White Boots & Miniskirts (27 page)

‘Did you have to take
two
of them on?’ I asked Raelene the next night, after the lads had gleefully told the whole office about the event.

‘Ah, what am I gonna do if he sticks it in ma mouth?’ was her reply.

There was no answer to that.

A few days later, Jenny and I danced a farewell jig on the news desk, waving the reams of white copy paper and the news desk phones at the camera. I still have those photos. They show a very happy, high-cheeked ‘Yoko’ in a denim dress, long socks and two-toned pumps,
delighted to be moving into the next important stage of her life. And alongside her, her co-worker, brown hair in a neat fringed bob, black roll-neck jumper, brown leather jacket and blue wide flares, looks straight at the camera and gives a half-smile, lips pursed.

The camera doesn’t lie. You can see my apprehension, the uncertainty underneath it all. There would, indeed, be tricky, uncertain episodes after that day in March 1976 when the big bird went down the runway at Heathrow and took to the skies to transport me to the other side of the world. Yet my timing was impeccable. For me, it was exactly the right moment to put everything I knew behind me and make my way in the world in a totally different place. There will always be people in this world who need to leave their environment in order to reinvent themselves, flourish and become the person they never quite imagined they could be. My new horizons in Australia offered me so much more than a suntan, a new job and endless cask wine on tap.

As a relatively ‘new’ country, Australia had always been open, generous in opening its doors wide to people like me. The initial welcome was a bit shaky but after a while, I would be a true beneficiary of that open-handed, laidback Aussie generosity: a lucky Pom in a truly lucky country. In truth, it was all going to happen for me. A long, long way from home.

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First published in paperback in 2013

ISBN: 9781782190141

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