Dreams: Emigration To N.Z. Or Pools Win

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30325, 28 December 1963, Page 12

Dreams: Emigration To N.Z. Or Pools Win

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, December 12.

Thousands of British families dream of an assisted passage to New Zealand as a rich prize comparable to a win in the football pools, according to several immigrants who reached Auckland today in the Himalaya.

Scottish tradesmen in particular painted a depressing picture of conditions in their homeland. More than 500 immigrants disembarked from the liner. Most of them were in family groups, the children ranging from babies in arms to teenagers.

Lack of employment opportunities in Britain and a better life for the children were the common reasons given by married men for emigrating. In every case they said they had fixed their sights on New Zealand for a long time as being the only country of which they had never heard a bad report. Many, but not all, cited the consistently bleak climate at home as a secondary reason for getting out. “Scotland has had it,” said a 34-year-old motor mechanic from Fyfe, Mr R. Moodie who will settle at Taihape with his wife and two children, aged 5 and 7. Shooting Estate

“The English Government is keeping Scotland for a shooting estate,” he said. “Tbere will be no Scotsmen left there at the rate things are going.” Mr J. Y. Sharp, a 33-year-old saw doctor from Falkirk, also made some cutting comments about the employment

situation in Scotland. He said he had been out of work twice in the last two years, and that jobs likely to become vacant were spoken for in advance of a newspaper advertisement, which was now only a formality. “Children leaving school at 15 may stand at street corners for more than a year waiting for a job to turn up,” Mr Sharp said.

When it became known in his home district that he had an assisted passage to New Zealand with his wife and two young children, said Mr Sharp, his family became the object of deep envy. “People were stopping us in the street to ask how we managed it when they had failed to qualify for some reason or other.”

Mr Sharp is to work at the Waipa State foreistry mill.

New Zealand seemed to attach more importance to family life, said Mr J. A. Clarke, a carpenter from London. “I will have the chance here to get a decent house and take the kids out of doors at week-ends. “Bad To Mild Winter”

“The housing position for families in London is terrible, and the summers have been abnormally wet and appear to be getting worse We seemed to pass from a bad winter to a mild winter, instead of summer.”

Mr B. P. Pickard, a 23-year-old bookbinder who worked on the new Coventry Cathedral service books used at the consecration, landed at Auckland uncertain of where he will find employment. “But I would have come to New Zealand before this, - ' he said. “I had got as far as I could in my trade m London and stayed on only to get married.” Mr D. C. F. Rosewell, a diamond mounter who served a five-year apprenticeship in Bond street, London, said there were a lot if people in England who required only “a final push” to become emigrants. Only 24 himself, Mr Rosewell brought out his wife and three children. Mr F. P. Rozee, a television technician who will work in Auckland, said he decided to emigrate to New Zealand at the time of die Suez crisis. "I thought then that if there was going to be trouble of this sort we should get our children to the other side of the world,” he said. “We would have come out sooner, but television had not been introduced here. England is overcrowded, not only with people, but also with cars.”

Mr J. J. Yeo, a 44-year-old carpenter from Manchester, decided with his wife to settle in New Zealand because they liked what they saw of Auckland on a brief visit some years ago. A Welsh couple, Mr and Mrs R. J. Emmanuel, and their two daughters, are looking forward to a new life in Rotorua. Mr Emmanuel is a clerical worker, but both his wife and he have been concert singers. They organised a choir for Christmas services on board the Himalaya. For Mr and Mrs B. S. Wagner the voyage to Auckland was a honeymoon. They were married a week before leaving Hertfordshire, where Mr Wagner, aged 21. was a maintenance engineer.