Immigrants of P&B

[Theroadlesstravelled]

1 hour ago, BillyAnchor said:

Moved to usa usa usa in 1991 and loved it for a few years. Now I am beyond sick of it and ready to come hame.

 

Gis a job.

Those Marks and Spencer’s Millionaire Shortbread pudding things is worth the trip alone. 

[Hedgecutter]

19 hours ago, Jacksgranda said:

I moved to our beloved province/the occupied six counties (delete as per your prejudice) in 1973, like a lot of things in my life, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I needed a job, having just finished a quantity surveying course at polytechnic, and thought a change of scene might do me good. There was a job on offer in Coleraine (the chief partner was a Scotsman) and although The Troubles were basically at their worst, Coleraine hadn't been affected. Until I applied for the job - the Railway Road bomb - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Coleraine_bombings

I also had (still have) relatives here, and knew things weren't (quite) as bad as portrayed on TV.

Got the job, moved to Coleraine, got digs - the landlady was 8 months pregnant and said I could stay till the baby was born - I was there 6 years - and settled in. Found it very much like Scotland.

Never had any real hankerings to move back, I would have visited twice a year and always tried to squeeze in a match at Pittodrie, I did miss the scotch pies and rowies and still do. Got my football fix by supporting Coleraine.

Despite having no great hankerings to move back, a couple of times I applied for jobs in Scotland, I think I actually got offered one but it's that long ago I can't really remember.

Thought i was destined for the life of a bachelor till I met my wife in 1992 and we celebrated our silver wedding anniversary this year (with her self isolating because she had Covid).

The scenery here is spectacular, even the view from the top of our garden is quite stunning (currently unavailable due to grandson nr 3's sheep), and Donegal is only an hour away, equally spectacular.

Folk are friendly/nosy depending how you take it, and having lived here for 48 years it's my home. The downside was obviously The Troubles and the resulting legacy of bitterness and division, which may never heal. Because of the money poured into security over the years infrastructure has suffered. Whenever I arrived here the M2 (I think that part is actually the M22) went as far as Randalstown. 48 years later it still only goes to Randalstown although in the last year it has been dualled to Castledawson. Dungiven - Londonderry is also being dualled, so that only leaves the bit in the middle, a mammoth task. There is still no dual carriageway from Londonderry to Ballygawley, despite £80 million having been spent - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-58090116 - There is still no motorway from Ballymena-Coleraine-Limavady-Londonderry although a lot of it has been dualled in the last few years. There is a bit of dual carriageway between Moneymore and Cookstown that hasn't been extended since it was built , 47 years ago. It's 2.3 miles long. I've never figured out why this bit only of the A29 is dualled.

Omagh is still the forgotten town, no motorway or dual carriageway for it.

The train service is actually quite good, the main problem being over 70% of the service was closed down 60 years ago and never replaced by buses, again partly a legacy of the Troubles to a certain extent.

I haven't been back to Scotland since my parents died and with our health the way it is it's unlikely I'll ever be back.

I'm content with my life and quite happy with my lot, I think the quality of life here is excellent, and have no regrets about moving here.

All of this and no use of the word 'Sperrins'.

You've changed.

[Jacksgranda]

6 minutes ago, Hedgecutter said:

All of this and no use of the word 'Sperrins'.

You've changed.

Snow thread for that sort of chat

[sophia]

1 hour ago, Rugster said:

Indeed. One of Stuart Dickson’s posts if I remember well. 

My recollection urges me towards @Reynard's invective filled homelies 

[Michael W]

Fat nurses was definitely Stuart Dickson. Always skiving off taking smoking breaks as well. 

[Rugster]

2 hours ago, sophia said:

My recollection urges me towards @Reynard's invective filled homelies 

He had a few great lines like Mrs McGinn’s Fanny being the best thing to happen to St Mirren and also the bed blockers but I’m sure it was Dickson. 

[carpetmonster]

2 hours ago, sophia said:

My recollection urges me towards @Reynard's invective filled homelies 

Reynard’s contribution to hospital debate was that geriatrics were a shower of bed blocking c***s. It was Dickson who grew disillusioned that nurses didn’t resemble the Barbara Windsor in Carry On Doctor of his youthful fantasy. 

[Bonksy+HisChristianParade]

5 minutes ago, Dolf said:

While working in Virginia on a massive construction job I often had to listen to the Americans around me bad mouth all the foreigners (said job and all construction over here would grind to a halt without foreigners) and wish they all went "home"

When I'd point out that I was an immigrant I was told on more than one occasion that I didn't count

Presumably because I'm white and speak English but I never hung around long enough to find out 

I had the same when I was working in Canada. The reasoning given to me was that ‘they’ sent all their money home and didn’t keep it in the local economy. 

[Tight minge]

36 minutes ago, Bonksy+HisChristianParade said:

I had the same when I was working in Canada. The reasoning given to me was that ‘they’ sent all their money home and didn’t keep it in the local economy. 

When introduced to the local butcher in Canada I was welcomed with enthusiasm and good to see ‘one of US coming in and not another raghead’.

When saying I was having dinner with a Barbadian family, I was quizzed  if they were ‘white Barbadians’.

When sitting with a bunch of Poles, Hungarians and Lithuanians watching the football, I was asked why I was socialising with them.

Constant complaints that everyone employed at Pearson was a raghead or black and how terrible that was.

The casual racism was off the charts, a real frustration and on a daily basis.

As said earlier, I really hated living in Canada. 

Having lived in Canada in the 70’s, all be it as a kid, the difference around 30 years made was astounding. 

At least around where I lived, the entitlement, elitism and superiority was unbelievable.

 

 

 

 

[Melanius Mullarkey]

No wonder Brexit twats are in favour of a “Canada agreement”.

[welshbairn]

My colleagues in a British Columbia sawmill in the early eighties wanted a nuclear war to get it over with, as the radiation would blow right over their valley and they'd be unaffected.

[EH75]

Something else I miss is a draught pint of Tennents. Which is completely ridiculous because I know its chemical pish water and I rarely drunk it when I lived in Scotland but now because I can't get it I make a point of drinking almost exclusively whenever I do go home.

[MSU]

On 06/08/2021 at 07:34, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

Just wondering have any of you ever encountered the kind of exceptionalist shite foreign migrants get over here with the ‘dey dook or jaabs’ type stuff or are the places youve settled not backward hick shiteholes?

Remarkably, when I moved here, to this wee town in Michigan that no one's ever heard of, about a month later, a guy from Liverpool moved here too. There's less than 5,000 people here so we bumped into each other pretty quickly, became friends, and played trivia at out local bar on Monday nights until covid shut it all down. So the two of us sit up at the bar and chat away and for a while it confused the locals and it still does if someone new comes in and hears our accents. Two times in the last eight or nine years we've been told to f**k off home, both times in that bar on trivia night, both times coming from a drunken guy who looks like a farmer, both times the drunken guy has been thrown out.

We joke about it later and just write it off as some drunk redneck who's had a bad day and looking for an argument or a fight, but it's pretty scary when it happens, and it gives me quite a bit of sympathy for those who receive that kind of treatment  more regularly than once every four years.

99.9% of the time, having an accent here and being the exotic foreigner is brilliant.

[philpy]

This will be a few posters at some point https://youtu.be/gX_8knnjbbo

[Barry Ferguson's Hat]

The worst pint I've ever had was a pint of Tennents in McVeigh's Irish Bar in Toronto. The foam was entirely comprised of the soap bubbles more usually associated with dishwashing. Still finished it, though. 

[die hard doonhamer]

I fancy moving abroad at some point, but so far I haven't even built the nerve to leave the village I've lived in since I was 10. This is a wonderful thread, though, and it certainly evokes a bit of wanderlust.

[Theroadlesstravelled]

I got told to go home when I was working in England.

 

I wouldn’t move back to Scotland. I might have considered London again but it sounds horrible at the moment.

The ample, loving bosom of #G12 is not enough for me to return.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

3 hours ago, MSU said:

Remarkably, when I moved here, to this wee town in Michigan that no one's ever heard of, about a month later, a guy from Liverpool moved here too. There's less than 5,000 people here so we bumped into each other pretty quickly, became friends, and played trivia at out local bar on Monday nights until covid shut it all down. So the two of us sit up at the bar and chat away and for a while it confused the locals and it still does if someone new comes in and hears our accents. Two times in the last eight or nine years we've been told to f**k off home, both times in that bar on trivia night, both times coming from a drunken guy who looks like a farmer, both times the drunken guy has been thrown out.

We joke about it later and just write it off as some drunk redneck who's had a bad day and looking for an argument or a fight, but it's pretty scary when it happens, and it gives me quite a bit of sympathy for those who receive that kind of treatment  more regularly than once every four years.

99.9% of the time, having an accent here and being the exotic foreigner is brilliant.

Obviously no where near as well travelled in the states as you, but i love how the americans just dont have a clue where you’re from with the accent thing, just completely baffles them. Ive even been complimented on how good my English is. 
I quite like small town America. Id imagine if you were a single man the American ladies would be all about the scottish accent.

[carpetmonster]

4 hours ago, Barry Ferguson's Hat said:

The worst pint I've ever had was a pint of Tennents in McVeigh's Irish Bar in Toronto. The foam was entirely comprised of the soap bubbles more usually associated with dishwashing. Still finished it, though. 

The Tennents you get in Canada (and the Eastern US) is some weird 5%ABV stuff that only goes for export. I’ve had it canned in Miami and it wasn’t great. Supposedly there’s a boozer in Des Moines, Iowa, that has the proper stuff. 

[Barry Ferguson's Hat]

1 hour ago, carpetmonster said:

The Tennents you get in Canada (and the Eastern US) is some weird 5%ABV stuff that only goes for export. I’ve had it canned in Miami and it wasn’t great. Supposedly there’s a boozer in Des Moines, Iowa, that has the proper stuff. 

Conversely, possibly the best pint of Tennents I've ever had was in The Caledonian, also in Toronto. It truly is a lottery out there.