Living Upside Down

Inspired by a real family’s adventures, LIVING UPSIDE DOWN is an interesting, funny, and entertaining tale about Sue and Roger who are contemplating a move Down Under!

Set in the latter days of the White Australia Policy, when true blue Aussies are suspicious of ‘ten pound poms’ and anyone who whinges or drinks tea, rather than coffee - this is an inspirational, yet laugh-out-loud story of one small family’s triumph over unbelievable odds, hilarity, and happiness.

At the heart is a tale of poms attempting to resolve family conflicts by migrating with their two small children from England to the great southern land as ‘ten pound poms’ in 1971 and becoming ‘fair dinkum Aussies’. Their family conflicts of course follow them.

From their first encounter with Australia House, surviving a homicidal charter flight to Australia, to an immigration hostel, and the desperation of job seeking in a foreign country, Roger wallows in his now inherited Aussie witticism.

Buckle up for a bittersweet roller-coaster ride as the fun and games continue after they settle into their new ‘home among the gum trees’ interrupted by a three year secondment to the Smolfala Archipelago.

They take up barbequing, fishing and crabbing with their new Aussie mates, as well as wrestling with the complexities of the ‘Aussie Strine’.

In the face of diversity, they press on meeting a diverse range of characters. How they cope with these considerable challenges of promotion, demotion, company fraud, drug peddling and death is told with a self-deprecating humour.

We leave our characters at another set of crossroads in 1985, when…well, that’s another story!