Lifestyle and Leisure
Growing up in Australia
Jed Lea-Henry moved with his family to Perth in Western Australia 16 years ago and now, as he contemplates returning to the UK to study, he shares his experiences of life in Oz with us
For any parent considering moving to a different country, worrying about their children being happy is obviously foremost on their minds. Jed was only young when he emigrated to Perth, but says his experience was a positive one.
Emigrate Australia (EA): When did you move to Australia?
JLH: My family moved out here in 1990 when I was six years old and my older brother Chris was 13.
EA: Where did you come from in the UK?
JLH: My family is originally from Wolverhampton, and we still have loads of relatives there.
EA: Where did you move to in Oz?
JLH: When we first came out we lived for a couple of years in Lesmurdie, a suburb east of Perth near our family, but in 1995 we moved into our house in Duncraig which is much further north of Perth and actually nearer Joondalup.
EA: What did your parents do for a living in the UK, and what do they do now?
JLH: My father was a manager of a cosmetics firm. Here he has his own consultancy business and works with companies giving advice. My brother is now working with a cosmetics firm, just as my dad did, which is quite ironic.
EA: What made your family want to leave the UK?
JLH: To be honest I don't really remember the UK, but my parents are always going on about the UK having too much crime and overcrowding. They didn't like the fact that I was always indoors. Even today if they see a bit of news or talk to my aunt back in the UK and hear about crime or something, they go on about England going down the pan and how they got out just in time. Aside from that we have family out here and we'd visited Perth before, and so I guess it was a bit easier than moving somewhere completely new, which they also thought about for a while because they wanted to go to Toronto, Canada first, but I would have frozen my butt off so I'm glad they changed their minds and moved here instead.
EA: As a child was it easy to adapt?
JLH: The funny thing is everyone can tell you where their family is from in the world before they came to Oz so being from the UK wasn't a big deal. The girls loved my English accent, but somehow I lost it. That's okay, though, because when I come and stay in the UK, British girls think Aussies are pretty cool anyway. My parents just never made a big deal of anything and had the attitude of: get up and stop whining about it. I can't remember missing anything, and I just remember thinking how wicked it was to have a pool in our back yard. My brother apparently went through a bit of a rebellion, but he came round when he got a quad bike.
EA:What can you remember about moving to a new school?
JLH: I remember getting a bit of a hard time, but I reckon it was because I have a big mouth that gets me into trouble, as anyone who knows me will tell you, more than getting picked on for being British.
EA: Have you ever returned to the UK, and do you think it was the right decision to move?
JLH: I have been back to the UK twice, and it's all right for a holiday and to see friends, but I can't imagine living there permanently: I don't feel British at all. Even the summers there seem grey and I love my life in Perth. Maybe I'm too laid-back to live anywhere else!
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