Frank and Sylvia Airey (United Kingdom)

The adventure continues

Frank and Syvia Airey proudly display their Australian citizenship certificates. Photo not to be used or reproduced without the permission of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

Frank and Sylvia Airey never meant to spend 50 years in Australia before taking out citizenship.

The couple, originally from Manchester, intended for more than 20 years to become citizens but simply ‘never got around to it’ until they realised if they didn’t do it now, it might never happen.

‘Our son and daughter were born here and are citizens, and so are our four grandchildren… we were the odd ones out in the family,’ Frank said.

Frank, 76, and Sylvia, 73, became citizens on 9 July 2008 in a ceremony in Canberra.

‘We should have done it before now,’ Sylvia said. ‘We really have always wanted to be part of the country. We feel we now belong.’

Their path to becoming Australians began in a freezing Manchester winter more than 50 years ago.

‘I remember walking around in the dirty slushy snow and wondering what we were going to do with our lives,’ Sylvia said.

‘We had only been married one year, and I remember thinking it would be nice to get away somewhere warmer and ‘why don’t we emigrate?’.

About the same time, a couple who had migrated from Manchester to Melbourne in the early 1900s visited Frank’s family and showed them some slides of Australia. Frank later wrote to the couple after they returned to Australia and they agreed to sponsor Frank and Sylvia to migrate as ‘10 Pound Poms’.

Within two months of the sponsorship arrangement Frank and Sylvia were aboard the Fairsky passenger ship in Southampton, for its maiden voyage to Australia.

More than 20 years would pass before they would return to the United Kingdom.

‘I left my Mother, four brothers and a sister-it was a big wrench,’ Sylvia said.

The couple settled in Melbourne in 1958 and started a family. Frank found work as a printing machine operator, Sylvia worked in a dress shop.

After 10 years the family moved to Sydney when Frank’s firm relocated. ‘This was like migrating all over again,’ Frank said.

Frank took early retirement in 1992 and moved to Canberra to be closer to their daughter who had married a Canberra man. Their son was now living on the central coast of NSW.
 
Frank and Sylvia have visited the UK four times in the past 50 years. Each visit confirmed that Australia is the place they now called home.

‘We feel free here,’ Frank said. ‘All these years, it’s been a big adventure – and the adventure is still going on.’

Sylvia said: ‘Our granddaughter summed it up nicely on the morning we took our pledge, by saying ‘you wouldn’t want to die and not be an Australian citizen’.