Re: Quality of life in the UK

Andy Pandy wrote: 
"Lisa Hafey" <lisa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:43d98f7b$0$4998$db0fefd9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

As with lots of others who've replied, I don't agree with much of what
you post.  And unlike most of the other posters, I've come from one of
these "grass is greener" countries, and far prefer living here.  We
emigrated just over a year ago from Sydney Australia to live in South
East London because my husband got a job over here.  The quality of life
we have found here is vastly superior to what we had in Sydney; we
couldn't afford to buy a house in Sydney because the housing prices were
in excess of what we could afford (and my husband was on a high salary
in the IT industry) without him having to commute 3 hours between home
and the city.  Rent was relatively cheap, but the quality of housing was
  poor.  Conversely, we bought a house here in September last year for a
price that we would not have been able to find in Sydney that was as
close to my husband's work (ie the city) as he is to work here (does
that make sense?  It doesn't read well to me.  Could be to do with the
fact it's 2.45am...).


Nope - it makes sense.

I find is surprising though, from what I've heard about Australian property prices,
that Sydney is more expensive than London. But I don't know anyone who has moved to
Sydney. I know some people who have/are about to move to Melbourne and Perth, the
ones moving to Perth say that average prices are similar to here (Manchester), but
the average house is 3 times the size and a pool seems to be almost standard!


I shall rephrase now, given that it's 12.19pm and I'm slightly more lucid (thanks for replying to my post by the way, I was beginning to think it hadn't got through).

Yes, there are houses available to buy in Sydney that are cheaper than in London, but my point was, not as close to the centre of Sydney as what we've been able to buy in south-east London. In our case, we paid £190K for a 3br semi-detached (ie. about $475K Australian) ex-Local Authority house. A house of similar quality 10 miles south of the centre of Sydney (where we were previously renting) sells on average $600K - yes, that's average price, ie. roughly £240K. If we went further south or further west, quality of life, and also quality of housing decreases. Notable exceptions are the "rich-man's paradise" kind of places in the Sutherland shire, think Sylvania Waters, which have an average price of $1 million or thereabouts. The Western Suburbs has affordable housing, but unless you work in Parramatta or elsewhere in the west, it's going to take you 2 hours commuting each way.

Perth is a whole world away from Sydney in terms of cost of living, as well as distance. It's even in a different time zone! All those "A Place in the Sun" programmes show happy Brits moving to Perth and Fremantle, and yes, the houses are bigger, and yes, it does seem that the houses are cheaper. There is the trade-off though in it being isolated from the rest of Australia, being closer to south-east Asia than it is to Sydney. There's also only about 1.5 million people in Perth, whereas Sydney had a population of 4 million in 1996 - don't know what it is now. Sydney has a lot about it that resembles London when you live there, all the hustle and bustle that comes from living in a big city and the associated problems. Melbourne is more like Sydney than Perth, but again, it has the feel of a big country town rather than a state capital.

The house prices in Sydney are inflated, because, like London, that's where the majority of high-paying jobs are. The same can be said about Auckland in New Zealand, where as I said previously, housing prices have outstripped income. Doesn't help that in NSW in particular (back to Australia here) there's been tax breaks for people who buy rental properties, but things are changing in that area. Still, I emphasise, it was cheaper to buy a house the same distance from London as where we were living in Sydney was from the centre of the city...

The eldest of our three children (soon to be expanded to 4!) was the
only one in school, and we struggled to find a school to meet her
exceptional needs (she has been assessed as moderately gifted), yet the
first school we tried here in England was superior to anything else we
found in Sydney within the state and private system; she's attending a
state school here which is teaching at a level at least a year ahead of
what she was being taught in her "gifted and talented" class in Sydney.


This depends very much on the individual school - some UK schools have this idea that
you shouldn't stream, and classes should be mixed ability because that is beneficial
to the lower achievers. They seem to ignore the effect it has on the more gifted
pupils.

Well, like I said, we seem to have hit a good one straight off...perhaps it's luck, perhaps it's where we chose to live when we first came over...The same can be said for Australia too - don't know about Western Australia or Victoria, but I know the Queensland state school curriculum is nationally "looked down on", so I can see that there would be differences across the UK as well. All I can say is that compared to what my daughter had in a NSW state school she's now learning at least a year ahead of what she had been. I suspect her class is mixed ability, but they do stream for things like maths and literacy. 

Our second child (eldest son) was able to start school a year earlier
than what he'd been allowed in Australia.  He's now in year 1, whereas
in Australia he would only be starting "kindergarten" - ie reception -
at the end of this month, something which had both him and me frustrated
as he's as bright, if not brighter, than his sister.  Admittedly, his
starting school early is by accident of birth more than anything else,
because his birthday is the first of August, but in Australia the
cut-off date for starting school last January was 31 July, meaning that
he would be a whole year behind those whose birthdays fell within a
couple of days of his.  I know the situation would have been the same
over here if his birthday had been 1 September or whatever the day after
the cut-off was, but the school wouldn't bend an inch, even considering
his sister's ability (and the given wisdom with regard to "gifted and
talented" is that, extraordinary circumstances apart, siblings are
within plus or minus 10 IQ points of each other - if his sister is "very
bright" then the very least he would be is "bright").


I don't think UK schools would either. My nephew started school just after his 4th
birthday - personally I think that's far too young. In some countries, like Sweden,
children don't start school till they are 7, and it doesn't seem to result in lower
educational achievement.

Oh yes, I was aware of that. As I said, "I know the situation would have been the same over here if his birthday had been 1 September or whatever the day after the cut-off was". What I was trying to say was that it's worked out for the best for us to have come here where there is such a thing as "rising fives". Australian author Steve Biddulph wrote a book in 1998 called "Raising Boys", in which he recommended that because boys mature later than girls, they shouldn't start school until they're at least 6. Since then there's been whole primary schools of classes where the boys are 1-2 years older than the girls. In New Zealand and parts of South Africa the starting age at school is 7. I'm not suggesting that starting later results in low educational achievement (I suspect the Swedish teaching methods are something we should learn from in any case), but I was just saying that early starting works/worked better for us, given that our kids were ready for it. Mind you, I would also have held my son back if I had thought he would have benefited that way. 

Culturally we feel far happier in England, as we have an interest in
history, and so enjoy the access to historic sites all over the country
- goodness, there's ROMAN RUINS less than 3 miles from our house! - not
to mention that huge land mass a ferry trip away, Europe.  There's
nothing comparable in Australia.  Indeed, the closest "overseas travel"
is three hours away to New Zealand, and it's just like Australia, only
with pointier (and more violent) mountains...It's all very well if you
like scenery, but if you want to feed your brain...nah, nothing there.


Well, if human history is the only thing you want to feed your brain with that may be
true. But if you try a diet of geology, natural history, biology, astronomy etc
there's at least as much food in Australia as here.

Yes, maybe. Again, I was referring to us. My response to the original poster was to give the example of our experience of life "where the grass is greener". Your mileage, and that of your emigrating friends, may vary, and given your comments, probably will!

Basically, as many other posters have said, the quality of life here in the UK is certainly not as low as the OP stated. I was intending to draw to the OP's attention what already surrounds her; the grass may look greener, but close up, it's still green (or in the case of Australia and New Zealand, brown and dried up because they've been in drought for years). I do realise you're playing devil's advocate as well... 

My husband's favourite phrase is "economies of scale".  60 million
people in the UK means that there's enough money coming in and going out
  of a tiny little group of islands to ensure just about everyone can do
what they want for a price they can afford, if only they look hard
enough.


Using that logic you'd expect the cost of living in the north of Scotland to be much
higher than central London! It may be for some things - but I'd wager most things are
cheaper in places with a lower population density.

No no! I think you misunderstand me. 60 million people in a place the size of New Zealand means that you can buy stuff in bulk, whereas 20 million people in a country the size of the US means that you have to buy lesser amounts, and so it costs more. Plus it makes sense that being at the "bottom of the world" as are Australia and New Zealand (remember, it takes 24 hours to fly between Sydney and the UK, and 10 hours to China) it's going to cost more than if you're nearer to where everything's made. Simple economics. Your comment on my logic doesn't really make sense. The north of Scotland is still part of the UK, still part of the 60 million people that populate this group of islands. The people in the North of Scotland probably think they're hard done by, but they're still better off than people in Australia, because there's enough people to support the country.

We've been living here for 13 months now, and have found that food costs pretty much the same, if not cheaper (of course, that depends on what you're buying - salmon is a luxury good in Australia, but it seems to be "normal" food here, whereas meat is cheaper in Australia, but a luxury commodity here), and "stuff" is far cheaper here than in Australia, mostly due to the lesser distance it has to travel. More people in a country also means that you have more infrastructure, and more people to maintain it. Even the telly is better over here...because there's a larger market - supply and demand. Again, you're being devil's advocate, aren't you! 

I think you'll find most manufactured goods in the UK are made in places like China.
Most of our kids' toys seem to be made in China. The UK manufacturing industry has
been practically wiped out over the last few decades, with a few notable exceptions.

I think China has secured the kids toys market world-wide! But I take issue with your comment about the UK manufacturing industry being practically wiped out. You can still buy crockery off the shelf, even in Sainsburys or whatever, that's made in England. You can still buy linen made here (English-made towels in particular I was amazed to find in Asda)...if made in Australia, similar items are classed as luxury goods and certainly not sold in supermarkets, discount stores or whatever. Of course, these may be your notable exceptions...

The big thing we've noticed is the relative cheapness of cars here. Seemingly an essential in Australia with it's wide-open spaces and extreme distances between places, you'd think that they'd be cheap to come by. But no, unless you're referring to Perth/Western Australia, where for some reason you can buy cars for $100 or thereabouts, but I think that's more to do with relaxed licensing and registration than anything else. We were amazed to find that BMWs are pretty much an "everyman" car over here (not us!), whereas they're a luxury good in Australia. In fact, we've just paid £850 for a seven seater Volvo that we'd expect to pay 5 or 6 thousand dollars for in Sydney. Luxury!

I think it all works out in the wash, and it depends where you live and what your interests are, but as someone else has already said, those who whinge about their country while they're living there, will probably whinge about the country the move to, those who find it difficult to adapt to their original country will find it difficult to adapt elsewhere...but those who are happy where they are, will generally be happy wherever.

Now, that was fairly long-winded...I hope I've made some sense...


Lisa
.

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