#emigation — Public Fediverse posts

TV Review:
A new series started on the BBC last night, "Ten Pound Poms". How could I resist watching when I was once a ten pound pom myself ?

My parents took part in this scheme in the early 1970s. It cost 10 pounds each for us to emigrate to New Zealand (not Australia as in the TV programme).

We went by air, we didn't live in Nissen huts on arrival and our passports were not taken away. I also don't remember such a degree of racism (but this was 20 years later and in another country, so...)

We were sponsored by someone who wanted to employ my father, but he then decided to retire within the 2 year period and my parents had to buy their way out of a contract to stay in NZ. We stayed in NZ until the early 1980s and I remember liking it a lot.

In NZ in the 1970s you had to book in advance to make an international telephone call and it was very *expensive*. I find it hard to believe that someone could borrow a phone to make an instant international call in the 1950s as shown in the programme.

A "joke" that I still remember hearing:

Q: How do you know when a plane full of poms has arrived at Auckland airport ?

A: The whining doesn't stop when the engines do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Pound_Poms
#tenpoundpoms #emigation #newzealand #australia #bbc