Planning new lives in N.Z.

Press, 18 March 1983, Page 17

Planning new lives in N.Z.

Redundancy twice in the last two years, is the reason why Brian Hall, aged 45, and his wife Ann, who is 31. decided to leave Britain. “The children are going to ask eventually why I don't go to work," he said.

His experience in engineering fitted in with the list of skills which New Zealand is prepared to accept. Kieran, aged 6, and Kirsty-Anne, aged 5, will go with their parents to Palmerston North where Mr Hall has a job in industrial engineering. The family now live on welfare in a rental flat in a monotonous suburb of Guildford, Surrey, Mr Hall describes himself as “a job hopper” with experience in the motor industry, civil engineering, the packaging industry, the plastics industry, the rubber industry, the manufacturing of pressure vessels — “three years here and there." “You’ve got to shift around when you're young, haven’t you? I'll stick to the job in New Zealand. I'm older now.”

In November two years ago Mr Hall lost a job as a toolmaker. His next job, as a technician responsible for maintenance in a public school went, he said, when lie managed to get all the maintenance up to date and the school decided they would increase their teaching staff and do without a technician.

"The future in the United Kingdom without work is very destroying,” he said. “You work hard, you go to evening classes — and somehow they throw you on the scrapheap. Being thrown on the scrapheap at 43 is a bit of a shaker. “I’ve written for dozens of jobs, right up until we heard about New Zealand. There’s dignity in work, there’s no doubt about it.

“Ann has great faith in me. We always thought that if we left New Zealand would be it, then Canada. Australia is too big and brash. “New Zealand has always been a dream. Things have drifted in from my sister who went there 13 years ago. She’s been back to Britain twice and never regretted leaving. Mr Hall was born in south London, Mrs Hall in Surrey; They were married eight years ago. “We’re both second-time-arounders,” explained Mr Hall. They don’t know if they will buy or rent a house when they get to

Palmerston North. “We don’t know what our standard of living will be like,” said Mr Hall. “We’d like to buy if possible. But we’ll just have to cut our cloth. With two children, we can’t sacrifice their pleasure.” They are selling their old Hillman Imp to friends who will drive them out to the airport in it. "We’ll just drive out there and give them the keys,” he said. “We’ll get an old car

in New Zealand. They’re much older there aren’t they? Anyway, I don’t have much faith in the engineering in modem cars. “We’re just going to be relatively poor Poms out there. We’ve got a job, anyway. It’s so trying staying at home and having a job for three months and it folds up. Manufacturing in the south east is collapsing. It suits Government to shift manufacturing from a highly salubrious housing area.” “We’ve been lucky, though,” Ann said. “We haven’t got it as bad as others even now.”

“Fm going to have to work hard, there’s no doubt about it,” Mr Hall mused. “I’ll have to pull out all the stops for the first year. When I have worked in the last few years I haven’t been pressed to work hard.” One of Britain’s troubles was selfishness, he said. “Things are so out of hand here. The whole attitude in the United Kingdom is getting so selfish, so insular. I can see it. We’re becoming European in the worst sense of the word. They’re so insular here. They just don’t want to know. “We know the neighbours on one side and one on the other and that’s the way we like it. It takes a long time to build relationships here. “All the Kiwis we have met have been pleasant people. They’re always interested in what you do. “People in Britain don’t have any feelings for each other any more. “I think the water men may have had some reason to do what they did," he said, referring to the recent successful strike by water workers

for higher pay, "but it was very unsocial.” Next we'll have the electrical people. They’re all scrabbling for the same piece of cake. If you’re going to do that sort of thing on an island this size you might as well pull out the plug and let it go down. “The British ‘l'm all right Jack’ is destroying the whole British nation.” When the Halls go to New Zealand they will be leaving both of Ann's parents. “He’s a skilled bricklayer but because of the way they build houses now he’s working as a groundsman at a local school. The money’s poor, but he’s a philosopher,” Mr Hall observed. “They’ll miss us more than we’ll miss them. They know we have to go”

His father-in-law, Mr Harry Edwards, came in the back door dressed in oil-skins, and greeted the Hall family dog, Skipper, which he will look after when they leave. He understood, he said, why his daughter and son-in-law had to go. “It’s a man’s duty to look after his family. If Britain keeps going the way it is, no-one will be in work. I’ll miss the grandchildren. But then you won’t get atom bombs flying around out there.

"This Government has plenty of money for destruction. It doesn’t make sense to me. None of it.” The children were so excited about having their photographs taken that they could not sit still be asked questions about going to New Zealand.

Mrs Hall said Kieran’s main concern had been whether New Zealanders talked English or not. He had a New Zealand teacher at his school.

“They can’t talk English properly because they don’t call wellies wellies, they call them gumboots,” he told his mother.

Ann, who does not work, thought she would probably fill in her time in New Zealand much as she does now. Like her husband, she would enjoy having a garden. “I don’t know what I’ll do really. We go to theatre a small amount here. We get good amateur productions. I think they are just as enjoyable as the theatres in London.”

They will begin again in Palmers, ton North.