Ex-pats returning to the UK ?

We returned to Scotland in late 1989 after 3 years in Southern California. In spite of my career having gone very well over there I missed too much about home, and disliked too many aspects of American life so we came back, much to my wife’s disgust. Unfortunately it’s been far from plain sailing since then.

I discovered that the idealised Scotland I missed so much had never really existed in the first place, and that the real Scotland had also moved on in our time away.

Most of my friends had moved away and we never managed to re-establish contact with some of them.

I was made redundant after a year and it took 2 years to find a proper job as the IT job market then was virtually dead. I tried my hand at financial services for a while and narrowly escaped a nervous breakdown and alcoholism.

I started finding some people to be small-minded and parochial because there’s no doubt a spell abroad makes you look at things in a very different way.

I also had trouble readjusting to the relatively foul weather. I’d lived in Scotland for 30 years or so and never noticed the weather but a short time over there was enough to demonstrate how much easier life is in a warm dry sunny climate. To be honest I’ve never fully got used to it again.

My wife resented having to come home as she loved life over there and it still causes regular tensions between us.

There’s a load of other stuff I won’t go into but I’m sure you get the message. Think very carefully before coming back. I reckon the 2 biggest regrets in my life are:
1. Going to California in the first place (it was forced on me by my place of work closing down, and the job market being dead), and
2. Coming back. Things are never the same again.

Tom,

Sorry to read of your difficulties. It's very good of you to share them.

I think we all have a tendency to romanticise the past when we find life difficult and your post demonstrates the kind of care that has to be taken over such big decisions.

On a smaller scale I know how disappointing it can be to re-visit places that were important at earlier stages of life. The memory can be easily ruined by the reality.

Steve

TomK, sounds to me like you should head back over there at the first opportunity .... after this 'summer' I'm thinking the same mysel' !

Ian

quote:

I started finding some people to be small-minded and parochial because there’s no doubt a spell abroad makes you look at things in a very different way.

Tom,
I spent some time in and around Dallas,TX working as an IT bod and on returning to the UK found things had changed quite a bit. I found it was a case of out of sight out of mind, not so much with the closest of friends but with the wider world yes. The much vaunted portfolio type of career as advocated by politicians, masters of the universe and such did not seem to have followed me back from Texas. Dallas was no better than London and London no better than Dallas - they were just different.

TomK - thanks again for that. I'm sorry to hear things haven't worked out for you. I've never lived in Scotland as an adult in the workforce as I moved south after college so I don't have any romantic notions about the place but I know that the grass is always greener and that's why I started this thread - to gain an insight into what we have ahead of us.

RoyT
If I read you correctly you are saying that everywhere has it's good & bad points. It's just that if you've lived somewhere different for a while you begin to see things not so much as good & bad but just different since your expectations are different. I'm in agreement with that.

Cheers
Scott

ScottC,
100% right.

Scott,
Things are not as bad as it perhaps looks from my post but I wanted to make it clear there were risks from going back. The main impact on us has been financial. I knew we'd have have a lower standard living here than in the US (we had a beautiful large house, pool, jacuzzi, money in the bank, higher salary and lower cost of living including cheap cds and hifi etc) but I found the "quality of life" to be much lower over there (I mean the less tangible aspects such as community feeling, personal relationships, quality of air and drinking water, nice neighbours, even to missing pubs and the football results coming in at 4.45 on a Saturday afternoon!). We hadn't however budgeted on another redundancy, being out of real work for 2 years, and the new job paying considerably less than my previous one. This hit us severely and to be honest is probably going to affect us for the rest of our lives. As you're well aware some decisions can live with you for a long time.

Scott

An interesting and timely post! I left Aberdeen in September 1997 (almost 10 years to the day) for Cleveland, OH to take over an IT project that had gone badly off the rails. I was lucky enough to be able to fix it and the US company asked me to stay, so I moved my wife and family to the US in June 1998, spending the next 2.5 years in Cleveland before relocating again to CHicago in 2000.

I have enjoyed tremendous opportunity here and although there are many aspects of US life that are hard to take, there is no denying that cost and standard of living for someone at my level (which is probably upper middle class) is far higher than the UK.

That said, like you and TomK, I go through spells of rampant home sickness which our annual trips to Scotland don't fully cure.

However, in January this year I was asked to go to Glasgow (a city I didn't know at all well) for six months to fix another problem and so I got the chance to experience long term living back in the UK.

I have to say that the first thing that struck me was the cost of living. Flat rental (company paid but still expensive), food, petrol, car prices etc, definitely was an eye opener as it seemed very expensive vs. the US.

On the plus side, I had easy access to the hills and was able to get in many long weekend trips as I re-discovered the joys of wild camping in the Highlands and of the course the scenery is breathtaking compared to the flatlands of the US midwest.

But, and it's a big but - I felt like s stranger in a strange land at times - old friends were still around but we had grown apart in many ways and reliving the "glory days" was fun but ultimately somewhat empty in many ways.

Of course, as TomK points out the intangibles are very real and will vary by individual and family. For example, I would hugely miss watching Ohio State (American) football on a Saturday afternoon and the Cleveland Browns on a Sunday but equally I miss being able to see top class "soccer" on the TV as well as live at games. Strangely enough, I even miss the UK weather with the mist and drizzle.

I see a number of people on here routinely knocking the UK and that makes me pretty sad to be honest. I suspect that many of those doing the knocking haven't lived abroad for extended periods (apologies to those that have) and the grass isn't always greener.

So Scott, think carefully about it (as you obviously are) and don't let your heart rule your head too much! Going back may be harder than leaving in the first place....

Cheers

Jim

quote:

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.

Just about sums up the dislocation in time and space when comparing what things were like when you departed and wondering what things will be like if you returned.

Consult with those who are close to you and those who were close to you but above all take your time in reaching a decision.

Roy T

quote:

Dallas was no better than London and London no better than Dallas - they were just different.

Pretty much sums it up....

Cheers

Jim

Chaps

Cecil Rhodes said that to be born an Englishman is to win the lottery of life and he was right.

I worked in quiet a stressful job (55 hours on average) and did well out of it. I took early retirement in 2004 but at 55 but I found it difficult to adjust. One day I controlled a budget of £400 million and the next day I controlled a budget of £75 in Tescos. It was a bit of a come down.

I bought a house in a quiet village in Spain and Mrs Mick and I spend about a couple a months a year over there. The pace of life is slow and you really do wind down. The hardest decision is what restaurant to go to.

When I come back to the UK, I work on short term commissions and get paid fairly well due to the lack of security and that gives me enough money to bugger off back to Spain again and so on.

This way I get the best of both worlds. The excitement and money making potential of the UK and then the slow and tranquil life of Spain in a warm climate.

My only regret is not doing it years ago.

Regards

Mick

We share your regret.

I moved to the south of France in April. I have no regrets whatsoever. Whilst this maybe buoyed by the fact that there are fourteen flights to London every day from Nice airport - none more than 2 hours, and some less than €50 - I cannot think of a single thing* about my life that has not improved as a result. All the friends I miss either have, or are going to, come and see me (perhaps weather related?)

London remains great to visit, but it is shit to live in (or was for me). Dr Johnson was wrong - although he can be forgiven - as the only long distance transport available to him at the time had a multiple of four legs.

Santé

Rod

*Okay, I have to concede - Indian food. But on the other hand, where in London can you get decent steak tartare?

Bob

About 75% of your comments are just cheap snide remarks. I just hope for your sake that you are not as unpleasant in real life as you are here.

Kettle Pot syndrome alert

Derek

Yes I do criticise things and people but I also start topics and dish out praise where appropriate.

If you care to scan Bobs input, you will find that they are nearly all cheap one liners slagging off something or somebody.

Regards

Mick

quote:

and dish out praise where appropriate.

Usually to your self.

quote:

Originally posted by P:
I guess if I was a GP earning £100k I'd be feeling pretty cosy and smug too.

Is expressing satisfaction with the part of the UK where I live smug? I think a better line of attack would be "why don't I live in the deprived area where my practice is?".
My answer would be that I grew up in such an area, so I can hopefully still do the understanding bit without sacrificing my family for my principles. I don't recall many silver spoons in the kichen drawer of my mother's "room and kitchen" where we lived. I also left school with just two Cs and four Es at O-level.

I admit there is always some luck involved in how life pans out, but find that being satisfied with what one has is more comfortable than enviously looking elsewhere. I wanted to move to California, soon after I qualified, but my wife was strongly against it as she didn't want to end up with "money-obsessed Californian kids" (no offence meant US chums). I thought we had made a mistake for quite a few years, but now I think she was right (not just about the kids). Britain is ok.

Frank

I think you have summed it up fairly well. The world is now a small place, I can leave my uk house and be in the Spanish one in less than eight hours.

Once I actually do retire (I have just agreed to a 12 month extension to my contract ) I intend to spend spring and autumn in Spain, summer in the UK and winter taking a couple of cruises and holidays in parts where it is warm.

To me, that is the best way to live.

Regards

Mick

quote:

I wanted to move to California, soon after I qualified, but my wife was strongly against it as she didn't want to end up with "money-obsessed Californian kids" (no offence meant US chums).

Kudos to both you and your wife, Paris Bromley or Paris Beckenham just don't sound right

quote:

Originally posted by Mick Parry:
Frank

I think you have summed it up fairly well. The world is now a small place, I can leave my uk house and be in the Spanish one in less than eight hours.

That's one of the issues of living in Australia, once you've included airport delays - in 8 hours you can't even get out of the country :-)

Joking aside it's great to see the different attitudes everyone has to where they happen to find themselves. I suppose I feel a bit out-of-it down here.

Cheers
Scott

quote:

Originally posted by Rockingdoc:
...but my wife was strongly against it as she didn't want to end up with "money-obsessed Californian kids" ...

Funny you mention that because it was one of the factors in our decision to come home. Our first son was born over there and I couldn't bear the thought of him turning into our neighbour's obnoxious teenage son who was quite representative of the local kids. It took quite a few years after coming back before I could watch the Bill and Ted movies because those characters were not the total caricatures people here assume them to be. I met many teenagers over there who weren't a kick in the arse away from them.

Sadly within a couple of years the things I'd found particularly unpleasant (extreme materialism and thoughtlessness for example) were heading this way too. Perhaps not quite so extreme as over there but not nice. Expectation of a new car for the 17th birthday, £100 trainers, etc.

So true, and our daughters seem just as self-obsessed with their appearance as any on "America's Next Top Model". Perhaps their accents are a little less grating.
Seriously though, it used to be that young people started on the political left and then drifted to the right with age. I wonder where some of today's young will end up poltically when you look at their starting point.