 30 mins from Murwillumbah, for instance…
2024 marks 20 years since I moved to Madrid. The marriage I moved here for is long over. But children, flat, job, Madrileña other half and the fact that I like it here mean I won’t be going anywhere else anytime soon. Brexit has reduced the options anyway sadly. Work and family mean I make it to the UK enough to know i wouldnt want to live there again.
Being pale, ginger and strongly accented means that I get ‘you’re not from round here’ on a weekly basis.
Aussie trifecta. Born Melbourne , raised Melbourne at 24 spent 3 years in Harare as a teacher. Deported after caught smoking a spliff outside a Thomas Mapfumo show. Somehow ended up working for the Stock Exchange back in Melb. Moved to Sydney with work for 15 years. Wife wanted to come back to be closer to family. We did , we divorced – that went well. Eventually made redundant, big payout remarried. Now planning last big life change.
I’m patriotic but I dont think ridiculously so. I just like to have some fun with sport.
I like most people.
On another thread I suggested my new home will make me the Afterword’s southernmost correspondent. I could be wrong.
I wonder who would be the northernmost.
One of the Scandi crew I imagine.
Mrs F was conceived in London to Scottish and Spanish parents, and born in the Cairngorms. Six months later her father got a job with the Commonwealth War Graves Commision and, as an infant, she moved around anywhere in Europe where there might be war graves – Spain, southern France, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Portugal, Morocco, Belgium, but, by the time of school age they settled in the Somme region of northern France. Raised in various houses, all next to cemeteries, around Arras. Because her father was in France as a Diplomat he paid no local tax, so the French gov’t chucked her out of the education system at 18, and she came to Aberdeen for university. Post-graduation, she had jobs in Aberdeen, Oxford, London, and Reading – that’s where I met her.
I was born in Hertford, Herts and moved 20 miles to Royston, Herts when I was 17. Apart from three years at university in Reading, I’ve moved a further 15 miles since, across the border into South Cambs. Since the fairly recent death of my East Ender grandmother, I have become much more exotic – a cousin started researching the family tree and it turns out that both my great grandparents were French. Although, unlike Mrs F, I can’t speak the lingo.
Moved to Sweden in 2013 with my Swedish wife after living with her in the UK since 1997. We live in Sweden’s ugliest city so they say which is Borlänge. It’s a little bit funny when you think we came from beautiful Oxford but you cannot live so well there, it’s only for the affluent and there are too many people. Here we could get a better house and make our money go further. Also the population is much smaller. There’s not much traffic. The commute takes 15 minutes on foot. I feel no draw back to the UK, it seems rather dreary when we visit. We have built up a new group of friends. I work with great people, mostly young women with young families, as it happens. Here you have more rights as workers, natch and in general.
Is Borlänge uglier than Ljungby? When I was there Ljungby was known as the most boring town in Sweden (me being there won’t have helped) A UK friend described it as “Goole with trees”. Having lived in the three crappest towns in the UK and quite possibly the world (Hull, Grimsby, Mansfield, Hull again) I thought there was a pattern developing until I ruined my record by living for a year in, er, Paris.
Well the shopping areas are uninspiring but they are in many towns. You haven’t lived though until you’ve seen the sun rise behind the incineration plant. We also have a notorious housing area where immigrants live that is considered to be a no-go area by some. I should work for the Tourist Board, well there is dark tourism after all. They promote the town with the slogan Trevligt folk, as in nice people. Brush over the other aspects. Actually it’s pleasant here. We live by the river with forest around yet in walking distance to the centre. I always felt more unsafe in UK towns like Oxford after dark. An underlying sense of menace. Not here.
Born Aberdeen, two years in Edinburgh after school then Uni in London. Married, moved to North Norfolk Coast (them days you could buy a house for fourpence) then 15 years in the Fine City of Norwich. Youngest son died from brain tumour, a year later we divorced. I moved to Brighton, met Mrs W and then decided “Let’s move to France, five years say?” Nearly twenty years later we’re still here. Every time we go back, the UK looks more broken. We’re thinking of moving to Eire cos frankly the summers here are getting too damn hot and we still haven’t had proper rain for over a year.. will we, won’t we, who knows, we certainly don’t.
I grew up in Middlesex, just within the M25. My folks split up in 1980 and mum went to live in south Devon
Lived in south Devon from 86-93 with a year living in Reading from 90-91 on a job assignment as part of my degree program. West Reading was probably the roughest place I’ve lived in. Tiny room in an overcrowded house. We ended up taking the landlord to court because of the conditions.
Moved to Watford in 93 for the start of my career. Good times.
Did a year in the U.S. (Connecticut) late 96 to late 97. It was a work experience thing. I don’t think they expected me to come back but I did so they had to find another role for me.
1997-2000 was pretty wild. Back in Watford, partying a little too hard. My company was taken over in late 1999 and I was effectively let go.
A new opportunity came up in early 2000 and I made the decision to move to the U.S. permanently. Really didn’t have any other good options. At the time it felt more like running away from something rather than to something new. I lived back in Connecticut for 8 years. Our company was then ‘spun off’ from the mothership and we relocated R&D to Texas so off I went. Lived in DFW area for 12 years, met my wife, had our son.
Now I’m in Ireland. A job opportunity came up in 2019 and I made the best move of my life. Really happy here. We wish we’d been able to come here sooner.
As I’m writing this I’m still wondering what the hell happened. Is it pure luck or something else? I will always cherish my time living in the U.S. but feel like I’ve ended up where I wanted to be without actually knowing this is where I wanted to be – if that makes sense.
My first proper holiday with friends was to Majorca for a week aged 20. It was a real eye opener. I found myself thinking, on the beach, “surely I should be living like this?”. Thatcher’s Britain was depressing and it was a matter of complete indifference to me where I went, as long as sun and beach were guaranteed. In retrospect I should have chosen the south of Spain for better weather. Italy only really has beach weather for 4 to 6 months. That’s not enough. But after 40 years I’m kind of settled here. Recently became a citizen, now I divide my time between Puglia and Sardinia. Mostly Sardinia, as Puglia has become too touristy and too globalised. There’s a lot about the UK I’m still fond of. Italy’s lack of multiculturalism, its intolerance towards minorities, its obsession with the family and its deference to the church all get on my nerves. But I can’t imagine moving back to the UK. I don’t like the weather, don’t like the national relationship with alcohol, would find it very unpleasant living without a bidet.
I was brought up mostly in Olton which is on the outskirts of Solihull.
The company I started working for in 1988 asked my if I fancied moving to Bristol so I spent 92-98 working and living down there. Just as I was beginning to think this was all life had in store they asked me if I wanted to move to Dubai and work there for a few weeks. I ended up staying there until 2016 (and got married in 2002).
Then I got offered a job in New Plymouth, New Zealand so we moved there for nearly 3 years.
We really enjoyed living there but the job wasn’t working out so great and I got offered a job in Azerbaijan so we moved to Baku. It wasn’t a bit ropey in a lot of ways, but an interesting experience. Then Covid happened, the company shut and I ended up having to go to the UK for 4 months of lockdown (my wife was working in Fujairah, UAE and going backwards and forwards and got stuck there).
Then eventually I got to Fujairah to be with Kat, started teaching English online and doing a degree in Sociology. And I got offered a job in Dubai again last year so now I split my time between Fujairah and there. And that’s about it for now
That’s enough! What a fascinating timeline, including a move from NZ to Azerbaijan.
You probably won’t believe this but they insisted that I went to Baku for the interview but I had to do it covertly and told the NZ company I had to take a few days off urgently and wouldn’t be contactable. The basic plan was to fly from New Plymouth to Auckland and then to Baku, spend 2 days there then do the same route back. Which I thought was just about doable.
The NP flight got cancelled so I had drive to Auckland (about 4.5hrs) and sit in Auckland airport for a day while they tried to find me another flight. by the time I got to Baku I was only there for about 24 hours. I was quite knackered by the time I got back and the jet lag made me feel quite ill for a few days. I still had to go back to work and keep up the pretence of not having left the country!
This is my 25th year in NZ. Mrs BC is the reason I’m here – she is a kiwi and was working as a temp in the London office I was at. I was 32 when I left the UK. My twenties were a funny time, I took a long time to mature and wasn’t ready to be an adult until I was 30ish. Socialising far, far too much – I would go out every night of the week and this was largely happy and consequence-free until I hit 25ish when I was in dead end jobs and became skint and unhappy. A job move to the very centre of London saved me because life became exciting again. And yet I was ready to leave – I found the prospect of moving to NZ while still relatively young quite a thrill and I am very glad I did it.
Having said that I remain very British, my accent hasn’t changed and I follow all UK music, arts, sport and current affairs very closely. This does not mean I will go back to live one day. NZ is my home and we’ll over 90% of the people I love are here.
But I am not from New Zealand. In official forms, they ask whether I am “NZ Māori” or “NZ European” – I am expected to choose the latter. However, I consider an NZ European person (AKA “pakeha”) to be actually *from* here. My wife and children are NZ European. I consider my home town to be Woking – so I select “other” and put “British”.
This doesn’t mean I think Britain is superior to NZ – far from it. It’s just that I grew up in England and was a fully-formed adult when I left. I can’t just wipe that away and I don’t want to.
I was on a flight to the UK once and was talking to some people older than me with strong Yorkshire accents, they were talking about “we” and “home” and “going there” and “them” and I realised they were fully Canadian and “we” referred to Canada and “them” referred to the UK. I thought it was a bit strange.
I am now also Canadian but if somebody asks my nationality I am likely to say British first. I have been British for 60 years and Canadian for 6. I do say I am Canadian at the US border though! It’s so much easier.
I’d feel very weird saying I’m Italian. My first flight after getting citizenship I wasn’t 100% sure if I was allowed to put “Italian” as my nationality. Then I discovered that my English passport had expired anyway, so I had no choice.
Presume you speak the language pretty much perfectly too. One thing about moving to Canada was it was easier with the language compared to Switzerland, however I first moved to Quebec! (My French is still pretty terrible)
One of the large number of first generation Irish kids who
was born and grew up in Coventry in the mid 50s and 60s.
Our two week holidays were spent – and some of my happiest
Memories made and saved at my folks homes in
and around Roscommon.
Studied American Studies at Hull Uni from 1975 to 1978.
Hull was then the most isolated city in the UK. While I
Hardly ever get back, It remains one of my favourite places.
Got my first job in a recruitment ad agency in Manchester where
I worked from early 79 to mid-81. Great place for gigs (a lot of which
I got into for free for reasons that need not detain us here). As my
Salary was not great, I ended up in a huge amount of debt.
While far from a bells and whistles expat package, the
tax-free job I landed in Saudi in May 1981 was a godsend.
By the end of my “one year for need and one year for greed”) in
mid-83, I was debt-free – a status I have retained ever since.
Spent mid-83 to late -86 in Bahrain (then a lot more liberal and
pleasant than it went on to become). In addition to writing ads,
contributed record and video reviews to the local English language
papers and radio stations.
Late 86 – arrived in Hong Kong not long after Maggie T and Percy
Craddock signed off on the fairly useless One Country Two Systems
Agreement and spent 13 pretty happy years there.
Jan 97 – Jan 98 Vietnam – A wonderful country which
was just struggling to throw of the shackles of its
post-war communist era. While it’s now lost the innocence
and charm that typified its streets and peopke when I lived
there, would love to go back for a return visit.
Astonishingly for a country that suffered so much under
First` the French and then the US, there was
little resentment of foreigners. Possibly because something
like two thirds of the population back then were under 30.
Jan 98 to April 99 – Back in Honkers and got laid off after
fall out from the Asian crisis of the late 1990s
May to Sept 99 – As Hong Kong is not somewhere you would live
If you had no money coming in, foolishly took a job in Dubai.
A toxic cesspit built on greed and exploitation and devoid of any
morals or indeed any redeeming features. No wonder it’s the
destination of choice for Z-list celebs and “Influencers”.
Nov 99 to Sept 2000 – Kenya. Like Vietnam, a wonderful country
full of warm, generous people who despite not having a pot to
piss in would give you the shirt of their backs. Never been back
but would love to go.
Oct 2000 to July 2001 – Hong Kong again. Broke my ankle and got
Fired/laid off. While never did establish which, took my employers
for three months salary which I then used to set up my freelance
writing business
Aug 2013 to the present – Ireland. God’s own country if only it
weren’t for the fucking constant rain and the appalling eco-vandals
who’ve made my life misery since I co-inherited my late uncle’s
farm.
Was down there yesterday marveling at how high the Shannon
had risen due to the non-stop rain of the last few weeks and
watching my dogs going mad running wild and free across the fields.
It’s pretty much what I was doing on my childhood summer holidays
all those years ago.
Le plus ca change and all that
Along the way, I’ve also worked in Australia, China, Egypt, Ethiopia,
Germany, Indonesia, Kuwait Macau, Malaysia, Portugal, Singapore
and Thailand.
While consider myself very lucky to have seen so much of the world,
I was only able to do so because I took risky jumps into the unknown
at almost every twist and turn.
Regrets? Loads but that’s probably another post
Wow. It’s nice to be well travelled but I think you do lose something compared to staying close to home. It can be hard to make friends especially when you are older in a new place, being far away from close relatives and now pension complications. I don’t necessarily think it’s the best thing to do, I have no regrets, well maybe a couple
There’s a thread in there somewhere, D
Another refugee from Thatcher’s Britain. I grew up in Leeds, went to university in Liverpool just after the Toxteth riots and spent a couple of unsettled post-graduation years working in and around London feeling like a square peg in a round hole in the pharma industry. My northern accent meant that I certainly had a bit of “you’re not from round here are you?” in places like St Albans. I missed the open spaces and great outdoors of Yorkshire and didn’t need much persuading by my then Kiwi housemate to try life in Aotearoa.
I changed careers to healthcare publishing and enjoyed living in Auckland, hiking up live volcanoes and taking trips to hot springs. It did however mean being literally cut off from the international music scene in the pre-internet era. Trying to keep up with bands meant poring over month-old copies of NME and listening to the occasional John Peel broadcast on the BBC World Service. After three years of being limited to bands such as the Muttonbirds, I made a trip back to the UK with a view to returning permanently.
On the way back I did a stopover in Hong Kong and spent a couple of weeks backpacking round China. I was fascinated by the place and got the ‘China bug’ – and also met a Chinese woman who went on to become my wife. This was in 1990, when it was still possible for a Brit to get off the plane and walk into a good job in Honk Kong with barely any experience or a visa. I became one of the FILTH (Failed in London Try Hong Kong) by landing a job as medical magazine editor there within a week, and ended up staying a year, living in an island village that later got buried under the concrete of the new airport.
With my newly-acquired Chinese fiancée and NZ citizenship papers, the next move was to Sydney, Australia, where we have been ever since, apart from a couple of extended stays in China to study the language.
Despite having now lived most of my life in Australia and feel this is home, I don’t feel like I’ve become Australian. I like the place and the people but I can’t talk Strine and always feel like a ‘pom’. The only time I feel a bit Australian is when I meet recent arrivals from the UK. People from the UK now come across to me as a bit alien, and when I talk to them I feel like I’m a bit of a fake Brit, despite everyone saying I’ve still got a strong Yorkshire accent.
My UK cultural and personal reference points are all from the late 1980s. The pubs, shops, TV shows and bands that I liked when I lived there are now mostly gone or transformed into something unrecognisable. My kids are now older than I was when I moved away from the UK so … I feel like the cycle is complete. With retirement looming I’m planning to spend several months a year in China. My wife’s family were poor factory workers in 1990. Now they are all driving EVs and living in neat new apartments. Maybe I’ll try add Chinese citizenship to my UK, NZ and Australian passports.
Living in the Japanese countryside for over 30 years.
Gosh that is a long time.
Initially, I came to ‘teach’ English.
That lasted for five years, but I’m still here.
I am doomed to forever be a gaijin both in Japan and the UK.
Brummie by birth, Brummie in my soul – lived in Tamworth and Polesworth with my ex wife (20. Miles from Birmingham) and then moved to Lichfield 25 years ago with my current wife and It is a lovely place and walking distance from @retropath2. Loved in Miami form 1986 to 1988 and May move further afield if we decide to downsize which is potentially on the cards.
“Loved in Miami”, we need to hear more about this 😉
@dai That too
In the words of Rod the Mod: “Every typo tells a story, don’t it?”
I’m visiting Japan at the moment. Fascinating place.
Born in Saltash, spent most of my childhood in Plymouth, now living in Bristol. They’re only about a hundred miles apart, but I took the long way round. After living in a few cities around the UK I took a punt and accepted a job in Dublin. I stayed there for a few years, where I largely had a great time and made some good friends. but eventually the frustrations of daily life got a bit too much (it’s a city that’s grown very quickly over the last few decades and the infrastructure hasn’t, or hadn’t at any rate, kept up with growth), and so I jumped ship to Cardiff. Another fine city which I still have a lot of affection for, but after eighteen months or so I had an opportunity to go and live and work in Tokyo. Well, you would, wouldn’t you? My wife and I lived there for two years. It’s a wonderful place and I would dearly love to have stayed longer but the UK owned company I worked for was sold to new domestic owners and expensive expats were off the menu. Our daughter was born there, and I am so envious that her passport will forever have it listed as her place of birth. It’s just a fantastic machine for living in. Everything just works, in stark contrast to the current state of the UK.
M62 all my life. Apart from a few years in Teesside.
I have spent a year on one hotel in Dubai…. But never for more than 2 weeks at a time.
How dull am I?
GLW on the other hand clicked up Scotland, Libya, Malta (and you could say Saudi and Spain too, or see those as very long holidays) before moving to England.
I was born in West Oxfordshire – Chipping Norton – and moved away when I went to college in Weymouth. I stayed there after graduating, and moved to Somerset when my partner had to relocate for her new job in the mid-80s. We’ve lived either in or a few miles from Bridgwater ever since. There are a lot of Areas around Oxford, my dad being one of seven siblings. His ancestors lived a few miles from ‘Chippy’ for a couple of hundred years. I always feel very comfortable there, but have no desire to move back.
I was born in New Zealand. My parents came to the UK when I was a baby. The journey took took six weeks. Since then I have lived in England: Gloucestershire, Shropshire, Cheshire, Pimlico, Bethnal Green, Palmers Green, Bedfordshire, Worcestershire, Bucks, Bedfordshire( again), Dorset and Cambridgeshire. The liklihood is I will move again.
Just as an aside, I have seen a couple references to Dubai here. About 10 years ago, a family friend was jailed for questioning why he had not received a promised bonus payment for a particularly large job. He is a highly skilled manual worker – he makes things. This isn’t an exec grumpy about his remuneration package. His impertinence was deemed to be deeply disrespectful – and his employer instructed the police to arrest him and take away his passport. Which they did.
The guy is the absolute opposite of a stroppy employee. Softly spoken, easy-going and devoted to his family. He’d been there for about 4 years and up to that point things had seemingly gone very well News of his arrest was jaw-dropping to say the least. It was like hearing Kylie had been arrested for instigating a scuffle in the away end at Millwall. Extremely unlikely.
He’s OK now and he’s back in NZ. But he was only released after assistance from NZ and UK officials. He is not keen to talk in any detail about it, but I understand that he was given permission to travel to see his parents and he took that opportunity. It sounds like the UAE authorities knew that he would not return but for whatever reason, they weren’t going to officially apologise or release him.
Horrible, horrible place where they put you in
Jail for the slightest thing and leave you there to rot.
Was lucky I didn’t end up in chokey myself as the estate agent
I used sub-let me a flat he didn’t own and I later found out
wasn’t paying rent on himself.As the occupant, I was the one who’d get
Arrested and banged up
The lives of the poor Indians who build and do all the donkey
work in the place are a million times worse
I’m a third generation Angeleno from the good old US of A with roots in the San Fernando Valley going back over 140 years. Most people in LA are fresh off the bus from Ohio, but I belong here and I live less than 10 miles from where I was born and from where my grandfather was born. I wouldn’t live anywhere else. The rest of the world is for taking vacations to visit.
Who the bloody hell is this “Bigshot”??
I have it on very good authority he’s a third-generation Angelino with roots in the San Fernando Valley going back over 140 years
Either that or Bri in deep cover.
@moseleymoles
Respect!
Can’t be easy playing cricket on the slopes of the San Fernando Valley
If he’s not Australian or English we can’t call him Shottie or Shotters. This is very distraughtenibg.
(distraughtening, I meant. If you’re going to use a nonsense made-up word at least spell it right you putz)
I am the Big Shot
You heard me right the first time
Name of bachelor Johnny Cool
Occupation, Big Shot
I hereby dub thee all big shots of the realm.
This seemed topical. Nick Cave on expatriate duality.
https://www.theredhandfiles.com/how-do-you-reconcile-this-duality/
I am delighted that we have a blogger based in LA, @Bigshot. This community is very globally widespread.
I am just curious: how did you stumble across the Afterword?
(Actually, that is a question i would like to any members of our community who joined after The Word magazine ceased to exist.)
In the rather unlikely event that any of you do not know the Bonzo Dog Band song that Hubert was referring to, here it is. A perfect way to start a snowy (minus 11) Monday morning in Bagarmossen.
@Kaisfatdad I found this place googling for reviews of the Robert Fripp mega box set. Everywhere else just cut and pasted the press release, but you folks had an actual review based on listening to it. (A rarer thing online than you’d think.) The internet is a global infection.
Love me some Bonzo Dog!
“Cut n paste the press release”: you are so right. As a novice in the ocean of laptop critics, it is shocking how many “reviews”, from even credible sources, are just verbatim lifts from the publicist. I get access to a lot of PR blurb and thus see the same hyperboles repeated, ad nauseam, by their recipients. Look up any recent album and google reviews and be prepared for a lot of the same
Some years back I read an article online, ‘What’s on Bruce Springsteen’s iPod’. One of the tracks was The Gilmore’s cover of I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine, recorded for a magazine cover mount album of Dylan songs.
I know Thea is a big Springsteen fan so I posted the link on a now-defunct fanboard hoping she would get a kick out of the news. I can be sure the news reached her and made it into her press release because every article that was published about her for years afterwards, and as a fan I would look out for them, began, ‘She’s on Bruce Springsteen’s iPod …’
“Cut n paste the press release!” It’s not just music reviews @retropath. As you know, I work at a small local cinema and our customers book their tickets on a nation-wide site :
https://bio.se/
Sometimes the texts that they use are of an appallingly low quality and have have just been cut and paste from a press release or suchlike. A dozy, disinterested intern or a bright chimpanzee could do better.
It pisses me off as their laziness probably loses us ticket sales.
Sorry! Rant over.
Don’t worry – these generic cut’n’paste reviews are probably going to be replaced by AI-generated content soon. Mined from old NME/Q/Empire datasets, they will tick the demographic box assigned to you from monitoring your AW posts and you can enjoy a reheated (and unpaid) stew of old hacks’ comments that’s different every time but draws you in with carefully-tested adjectives and superlatives.
I feel like reviews have been written like that for years. Short ones especially for three-star albums usually seem to be about 80% the same as each other.
When it comes to writing we’re all essentially bricoleurs.
(I may or may not be wearing a polo-neck)
Thanks for such a fast reply, @Bigshot.
Delighted to hear that. A big feather in the AW’s cap! You certainly belong here! Don’t forget you can start a discussion, ask a question or whatever, whenever you like.
Very glad to hear you are a Bonzos fan. (I never know which other bands other music fans will know about). Come to think of it, they did tour the US.
Here’s a concert at the Filmore West I would have liked to have been at.
https://rockposters.com/collections/fillmore-west/performers-a-z-bonzo-dog-band
Led Zepellin with the Bonzos and Roland Kirk as support acts! Magnificently eclectic.
I’ve searched out Bonzo related video over the years, because I think they had visual appeal that didn’t come across on records. In California, our equivalent of Bonzo Dog is The Residents. Are they known on the other side of the Atlantic? They’re a lot of fun live.
The Residents are very well known here, if not in a top 40 radio sense then certainly among bods like us. I think there’s a review somewhere on here on one of their many epic projects.
The Bonzos perhaps did better than they might have done otherwise because of a) the patronage of the B**tles and b) having a spot on a popular comedy show every week. God bless the Musicians Union.
@Bigshot this was taken at a 3 Bonzos and a Piano gig several years ago.
Indeed they were a most visual band.
The Residents are well-known here in Sweden among the cognoscenti and have played here in Stockholm @Bigshot.
Do Not Adjust Your Set was the zany kids TV show that they contributed to.
There’s a lot to be found. Just google away!
And then there’s all the Vivian Stanshall stuff…
You can tell DNAYS wasn’t BBC, because it’s survived rather than the tapes ending up in a skip.
The only ones that ever ended up in a skip were ones BBC staffers stole to stop them getting wiped.
There is a heartbreaking story about Peter Cook offering to buy all the tapes with his and Dud’s 1960s NOBA series on before the Beeb wiped them.
The Beeb refused to sell them to him and wiped the tapes anyway
Born in Dublin 1962 moved to England 1969 when combination of parents splitting up and Grandfather dying settled in Woodmancote Gloucestershire then moved around a bit in Gloucestershire Bishops Cleeve, Cheltenham and now living in Winchcombe . Been here 9 years and the plan was to move to North Devon near the sea once I retired but we love it here so it looks like North Devon just for holidays now .
I should imagine it’s not easy living within a few miles of a crossfire hurricane.
Born in Wolverhampton and brought up a few miles away. Moved to London for Poly (Kingston) when 19 and lived and worked around South London for the next 19 years, before moving to Belfast in 2000. Lived here since and grown to really like the place. If only the weather was better and the politicians concentrated on running the place rather than their petty squabbles would be even happier.
My parents emigrated to Malta upon retirement so spent a lot of time there. Very crowded for the most part with terrible traffic but in the north of the island where they lived much more pleasant.
As for the area I grew up in, I haven’t been back for years, would be intrigued to see what it’s like now.
Wolverhampton? It’s a right clevely, but no change there.
What an enjoyable, interesting thread this is! Hats off to you @Gatz.
Like several people here, I’ve now lived in my adopted country, Sweden, longer than I lived in the country I grew up in. The idea of moving back to the UK would terrify me. It would be like suddenly marrying a girl one had dated in the Sixth Form. Over a 30 year period, a lot changes have happened.
Anyway, that return is never going to happen. (Ooops! Best not to say never.)
But I feel like a terrible hypocrite as I would hate to lose contact with the UK: my friends, the culture and the language. I’m having my fruitcake and eating it.
I was born in Croydon, spent a couple of years in Saltdean near Brighton during early childhood. When I was about 9 we moved to Pinner in Middlesex and my parents spent the rest of their lives there.
I then went to Harrow County Boys School. I was very happy there but have never attended any school reunions. It feels as though all my old schoolmates are now Prime Ministers, popstars, Nobel Prize Winners, disgraced Tories, Hollywood mega-stars or Central American dictators.
When I left school I discovered ….girls. A shock I’ve never really got over.
I studied English Literature at Sussex University. I then relocated to Dalston. My first real job was at the Screen on the Green in Islington. I left after about six months. It was so badly paid.
Fast Forward to 2024 and one of the best things that has happened to me in years. I now work as a volunteer (and am on the board of )our local, non-profit, community cinema: Bio Reflexen i Kärrtorp and also on the board of our film club.
https://reflexen.nu/
Our son just can’t make sense of any of this.
“So you pay to be member of this club?”
“Yes, we all do.”
“So you are paying them to work there?? That’s madness, bro!”
That pretty much sums up my brilliant career. It started with me working for peanuts at one of Stockholm’s trendiest art-house cinemas.
And it ends with me paying to work at one of Stockholm’s most interesting local cinemas.
Wow, you like moving pictures? Who would have thought it. Probably something I would like to do. On Bargain Hunt today (watched through a VPN) a guy had built a retro style cinema in his back garden. It was pretty amazing!
I saw that too. Since I started WFH during Covid my usual lunch time routine is a walk then a light lunch in front of the second half of Bargain Hunt. The guy said it had taken him 5 years and cost 70 grand, but he was rightly proud of the result.
My breakfast ritual here.
After a career moving me from 35 years in Birmingham onto Worcester and onto Milton Keynes, my wife’s work at the Foreign Office led us to to go live in Hong Kong for four years, through the protests of 2019 and Chinese clampdown, then into Covid and some of the harshest lockdown conditions in the World. Escaping HK in late 2020 it was straight onto Moscow, then basking in the relative warmth of the post World Cup situation, and actually quite a welcoming place. Until the ‘Special Military Operation’ in February 2022 which effectively turned us into Enemies of our host Country, as well as suffering all the effects of the sanctions imposed on Russia. What was a 3 hour direct flight to and from the UK turned into a 24 hour journey either by Land to Helsinki and on from there ( no longer possible as the land border is closed), or flying via Belgrade or Istanbul, at prices starting at around £6k and flying only between 1am and 5am with the constant risk of the airport shutting at no notice due to drone activity. Finally escaped Russia last month, Where incidentally the temperatures have been around minus 20 for several weeks and there’s been the most snowfall for over 100 years. The UK is a nirvana currently………
Bloody hell…
Born and brought up in Poole, Dorset and went to Filton Tech where I met what turned out to be a lifelong friend, and we planned the great European tour for the long hot summer of 1976. The question was whether to start in Nice (where we had a common friend) and move north, or start in Norway (where his brother lived) and move south.
Chose the second option but never moved farther south than Gothenburg. Got a job in Stavanger in 1977 and been here ever since. Funny how life turns out.