Chapter 10
LIFE CHANGING DECISIONS
John and Paddy
Goodbye Kelly's Beach
We considered our options
and staring us in the face was our birthright. We were born in the UK and both
held British Passports.
"What are you waiting for?” our friends asked.
They informed of us our
good fortune at holding these precious documents and we began some serious planning.
We became professional
surfers on the internet, job seeking and property seeking. We began the long
and mostly unrewarding task of writing CV’s and filling in job applications.
Long months passed where we continued to battle financially to keep our
business running, keep our staff employed and live on a shoe string while at
the same time we lived in a limbo of not knowing where our future lay. Should
we sell the house during the slump? Could we sell the business? Thousands of
unanswered questions sat heavily on our shoulders.
Eventually, when time
seemed to have run out and we began to drown in debt with nowhere to turn for
assistance we made a decision to spend the last of our savings on air-tickets
to the UK to do some investigation. We needed some face-to-face interviews and
to get an idea of what our lives would be like returning to our country of
birth.
England in spring is
beautiful, people are happy to see some sunshine after the long dark winter;
the countryside is filled with the colour of bluebells and daffodils, rape seed in flower
providing huge fields of sunshine yellow. We found that the employment agencies
were filled with promising job openings and job sites were bulging with
tempting vacancies. The newspapers told us of a positive country with
unemployment figures decreasing and an increase in job vacancies. However, the
few interviews that did come to light weren’t too promising resulting in John
having to consider the only job actually offered to him. Sitting in the airport
in Johannesburg waiting for our connecting flight home we made a list of the
pros and cons of leaving South Africa and moving to the UK. How I hoped and
prayed that the list we made would show us we could stay in Africa. The UK won
hands-down and so our decision was made for us.
When, a few days later,
a job offer arrived by email, John accepted out of sheer desperation. We were
so relieved that there was a job available and took this as a sign that we
were definitely meant to move to the UK.. We were completely ignorant about the
work conditions or what sort of hell he would be walking into.
Three weeks later he
left with one suitcase and a sad farewell to his family and dog, Paddy.
I felt encouraged enough to start on the mammoth task of selling up and following him within the next few months.
The business was closed
and work found for all the staff which was a huge relief. There were many
heart-sore discussions with regular customers and loyal staff members and
saying goodbye to each one was heart wrenching. But the hope of a bright new
future for us kept me focused on the immediate tasks ahead. Closing the doors
of the shop for the final time and handing the keys over to the new owners was
heart-breaking, but I had little time to look back and regret our
decision. I focused on what I imagined
was our bright new future.
My birth home in the UK
The house was sold at a
price low enough for the buyer to realise he couldn’t ignore a bargain. Furniture and belongings
were packed up, sent off to family or charities and I finally had my life
packed into two suitcases. One of our dogs had to be left behind as travel for
pets is extremely expensive, so we decided on leaving the younger one behind as
he had the friendly type of character that could adapt to a new owner
easily. The family who took him absolutely adored him
from the very first day and I prepared to take him and say my final goodbyes
once I had moved out of the house. Up to that stage I dared not live in the house
without the protection and company of the two dogs. Despite the burglar alarm
and razor wire fence, night-times were terrifying while I was living alone. Every
bump or creak signaled a break-in and worse. My dogs were a constant source of
comfort to me during those long nights. Finally the day came to take our loving
black Labrador, Charlie to his new home and not wanting to cause him or his new
owners any distress I put on a very brave face, waiting until I had returned
home where I could have a long sobbing session safely behind closed doors.
Saying goodbye to Charlie
Arrangements were made
for our Border collie, Paddy to follow as soon as we had a home to offer him. Meanwhile
he could board with family where he was in familiar surroundings. Being an
intelligent dog I tried to explain to him that he would be reunited with us as
soon as possible but I could tell he was very disturbed by all the upheaval in
his life. We all were.
Paddy
Despite the heart-ache
and huge lump of home-sickness that never seemed to shift from my chest, I felt
that plans were going well and enjoyed a sense of achievement once I had locked
up the house for the last time and handed the keys over to the estate agent. I
booked my flight with confidence in my heart.
Meanwhile John was
staying in one room in a very small and dirty house on the outskirts of London and
working for a madman from the sounds of things, who expected him to do the work
of 5 labourers each day. He was exhausted, homesick and unhappy. So much so
that he refused to Skype or phone me for days on end, explaining eventually
that he was worried he would just burst into tears when he heard my voice. This didn’t sound anything like the new life
we had anticipated.
On arriving in the UK he
had no help whatsoever from his employer and had to find his own way to a room
that he had previously arranged to rent. He was shocked to find that for the
equivalent of R1500 a week he was expected to live in a tiny room measuring
approximately 1.5 by 3 metres with one single bed and a broken table. This rent
did not include food or any other service and he shared the house with a very
disjointed family consisting of a mother, her teenage, drug-addicted son and a
part-time partner who arrived most weekends. Three Pit Bull Terriers also
shared the house which they used as their personal toilet during the day and
whoever entered the house first was greeted by their little “presents”
littering the hall and downstairs area.
His employer immediately
put him in charge of a large white van which he was expected to drive on the
very busy motorways, finding his way around London to complete various
landscaping jobs. Where in South Africa he had been in charge of a team of
labourers, here he was expected to do the work alone or with one very
disinterested youth. No more was he using his talent for landscaping and
designing gardens but was expected to do whatever was demanded of him, which
usually involved a lot of hard manual labour.
The white van in the UK
has a similar reputation to the South African Taxi in that the drivers usually
feel that they own the road and are not bound by any of the normal traffic laws.
They speed along the motorways, weaving in and out of traffic, cutting off
motorists and parking wherever they please. John soon became adept at this way
of driving his van and any South African taxi driver would have been well proud
of him after a week of ploughing through the traffic jams on the infamous M25,
known by the locals as “the M25 car park”.
Because of the amount of
traffic on the roads in the morning, travel time could be anything up to four
hours and this time was not included in the working day. Therefore if there was a job to do which took
four hours to drive to, he had to leave at 4am to be on site by 8am to start
work. This meant getting home in the
evenings sometimes as late as 10pm at night only to be on the road by 4am the
following morning.
All of this strenuous
work, long hours, and the stress of being away from family and everything
familiar certainly took its toll. After three weeks John’s weight had dropped
drastically and I could tell he was very unhappy with his situation.
We felt the best he could do was resign and start looking for work elsewhere.
After all, jobs were
plentiful, or so we believed.
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