Two Pommie Sheilas: Do us Poms really have much to whinge about?

“What are those Poms whingeing about this week?”

Of course, that’s what you came here expecting to read — a right good rant on a Thursday morning.

But while these pages are often reserved for a chance to vent on all the things we feel aren’t right in the world, today I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you.

As I write this, I’m in Perth, it’s a balmy 27 degrees Celsius, I’m an hour or so into an eight-hour shift at work, and when I clock off I’m off to the park for a walk in the sunshine.

Afterwards I’ll have a cider in the backyard, cook pizza and watch a bit of TV with my husband.

Yes, life has its niggles but, as we say in Yorkshire, I “an’t got nowt to play pop about”.

Let’s rewind a few decades, say 70 years earlier. I’d have been in Britain and I would have been several hours into my working day, and work wouldn’t end when I got home.

I’d have been lucky to gather together enough rations for a tea (forget the cider) and instead of cosying up in front of the box, my husband would have been busy trying to staying alive at war.

When would he be home? Who knows — and who knows what kind of life we’d be living if (and it would be an if) he did return.

Work-life balance? Pah! I’d be chuffed if my husband came home with his limbs intact and we still had a country to call home at the end of it.

Ask any Pom why they moved to Perth and the lifestyle will be top of the list.

Since walking through those departure gates, some of us travelled the country, others have settled down with a family in the outer ’burbs, some of us have become “ping-pong Poms” and some of us have been quite happy to pack it in after a gap year or two.

On Remembrance Day, the words “they died for our freedoms” are often overused.

Yet for us Aussie Poms, having those freedoms has meant we can sit in the sunshine without “much to play pop about”.

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