Ten Pound Pom
London, England, Nov 01, 2009
4th August 2009
£10 Pom (Prelude to S.E Asia Blog)
Current Mood: Trampish
Category: Festivals and Events
What’s a £10 Pom you ask?? Once upon a time in Australia 30 years ago the Australians got together one day and said, ‘You know what mate? We’re not very good at doing stuff’ and so began an immigration recruitment scheme to get skilled tradesmen over to their country. How does this effect Britain then? Well, after being offered a one way ticket to Australia for a mere 10 pounds, 2 million Britons quickly upped sticks leaving the rest of the country in the hands of scamming pikey’s and cowboy builders. Wonder why the roof on your house collapsed this morning? Don’t blame the shite builder - blame Australia for taking stealing all the good ones. Anyway all this Ten Pound Pom thing is in the past, that is up until now. STA were giving away 150 ten quid tickets on a first come first served basis at eight of their stores across the UK, meaning a cheapskate like me was bound to go for this. Unfortunately London is full of similar cheapskates and I was going to have loads of competition for a place. So my plan was to arrive really early the next morning… then maybe to arrive the night before… until after a phone call from my sister prompted me to go even earlier.
Two nights I slept out on the grotty streets of London I did, like a sober drunk, only to realise on Wednesday morning I should have slept rough for three nights – then I would have got a ticket. Yeah, I failed. When I got to the store I discovered a line of tents which took me to becoming number 31 in the queue, not a great chance of getting a ticket then. It did however cross my mind that if I was to call in a bomb scare at a couple of the other STA sites this would surely shut down the branches thus increasing my chance of bagging a ticket. Cruel thoughts I know, but come one people we’re talking about a ten quid ticket to Oz here!
And sleeping rough for two nights wasn’t merely as bad as I imagined, in fact sleeping on the hard pavement did wonders for my back. Now you know why you never see homeless people in a chiropractor’s waiting room looking to hand over 50 quid for a treatment. To complete this hobo look I phoned up Battersea Dog Home and attempted to hire a shabby looking dog for the duration but the home weren’t having any of it. Instead I had to make do with a cardboard sign saying ‘Need Money To Get To Australia (American Express Accepted)’ The idea of it was to plea and beg to the generous London public into raising the 10 pounds for me and thus having bragging rights to tell my friends that the public paid for my flights to Oz. As it was I raised only £2.36, not bad for two days work you’ll agree, with 2 pounds of that total sum coming from a chick who 30 years ago was a 10 Pounds Pom. I couldn’t believe it, here was an original 10 Pound Pom! She was like a hero to us and gave us further encouragement to chase what we were after.
An alternative was to pay STA travel a shed load of money I didn’t have to arrange a return flight. I thought there must be another way? In the end I looked up Air Asia’s website and saw a ticket to Kuala Lumpar going for £145, so I booked it.
I was on my way to Australia.
Editors note: After the hobo experience I found myself featured in TNT Magazine and some other websites. Here’s one I have from OK! Magazine…
http://www.ok.co.uk/worldinaction/view/12780/queing-pays-off-for-poms?
Written by Vacations MAX for Jamaica Tours