London

Sunshine, beaches, all-day barbies: it’s hard to believe that anyone would readily exchange life in laidback, sun-soaked Sydney for hard-nosed, rainy London.

‘I never understood why Australians would come to London and do exactly the same things here they could do in Australia – and be cold. But then I did it and it’s the best thing I ever did,’ enthuses 28-year-old Mandy Liddell, an Australian dancer who arrived in London three years ago. Feature continues

Antipodeans have been hitting the backpacker trail to London since the 1960s, but Liddell is part of a growing number of foreign professionals coming to work in London, staying and making it their home. While there are still plenty of backpackers paying their way by pulling pints in pubs across London, around 30 per cent of Aussies working here now are in banking, finance and other high-salaried professional jobs. These days it’s Shepherd’s Bush, or the more upmarket Fulham or Putney, where Liddell lives, that are hosting the new generation of Australians rather than the seedy backpacker hotels of Earl’s Court.

While a dancer’s salary is far below those of people working in the finance professions (‘We are at the bottom of the food chain,’ claims Liddell). Dancers flock to London because there is so much work here, and they are usually welcomed. ‘Australian dancers have a good reputation in London,’ says Liddell. ‘They have a passion and competitive attitude that you don’t see so much in British dancers.’ Liddell estimates that on some jobs, up to 70 per cent of dancers are Aussies.

Trained in contemporary dance in Sydney, where she grew up, and New York, Liddell came to London on something of a whim. ‘I was appearing in a tour of “Singing in the Rain” and we were on our Hong Kong leg. I began to feel I was getting stuck in a rut in my life. I woke up one day and thought: I’m going to live in London. I went back to Sydney, sold my clothes, my car, packed one suitcase and went back to Hong Kong to finish the tour. Then I got on a plane to London.’

Her first few weeks in the capital read like the archetypal Aussie-in-London experience. ‘I was staying in Bayswater in an awful houseshare with a lot of my fellow countrymen. There were three rooms with ten people in each room and one bathroom. God, the dirt! The place was full of people working in pubs. We spent all our money on beer in theme pubs that I don’t go too much any more, such as Walkabout in Covent Garden.’

These days, Liddell is rarely out of work, performing with everyone from Goldfrapp to the Scissor Sisters and making catwalk appearances as a hair model. And she’s become something of an Anglophile. ‘I absolutely love it here, especially the parks, such as Bishop’s Park in Putney, or the atmosphere in places like Fulham which have an older, genteel feel.’ She also has an English boyfriend: ‘English men seem more reserved when you first meet them. Australian guys can be a bit upfront, but there aren’t many major differences.’

While you can take the girl out of Australia, you can’t take Australia out of the girl. ‘I always have Vegemite in the house,’ says Liddell, who stockpiles the stuff, along with jars of Milo [drinking chocolate], from Sainsbury’s and Tesco’s. She’s is getting positively misty-eyed now, and we haven’t even got on to the Caramel Koalas, Twistys, or Tim Tams, which are available courtesy of the Australia Shop in Covent Garden.
Aussies here can be unswervingly patriotic, most noticeably on Australia Day on January 26, when they pack out branches of Walkabout across London. ‘It’s an excuse to catch up with friends you haven’t seen for ages,’ explains Liddell, ‘as well as to drink even more than we do normally.’

She also enjoys watching big sporting events with compatriots, and recommends the Larrik in Putney as a good sports pub. Which brings us to the delicate question of cricket. ‘Cricket? It’s not a problem,’ says the irrepressible Liddell. ‘My boyfriend loves cricket and I love cricket. I was devastated when we lost the Ashes last year. We don’t have fights about it, though. I let it go because I know it’s only a one-off thing.’
Australians are also becoming a cultural force in London; there are antipodeans at the helm of the South Bank Centre and Sadler’s Wells, as well as the Royal Ballet School and London Philharmonic Orchestra. And these days, fashion from down under doesn’t just mean surf gear. Alannah Hill, Wayne Cooper and other top designers are stocked at Austique on the King’s Road and have a strong following here.

For Liddell there are some things which are simply irreplaceable. ‘One thing do I miss is barbecues. The British can’t really do barbies. You should be having breakfast on the barbie with bacon and eggs, thin potatoes – and banana. Cut the banana down the middle in its skin, turn it over, fry it flat and it’s amazing. I serve it up to people here and they say, “What’s a banana doing in my fry-up?” ’

Not even the barbies can tempt Liddell to return to Oz. ‘I don’t have any desire to go back. Sydney is amazing but I don’t miss it. Last Australia Day, I was in the Walkabout in Covent Garden. I was having a great time. But I ended up having an argument with another Australian. He was complaining about the weather and slagging off everything about Britain and I got so angry. OK it’s cold and some days you might not like it, but go home if you don’t like it. And then it struck me: here I was, in Walkabout, on Australia Day having an argument with an Australian about how great Britain is.’