Thomas (Tom) Mills

Ship name / Flight number: BA 011

Arrival Date: 29/07/1981

DOB:21/04/1961

I was born where the Beatles came from in 1961. Like Liverpool’s most famous band, there are four boys in my family: my older brother James (Jimmy) and my younger brothers Gary and Alan. I also have a sister, Linda, and we were raised in a working class, Catholic family.

My dad, James Joseph Mills, was an old-school gentleman who worked for British Rail all his life. My mum, Kathleen (neé McCarthy) also worked outside the home in a part-time clerical role.

We moved from inner-city Liverpool to Huyton when I was two years old. I went to St Aidans Catholic Primary School and St Augustine’s Secondary School. I made lots of friends and, like every boy growing up in Liverpool, I played football (soccer). I was a bit of a rascal at times and quite naughty at school. As an adult, I can see that I didn’t take my education as seriously as I should have done.

A final photo with my parents before I left Liverpool, 1981.

When I left school at the age of 16 in 1978, there were few job opportunities for young people. After jumping through lots of hoops and beating over 100 applicants, I managed to get an electrical apprenticeship with AV Milton. I went to St Helen’s Technical College for my theory and got my practical experience working at sites all over the UK. In 1981 I received my City and Guilds qualification as an electrician.

While I was working on a job near Manchester, I was reading the newspaper and saw an advertisement for the BBM. I felt disowned by Margaret Thatcher’s government, and I was becoming disillusioned with life in the UK. I wanted to see what the rest of the world was like and wanted more opportunities for my family.

A final photo with Carol, 1981.

Yes, I had a young family. I met Carol at high school and our daughter, Katie, was born in 1979. I applied to the BBM thinking that I’d go to Australia for two years, and if it looked promising, then I’d save my wages and pay for Carol and Katie to join me.

Carol and I had discussed the possibility of leaving the UK and when this opportunity came up we both agreed that this may be the way out. I didn’t tell my parents of my plans until I was accepted by the BBM. I remember that my mum was washing dishes and had her back to me when I told her that I was going to Australia in about six weeks. She was still and silent for a while. I guess she was shocked, and then sad. I was the first of my siblings to leave home, and the first person in our community to go and live overseas.

I remember catching the train from Liverpool to London with my parents and Carol on Tuesday 28 July 1981. We’d had a big gathering of family and friends the weekend before to send me off. I was both excited and scared. It felt like a rite of passage. I knew I had an innate desire to go, and nothing could have stopped me.

I left Heathrow airport on Flight BA 011 with five other ‘Little Brothers’: John Colleta, Brian Lovegrove, Joseph O’Louglin, Robert Reeves and Craig Scott. The boy who sat next to me was very withdrawn and sad. He wouldn’t eat, which was a shame because the food was nice. We stopped at Muscat in Oman, and it was my first experience of stifling heat. I remember landing in Sydney on the day that Prince Charles married Diana Spencer: 29 July 1981. I was 20 years old.

A gentleman from the BBM met us in Sydney and we caught a taxi to a hostel in Burwood. The lady who ran it wasn’t very pleasant, so we escaped to a pub in Ashfield when we could. I loved the fact that you could buy a steak and cook it yourself at the pub.

My first job was based in Rosebery working for Electricity Meter & Allied Industries Ltd (EMAIL) Westinghouse – they built large electrical switchboards for power stations around NSW.

After my first day at work, I went to the post office and called my dad in the UK. I told him I didn’t like it in Australia and didn’t fit in. Everything about Sydney was alien to me – there were old men wearing shorts and long socks instead of trousers and they served hot food, like Chicko rolls, at delicatessens. My dad said: “Don’t worry, we’ll get you back home”. The following day, I called him back to say that I was ‘just’ homesick, and everything would be OK.

EMAIL Westinghouse had a very multicultural workforce. It was my first experience of interacting with people from other cultures and countries and I loved it. My foreman, Frank O’Gorman, was an Irishman and I soon had mates who hailed from Hungary and Poland. I became good friends with some Argentinians, which was interesting when the Falklands War started in 1982.

I left the Burwood hostel as soon as I could and moved to a small hotel in Coogee, and then into a unit in Carrington Road with some other expats. The winter sunshine was amazing and the beach was beautiful.  

During the early weeks, I called my family once a week from the post office – I might have reversed the charges.  My dad advised me to get involved in a sporting club and I joined the Glebe Football (soccer) Club, which met at Wentworth Park. The other members were mostly expats from the UK, so I fitted in well.

I met another Liverpudlian who came out with the BBM a couple of weeks after me. Peter Carter and I struck up a friendship, and we rented a place together in Dutruc Street, Randwick. I had a strong work ethic, and I was earning a good wage. I took the opportunity to work on Saturdays and do overtime if it was offered. Now that I had some savings, I could pay for Carol and our 2-year-old daughter to join me in Australia.

However, their visa applications were rejected because we weren’t married. The immigration department got in touch with the BBM, and they asked me to come in for a chat. The BBM bloke advised me to go back to the UK, get married, and return as a family.

And that’s exactly what I did! I arrived back in Liverpool on Christmas Day, 1981. I proposed to Carol over the phone before I left and we married on 2 January 1982, in St Aiden’s Church, Huyton. I made sure that I had a re-entry visa in my passport, which gave me one year to return to Australia.

Back in the UK, I felt depressed. We were staying in my parent’s house and I felt caged in. It wasn’t a good situation. My brother-in-law lived in Germany, and we decided to go and stay with him in March 1982. Carol and I were both 20 years old.

I found it difficult to get a job but eventually got one as a DJ in a nightclub (even though I’d played more football than records!)

We kept trying to get a visa for Carol and Katie to come back to Australia and we were both interviewed at the Australian embassy in Cologne. Our applications were approved just in time, allowing us to say our goodbyes in England and land in Sydney three weeks before my re-entry visa ran out.

When we first arrived, we stayed with a former work colleague in Monterey, on Botany Bay. I remember waking up one morning, looking across the bed to my wife and daughter and feeling scared and thinking, “oh shit, what have I done? How do I make this work?” I’d just turned 21 years old, and I didn’t have a job and had a family to support.

That weekend, our host was having a BBQ and I met his brother-in-law. I told him I was looking for work as an electrician, and he asked if I wanted to work for him on a building project in the city as a labourer. I was desperate, so I did plastering and rendering with his company for six months. He was happy with my work, and he asked me to manage a few jobs for him, which paid handsomely.

Carol and I had saved enough money to move out and we rented in Kogarah. Carol got a job with the Commonwealth Bank and with a local bakery in Hurstville. I worked six days a week and Katie went to kindergarten. When we wanted to treat ourselves, we went out on Saturday night for a meal at McDonalds.

We saved until we could afford to buy a car – when we purchased a second-hand XB Ford Falcon, we thought we’d hit the jackpot! We moved to a nicer rental in Allawah and made friends with some other Liverpudlians in nearby Hurstville.   

By 1984, two years after we’d landed in Australia, we’d saved enough money to put a deposit on a house. We bought a fibro and tile house in Peakhurst for $83,000. It needed some work, but we lived there until 1988. Family members came to visit – Carol’s mum came several times, especially after our son Jason was born in 1986.

I was working for a large electrical company in Sydney and spent two years working at the dry docks on Cockatoo Island with lots of other expats. Travelling to work by ferry was a bonus.

Around 1988-89, Sydney house prices were rising and some of our friends were moving to the western suburbs so that they could afford to buy. Other friends decided that the housing market was even more affordable further west, in Perth!

Carol and I realised that we could sell up in Sydney and get more for our money in Perth. The company I was working for, James Watt Group, won a big contract in Perth electrifying the rail network and offered to re-locate us if I wanted to move.

We decided that west was best and drove our old Ford Cortina to Melbourne and then onto Adelaide. From there we put the car, ourselves and our two kids on a train to Perth. Coming from England, the distances felt crazy.

I firmly believe that Australia is a prosperous country if you’re willing to work. We’d only been in Peakhurst for about four years when we decided to move west. We caught the wave of the real estate boom and sold our house for three times the price we paid.

However, when we arrived in Perth, Carol said to me: “what are we doing here?!” The shops were closed on weekends and compared to multicultural Sydney, it felt like a backward place.

I joined the local soccer team and soon made some new friends. Carol started working for Westpac Bank and the kids settled into school. We purchased a house in Kingsley and our third child, Lydia, was born in 1991.

With interest rates at 17%, I felt lucky to have a steady, well-paid job. I moved around a bit for work, including working in Geraldton, which was a four-hour drive north. I drove back to Perth for the weekends.

I really wanted to work on offshore oil rigs, so I took a job with Powertech, which took me to remote parts of Western Australia and gave me the opportunity to work offshore. In this role, I learnt the most in my working career. I did electrical commissioning for a new offshore facility – the Goodwin Alpha platform – off the coast of Karratha. Western Australia was going to be the next Aberdeen – there was heaps of potential with oil and gas. That project lasted one year, but I had a taste of what I wanted my working career to be.

After we’d been in Perth for about 15 years, we decided that we wanted to live in the UK again. Both Carol and I came from large families but none of them had followed us to Australia and we missed them.

We sold our family home in Perth but purchased a smaller property just to stay in the housing market in case we came back to Australia. We rented a house in Ecclestone Park, near Lancashire. Lydia and Jason started at a new school and Katie went to college.

Carol and I found work, and we could have family holidays in Europe. However, after the honeymoon period of reconnecting with our families had passed, we realised that everyone was just getting on with their lives. After six months I started to feel unsettled and felt the opportunities were much better for children in a country like Australia.

When a friend from Perth contacted me to say that there was a position available on a large project offshore in Western Australia, I discussed it with Carol and decided to take it. I commuted to Perth for a year! I’d work two weeks on and then have two weeks off and fly back to the UK for most of that time.

One morning when I was back in the UK, I was about to take Jason to school, and I remember that it was cold, dark and raining. The look on his face said: “what the hell are we doing here, Dad?” I thought, that’s it. We’re going back. It wasn’t just the weather, it was the whole British package – the economy, politics, the lack of opportunities.

After about 18 months in the UK, we moved back to Perth. There was a new housing development in Woodvale, and we bought a block of land at the top of the cul-de-sac. I spent the next 12 years working on a massive offshore oil rig for Atwood Oceanics a large American Offshore Drilling Company who had won the contract to build and install the drilling modules onto the North Rankin A offshore gas facility. We complete the project and then went into the drilling campaigns.

In 2007, I was offered a job with another company in Russia! The roster was five weeks on, three weeks off and I was planning to go with a friend and we’d work back-to-back shifts. Then Woodside (The Client) heard that I would be leaving and offered me a position with them. It was an opportunity we could not refuse and I decided to stay. I worked for them for the next 20 years. I was based in Perth but travelled all over the world for two years before moving to work on an offshore oil rig for four years.

Carol and I, 2024 Ciragan Palace Istanbul

When Woodside sent me to South Korea to work on another large construction project – North Rankin B – with 8 weeks on, 2 weeks off roster, I thought, well, this is only for 12 months so the challenging roster might not be so bad. Carol came over when I was on a break and we took the opportunity to travel in Asia.

When I returned to Australia and eventually went back to working offshore, my roster was two weeks on, two weeks off, two weeks on, four weeks off. It worked well. I’ve had an unbelievable working career. I would do it again. I couldn’t do it if I didn’t have a woman behind me who was supportive all the time.

My son, Jason, is doing this sort of intensive shiftwork now. I think it builds resilience, and the financial rewards give you more choices.

I chose to retire when I was 64. I’m still an active person and I enjoy playing golf and going to the gym. Carol and I have travelled extensively throughout the world together and are planning more. Sometimes I take the 4WD out bush with a couple of mates and we go prospecting for gold. We’ve found a bit and will cash it in one day.

Mucking around with our children and grandchildren.

Now we live in Mullaloo about 20 mins north of Perth’s CBD on the coast. The Indian Ocean is 30 seconds walk from my house. It’s the best beach in Australia and I go swimming nearly every day.

Our extended family is still back in the UK, although both sets of parents have passed away. We still keep in regular contact with the rest of the family, and they sometimes come and stay with us.

Being retired, I’m available to my three kids and five grandkids. I find myself doing a lot of maintenance work at the homes of my two daughters. When Katie went through a difficult separation from her ex-partner and was mistreated, I joined the Centre for Women’s Safety and Wellbeing. I wanted to have a better understanding of what was going on for her, and now I help raise money for their valuable work.

The kids say they’re so grateful that Carol and I decided to come to Australia. We both became Australian citizens in 1986 – less than four years after we moved here together. When I look back, I can see that deciding to come out to Australia when I was 20 years old was a scary thing to do. I knew nobody and I didn’t know if I’d sink or swim. In hindsight, I think it was the best decision of my life – I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.