Concrete requires team work

Dear readers, we are writing these posts, because we want to write some D.I.Y. Brickwork and building posts, so that you can learn something about how to built something yourself, at least in theory. 

You are here,  http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com, 

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk 

In this photo above, there is a team of building workers, I guess they are having a break from work, when this photo was taken, because on building sites people work hard doing whatever they need to do. Anyhow, this is a team of building workers.  

This is an electric mixer, you can mix with it mortar, plaster or concrete, as long as you know how to do that. Anyhow, these days most time the concrete is ordered by truckloads, unless you need small amount of concrete. So this type of mixer is used more to make bricklayers mortar.  

Australia affordable houses

Welcome to part 2 of my article, Australia affordable houses

Dear readers, this is part 2 of our article Australia affordable houses. In our previous blog we have explained what is meant by concrete on building sites, and what you need to make concrete, now we want to explain the best way to work with concrete. To concrete well and do a fair amount of work you need a team, even if it is a small team. Our team was usually three of us, I as builder labor, John as bricklayer and Con the contractor who was a bricklayer and concrete layer as well. We didn’t mind if we switched around a bit to do the job. So, I was usually on the mixer mixing the concrete, one was with a wheelbarrow taking the concrete from the mixer to the foundations that we were concreting, and one was fixing the concrete in place.

Fixing the concrete for the foundation was physically the lightest job, when we were mixing the concrete with this mixer on site, but it is the most responsible job, because while concreting the foundations, you must make sure that the steel rods reinforcement was in the right position, at the same time you had to pack the concrete down and then the concrete in the foundations has to be finished level, this was easy when the ground was level, but when the ground was not level, it was necessary that steps were made and they had to be made to gauge, which was equal to the thickness of one or two laid bricks or more, or the thickness of a laid block, if blocks were going to be used to build the walls on this foundation, whatever was going to be used to lay on the foundations, we had to try to make an adjustment while we were laying the foundations; therefore, this was the job for the experts, at that time it was not that hard, because mixing by hand even using a mixer was a slow job, so, the bloke that was fixing the concrete had enough time to do his job right.

What I have written above is how we used to lay small house foundations in the early sixties, which are the same as we lay foundations today, except that today we order concrete already mixed, but we have to be ready with everything and everything has got to be in the right place, because the concrete ready-mix truck will unload its concrete quickly, so, there is no time to do anything else except to fix the concrete at the right level as quickly as possible.

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This is a typical stepped concrete foundation, the steps in the foundation, need to be set-up equal to the thickness of one two or three bricks thick. 

Concreting stumps on site

Now let me go back again to the early sixties, when we were concreting these stumps on site, this procedure is not done much today, the reasons for this change it is because the buildings have changed, and today these stumps can be made in a concrete factory, if they are not too big, and when cured can be delivered to the building site, where the worker can erect them as required. Large stumps or columns are usually still made on site, but with a different procedure, using read mixed concrete in form-work  

To concrete these stumps on site we had steel forms of various length, and these forms were assembled together with steel pins, so, we would assemble these steel forms and then start to mix concrete, we had also to make sure that the stumps foundations were exactly in the right place by using the marked profiles and tight line between them.

In this case, it was an easy job for the fellow that is mixing concrete, but a lot harder for the blokes that had to pour the concrete in the stumps form-work and make sure that the stump was exactly in the right place and finished at the right height and were also plumb (perfect vertical position). It was also necessary that some reinforcing rods were placed in the right position with a purpose made devise. These are how we made those onsite stumps in the sixties.

These concrete stumps that we made in the sixties were better that the timber stumps that they were replacing, because it was an improvement as they did not rot with the passing of time and the white ants could not eat them. Here we can say that these concrete stumps on site were easy to make, if you knew the procedure, in fact it was easier to make a set of stumps than to fix concrete stumps made in the factory, as there is no heavy lifting involved.

But although these concrete stumps were easy to make, they are hard to move to a different position. So, to anyone that is going to attempt to dig out these stumps to move them to a new position, they better think twice because I tell you that the part that is under the ground is a lot larger than the stumps at the top. Remember what I said in our previous article, we had to dig a hole sixty-centimetre dip in the natural ground, and at the bottom should be a level base not less than forty centimetres x forty centimetres square.

I believe that we have said enough in this article, as we have explained the work that we did on these affordable houses and we will be coming back to talk about more building work in our next article, house building in Brisbane. See you soon.

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This blog is, old man-lifeworks

Building concrete requires team work   

IS TO BE CONTINUED WITH

House building in Brisbane  

See you soon.

---------------------------

I believe that on the internet, it is  helpful if we keep our personal links handy, so that we can visit our sites from anywhere we are. These links hereunder are some of my links, feel free to visit them. 

 http://manneedsgod.co.uk

http://frankmenchise.com

http://diybrickwork.com 

https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/prayersofreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/godintheuniverse/

------------------------------------------ 

Building Australia affordable houses

Dear readers, we are writing these posts, because we want to write some D.I.Y. Brickwork and building posts, so that you can learn something about how to built something yourself, at least in theory. 

You are here, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com, 

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk 

Because a simple small house, would be more affordable than a large one, it will attract more buyers than a large and well decorated house. that is why there are builders that will build small house instead of larger one. These house are usually built on the outskirt of town, where the block of land is also cheaper. | Source

Building Australia affordable houses

Welcome to my article, Australia affordable houses 

Dear readers, we have labeled this blog, D.I.Y.Building works, because in this blog we start telling you how things are built. Now, this is part one of our original article of, Australia affordable houses. As I have said, I was working building these affordable houses in Brisbane. In those times, new affordable houses were built on the fringe of the city in the new suburbs, which is the same as today, if you want a new affordable house, you must look for it, in the new suburbs. 

As we know, houses are not all the same, because houses come in a variety of styles and sizes. Of course, we want to live in the best houses available, but most of us cannot afford expensive houses, therefore, we should be happy to live in any house that we can afford to buy or rent.

For this reason of affordability, to satisfy the house supply market, there are several types of house that are being built at any given time. In this article, we are going to talk about the type of houses that I ended up working on, in the early sixties. Because this blog is meant to tell you, where I learned building things, which I intend to write a D.I.Y Building works, starting from this article.; since here we are going to tell you, how we were building houses from scratch, an mixing our own concrete. 

In the early sixties, I ended up working on average houses that the working class could afford to buy, or at least the aim of the builders that were building them, was based in this affordability, since they had designed them with this purpose, because in the end, even though they had been built cheap not all of us workers would afford to buy these types of houses. But anyhow this was the purpose of building these types of affordable houses in the early sixties.

I guess that today is the same, some builders, build these affordable houses at the outskirt of any town, since the blocks of land are cheaper to buy. Anyhow, you might think that today house are being built in a modern way, and therefore, what I am writing here are things of the past. but you see if you want to do things yourself, you must use the old way, so, let me describe how we were building these houses from scratch.

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Building houses from scratch

Anyhow, I am writing these articles about building houses from scratch, because I want to write something useful for my readers, and I believe that knowing how houses are built is useful to know, since knowing a few things about houses comes handy at times; you see, we live in houses, therefore, we want to know as much as we can about them. Because houses need to be maintained, if we want to enjoy them fully. So, I am going to describe how these houses were built, with as many details as I can, so that anyone interested can learn something useful from these articles.

Now has I have explained previously, I was working in the building industry with this Italian builder, which was good for me because my native language is Italian. Now, with this builder not only we were re-stumping or building rooms under the existing houses, which required a lot of work to be done by hand, but we were building new houses from scratch. As I have said at the beginning of the sixties most of the digging were done by hand, specially the type of work that we were doing on these new houses, as machines were expensive to hire then, So, they were used only, if there was a lot of digging to be done, and with the machines of those days we could only dig straight forward things and not small detailed digging, as they were required to build these houses, anyhow as I said, I did a lot of this digging work myself, as I was employed as builder labor, and this was one of the jobs that I had to do.

Therefore now, let us imagine that I have finished digging the foundation and these stump holes for this new house, and now, we need to lay concrete in the foundation, and to concrete the stumps foundation and the stumps themselves. So, let us go over what we had to do, because in those times these things were all done by hand and started from scratch. To do that you must know how to make your own concrete. 

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Making your own concrete on site from scratch

Let me explain, what is meant by concrete in buildings and how it is made You see, if during your life, you are going to do renovations, it is useful to know how to make your own concrete, so that you understand what is required and how and why it must be done in certain ways, you will find this information written in this article. Some people can say that today things are different, so why bother to tell us this stuff about how to mix concrete properly, when we can buy concrete ready mixed by truckload, or in bags and all you need to do is to add water to make concrete. I say, okay, you can do that. But there are times and places, when you must do these things the old way.

Therefore, I believe that you still need to know how concrete is made from scratch, because that is the only way if you don’t want to make mistakes. Therefore, let me tell you how we were mixing our concrete in the sixties, and what is required to do that and how it is supposed to be done, if you want a good job done and the concrete to last a long time.

By the way, here we need to clarify one thing, what is meant by the word concrete, because most people replace it with the word cement. On building sites, the word concrete means the element mixed together able to harden to a solid consistency within a certain length of time, therefore, it has got to be done the right way.

One of the most important things while mixing concrete is that the concrete must be well mixed and to a workable consistency using the least amount of water possible, because if too much water is used then the concrete becomes weaker, therefore, it must be done properly.

Usually concreting and other jobs are done according to its specifications, you see, any firm that makes building plans, for a house or something of more importance, they must write also the specification how the job needs to be done. In these specifications it will be written what material to use, how to use it and the quantity and quality required. Therefore, to concrete a foundation for an average small house, the specification could state that the concrete must be mixed to a consistency at least 1 to 6; this means that to mix the concrete you should use 1 part of Portland cement 2 parts of river sand and 4 parts of gravel (aggregate) and mix it as required until an even consistency is achieved. For the stumps usually would be a bit more cement than the foundations. But I must say that sometimes even these rules had to be changed a bit depending on the material that can be delivered on that local site.

Now let us say that we are ready to start mixing the first batch of concrete, as we have made everything ready, and everything has been delivered. To make concrete you need at least four elements of materials plus clean water; 1 Portland cement, 2 washed river sand, 3 clean or washed gravel and 4 reinforcement steel rods, and it is helpful if you have a mixer if you have to mix a large amount of concrete, because to mix by hand is hard work and the concrete needs to be well mixed.

Now let us start the mixer and make the first batch, while the mixer is turning around, the very first thing you put in the mixer is water, one must be careful not to put too much water to start with, it has got to be just enough to mix everything to a certain consistency, so let us say that we put 8 litres of water (the amount of water can be different, since it depends on the amount of water that is already in the (sand gravel) aggregate) then we put in the mixer cement, next is the river sand twice as much as the cement and then the clean gravel 4 time as much as the cement; here the mixer is going around and mixing everything together.

Please note, that if you change the way you put your materials in the mixer, from what I have described above, you may have different result, and usually it would take longer to mix everything properly and to the right consistency.

For people that do this job all the time it is easy for them to see if the concrete that is being mixed has the right consistency required, once you know this, if it is too dry just add a bit of water and if it is too wet you should add a bit of everything else. There you are it is not too hard if you know how to do it.

What I have written above applies only to house building of less importance, for building that are large and important the concrete needs to be to a high standard and specifications, so, here again you need to know what is needed before you do anything. Anyhow, that is a job for the experts. 

Anyhow, as you can see this is the first blog, where I am trying to tell you how to do things yourself. Now, I believe that this blog is long enough; so, I am going to write the second part of this article, in our next blog, called, concrete requires team work. See you soon.   

--------------------------------------- 

This blog is, old man-lifeworks

Building Australia affordable houses   

IS TO BE CONTINUED WITH

Concrete requires team work.  

See you soon.

---------------------------

I believe that on the internet, it is  helpful if we keep our personal links handy, so that we can visit our sites from anywhere we are. These links hereunder are some of my links, feel free to visit them. 

 http://manneedsgod.co.uk

http://frankmenchise.com

http://diybrickwork.com 

https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/prayersofreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/godintheuniverse/

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The Australian housing industry

 You are here; http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com, 

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk

This type of houses were being built in the sixties, they could have been low-set or high-set. Today this house has been raised and renewed. You see you can do a lot of things with these timber houses. You could even move them to another address.

Welcome to our article, Australian building industry 

Building houses in the sixties

Dear readers, when I came to Australia in the sixties, I ended up working in the building industry, we were working mainly on fixing old houses, or building new houses from scratch, units and warehouses, so, I ended up learning how lots of building things were done, in the end I became a bricklayer, and have worked most of my life as a bricklayer. So, later I am going to write a few articles about, D.I.Y. Brickwork. So, this is the last blog that I label as Frank life story, our next blog will be labelled, D.I.Y. building works.   

We believe that the Australian housing and building industry, is one of the major employment industries in Australia, you can say that this is so in other countries. But I believe that in other countries building new houses is not as important as it is in Australia. One of the reasons for this is that Australia is a new country, and it needs emigrants. In the sixties Australia was taking emigrants in a regulated way, now because the population was growing steadily also accommodation needed to grow steadily, therefore, new houses were built to keep a steady balance. This building of new houses gives opportunities for the newcomers to be employed, since there is manual work involved, therefore, a healthy cycle is created; but even with these opportunities the building industry has its ups and down, as we know. So, let us talk about it and try to make sense, if we can. 

Working in the building industry

As I have said, when I came to Australia from Italy, I ended up working in the building industry. Now let me explain this working position, working on building in Australia is a temporary job, because even the employer is subject to the same opportunities of work and he cannot help it, therefore, one is never sure what is going to happen next, when the job you are working on is finished, therefore, there were concerns about our employment status, so, we kept asking ourselves, whether our employer would get another job to do, before we finished the one we were doing, but even though we were thinking that, we still worked hard to finish the job on hand, as soon as possible, because to find work you had to be competitive.

Well I should say that although this small Italian builder did lots of small jobs, it did work out all right most times, so, we were able to move from one job to another all-around Brisbane and to other close by town/s. Of course, this would cause worries if you had no transport of your own and you had to rely on some friends or the employer to take you on the work site, where the building was going to be built, but we managed somehow.

Anyhow, it was a good job with good opportunities to learn and improve your knowledge of building something yourself. You see, in those times we could improve our working and earning position more easily than today; it was possible then because a lot of things were simple, and therefore, they could be done just by using your common sense. Of course, there were always inspections from local authorities to follow, but once you knew what it was required they were easy to follow, if you used your brains diligently, therefore, we should say that we had more opportunities then compared to today opportunities. I believe that it was so, because the building we were building were small houses, so, if you were a tradesman, you most likely could be the builder as well.

Learning how to earn and save money

Whatever you do in life, the most important thing is; Earning and saving money. In my case, because there was uncertainty of not having a permanent job in the building industry, we soon learned that whatever money we earned from our job, we had to save some, otherwise we could have problems soon or later; so, this disadvantage that we had in this job pushed most of us building workers to become good at saving money, because we wanted to feel safe and independent.

So, let me talk about money. In Australia because the economy is based on capitalism the more money you can earn and save the better off you are; of course, this is also true to most other part of the world, but in Australia seems to be more so, because it is a new country, and people rely more on what they can earn than anywhere else in the world. This is because there are not existing reach families that live on the earnings of the properties that have been passed down from generation to generations. Therefore, in Australia is mostly up to yourself, if you want to get richer, you should try harder to earn and save money. 

Anyhow, I believe that I have said enough about this money business; so, let me go back to tell you, my progress in the building industry and what I did to become a tradesman.

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Working for this builder

Working and learning with this small Italian builder

Now let me go back to when I started work with this Italian builder, who was a bricklayer and concrete worker, we were working on houses and because there was not enough bricklaying work on these houses, as they were mostly built with timber, we were building only the foundations, the concrete stumps and some brickwork as the base of the house. Of course, we did also some jobs under the existing houses and this has given me an opportunity to learn many things about those old houses in Brisbane.

Anyhow, let me describe what we did to prepare a base for a new timber house, which would be setting on concrete stumps and some brick walls. First of all, we went to set up the site, if it was not set up from the builder or carpenter that was building the timber house. This setting up required that we should fix some timber frame to the ground with pegs and per the measurement in the plan. These timber frames are called profiles, and they are marked accurately to the measurement on the plan, so that we had the right measurement to go by, to start digging the foundations for the stumps and brick walls.

Then we had to dig the foundations and this was mostly my job as I was the labor and I was pretty good at digging, this may seem hard to believe but even digging one has to be an expert to do a good job, as the shape and depth of the foundations is important to do a good job. Just to show you what I mean to dig a hole for a new concrete stump, 20x20 centimetres as most stumps were supposed to be; the hole for this stump should be in exactly the right place, it should be at least sixty centimetres deep in natural ground and at the bottom should have a circumference of at least 40 centimetres or more. These were the average specifications then, unless it was stated otherwise. I know this because I have dug several hundreds of them if not thousands.

Now, I believe that I have said enough in this shortened article, if you want to know more you can link to this article, Australian building industry. 

See you in our next article, which is going to be about working and building affordable houses.

----------------------------------------  

This blog is, old man-lifeworks

The Australian building industry  

IS TO BE CONTINUED WITH

Building affordable houses 

See you soon.

---------------------------

I believe that on the internet, it is  helpful if we keep our personal links handy, so that we can visit our sites from anywhere we are. These links hereunder are some of my links, feel free to visit them. 

 http://manneedsgod.co.uk

http://frankmenchise.com

http://diybrickwork.com 

https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/prayersofreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/godintheuniverse/

------------------------------------------

Working in the building industry

You are here; http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com, 

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk, 

The building industry needs many tradesmen, the most important are the carpenters and the bricklayers, to become a good tradesman is takes about 5 years. I am saying this because I want to write a D.I.Y. brickwork, to tell you how to lay bricks. in our future blogs.  

Working in the Australia building industry 

From our article, Is Australia the land of opportunity? (part 2)

Welcome to our blog, working in the building industry. 

As I have said in my previous articles, my first job in Australia was in the building industry, because I ended up working as a bricklayer’s labor, but I lost that job for a couple of reasons. I believe that I lost the first job, because I didn’t know English and at the same time, I had no experience in the sort of work we were doing, and for that reason I could not guess what they wanted me to do next. After that I had another job which ended very much the same way; but then one day suddenly a small Italian builder needed a labor and he knew that I was available, so he came to fetch me and asked if I would be interested to work for him, and this is how I ended up working in the building industry, I worked for this builder for about two years, but then he went on holiday to Italy for a long time, therefore, he temporary closed down the business, but by then the Italian building community new about me, so, in a few days I had another job to go to, always in the building industry with another builder or contractors working as a labor.

You see in those times there was a lot more work for people wanting to work, but at the same time we knew that we had to work hard because there was a lot of competition going on even in those days, so, what could we say if we work hard for it, we would always find somebody that would give us work, because we earned our wage plus a bit more for the employer. This is how I understood the ways of earning your living in this capitalist society, which is based on competition and you are paid with what you deliver. Now, we have to say that this capitalist way is very good, if the workers are not pushed beyond their physical capacity. But let us compare that with our present times.   

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Compare the old ways with the new

Here we want to compare the opportunities that we had, when we came in Australia in the sixties as emigrant, to the opportunities of the illegal migrants that arrive by boat uninvited.

So, we need to compare what we had to do to come to Australia in the sixties, with what is happening today with illegal emigration, to spot the reasons why things don’t work as good as they used to work, for the emigrants.

You see, when I and the other emigrants wanted to come to Australia during the sixties, we had to be screened before we could have a visa that would allow us to come to Australia and work.

This screening was strict, as they did not want anybody that could become sick, so, we had to go through a medical check, and there was another stricter check about being legally of good character, even if you had ever had trouble with the police, in fact, they were so strict about this that if one had been involved with the communist party, by saying that you would vote for the communist party, you would not be allowed to come to Australia.

I hope that I have explained how strict they were then, before they gave you a visa to come to work in Australia. Anyhow, I can say that this screening the emigrants was a good thing after all, because after that it was a lot easier when you were in Australia, since they knew everything that they needed to know, so, the authorities were more relaxed. As I have said, when I went to the unemployment office even though I did not speak much English they did everything possible to find me a job, and if they could not find us a job soon enough, they would pay us the unemployment benefit.

Anyhow, from my own experience, I can say that anyone that has come to Australia and has seen Australia the same way that I have seen it, they know that Australia is a great country to live in; and if there is somebody that does not like Australia, it must be because they have their own personal problems and they are home sick, or they are unwilling to work hard.

Today Australia does not seem to be as good as it was when I came to Australia, because there are more unemployed people, and it is hard for people to find permanent work. But in my eyes, it is still okay, you need to be more patient until you find a job.

But my impression about Australia is this; anyone that sees Australia the way that I saw it when I came here, would fall in love with the Australian ways of living. Now we can say that today it is not as good as it used to be, but we are still good compared to other countries. So, we want to conclude this article by saying that Australia can be still the land of opportunities, if the people that come here come with the intention of working hard, as we have been working in the past, they should not come with the intention of ripping us off, because they want to have an easy life for themselves.

Now, because today a lot of things are different, most of all the difference that exists between screened legal emigrant, and those emigrants that come illegally and the authorities don’t know anything about them. So, a comparison between these emigrants is not possible. Therefore, measuring the opportunities that exist is not possible either.  

Anyhow this article is becoming too long, so, see you next time with another article called; Australian building industry, where we will be continuing to tell you my life story and what I have done in Australia to earn a living. See you there.

--------------------------------------- 

This blog is, old man-lifeworks

Working in the building industry  

IS TO BE CONTINUED WITH

The Australian building industry 

See you soon.

---------------------------

I believe that on the internet, it is  helpful if we keep our personal links handy, so that we can visit our sites from anywhere we are. These links hereunder are some of my links, feel free to visit them. 

 http://manneedsgod.co.uk

http://frankmenchise.com

http://diybrickwork.com 

https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/prayersofreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/godintheuniverse/

------------------------------------------

 

Australia was the land of opportunities

 You are here; http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com, 

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk 

The map of Australia, that was the far away land that I migrated to a long time ago. I believe that in those times there were better opportunities then today. Because most of us were able to start a new way of life. But anyhow these are things of the past. Today we can only talk about what we have done. 

Work opportunity in Australia 

Welcome to our article part one, Is Australia the land of opportunity?

Dear readers, when I came to Australia in the early sixties, there were good opportunities to work. 

Anyhow, I feel that today is different, but I suppose that every one of us feels different, you see, whether we are emigrant, or we have been born here we have our own story to tell, and everyone has a different story and views of the past, according to our life experiences and the work that we did; but let me tell you my personal story. 

If I were to use only my personal experience in Australia as a standard, we must say that Australia opportunities today are not as good as they used to be, because things have changed since I came to Australia. Now if we want to compare the fewer opportunities that are available today, with what used to be available in the sixties, you can use my life story, to compare with what is available today.

Anyhow, everybody in the wide world thinks that Australia is still the land of opportunities, and that is the reason why people are trying to migrate to Australia; but, are those opportunities still there, one may ask? Or is it a myth now, and the opportunities that existed in the past, are a lot less than they used to be, especially for those unskilled people that are coming to Australia.

Having been a migrant myself a long time ago in the early sixties, and being lucky to find some relative that helped me to settle in Australia, I know that migrating to another country is not easy, especially if there is no one waiting for you and help you when you arrive, and it is even harder if you don’t speak the language of the country you are migrating to, but today there is a great movement of people throughout the world that migrate from one country to another, and a lot of people want to come to Australia, they even risk their lives during their journey, boarding boats that can break up and disintegrate in the ocean, and they can drown, because there is no help.

Therefore, when I see people migrating today like desperado that want to reach Australia at all cost, I go back mentally to the times when I legally migrated, and think what I could have done if there had been no one to help me when I arrived in Australia. Just to think about it makes me shudder, so, to see these people that come illegally knowing that they may not be welcome here make me wonder how desperate they are, to try to migrate at all cost.

Looking at what is happening today, we know that the entire world has problems with people migrating to other countries like Australia. Here in Australia we are upset to see people coming in by boats, and we want to stop them, or send them back where they came from. Now, I need to say that in Europe is even worse with people coming in from North Africa every day, they are so many that is hard to count them, and we guess and say that the same amount of people that migrate illegally to Australia in a year may migrate to Europe in a week or even less than that.

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Anyhow, let us talk if Australia is still the land of opportunities.

If I use my personal experience as a standard, then I can say that today in Australia work opportunities are not as good as they used to be. But then not everything is as it seems to me, because my judgment is that of a single person and therefore, I might be wrong.

There are many things that have changed since then, because of the progress humanity has made and continues to make; therefore, working opportunities have changed, so, today it is a lot harder to find a manual job; this is due to the fact that we do not need as many hands to do a job as we used to in the past, because the work is being done from machines, therefore, people that have no skills and rely on their physical strength are not required. For this reason, there are less jobs available, but if people have a trade or have studied there are working opportunities for them.

Now that we have explained how we see today working opportunities, allow me to go back to the days when I came to Australia, so , let me tell you my experience when I came to Australia, because this is the way that we can compare the work opportunity situation.

I have been told there have been times in Australia when everybody had a job, so, there was no unemployment at all, and employers had not enough employees and they would go down to the wharf when the ships arrived and select a few people that seemed good enough for them to do their jobs, therefore, in those days there were no unemployed people, but unfortunately those times do not last long, as I said working opportunities go up and down.

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But, what opportunities were available in Australia in the sixties?

When I arrived in Australia in March 1961 my relative and friends were all working, at the same time they were telling me that there were not many job vacancies available, so, I had to be patient until a job was available. But what sort of work I could do they were not sure just we had to wait and see, what I knew about working for other people was that if a job was offered to me I had to work hard, since in my country when we hired workers to work in our family farm, we expected them to work hard so that they would earn their pay, therefore, I was in my right frame of mind to go out and work hard, whatever job was offered. I have said this, because it is necessary to understand that whoever attempts to migrate to another country, he/she must be ready to work hard if they want to succeed, and it all boils down to this that you need to do a fair work day for fair daily pay.

Beside my willingness to work I was also young and fit enough to do any manual job that I was offered, the only problem was that I didn't speak English.  but even although I had very little English, things turned out all right in the end, perhaps this is another reason why people think that Australia is still the land of opportunities.

For me when I came to Australia I was still thinking the Italian ways, so, I was thinking that when you go to an Italian office if you want something done quickly you need to know somebody in there, otherwise before your turn comes the office hours are over and you have to come back the day after, so, I was wondering how could we succeed in these Australian offices, since I didn’t speak English and my friend was just a little bit better than me.

Anyhow we waited our turn and soon we were being interviewed from this middle aged man that seemed to have so much patience and understanding of the situation, he slowly worked out what we wanted by asking and repeating what we did not understand, and he noted everything down as he asked me many things to see what sort of job I could do, I remember even now that one of his questions was if I were afraid of heights and I said no, as I was going up some tall trees to prune them, he also asked if I knew anything about building or building maintenance, here again I said yes as we sometimes repair some farm building. I believe that these two things gave me the first job in the building industry, as I was called one day to go to work for the first time in Australia. My first job was that of a bricklayer labour, and we were working on a chimney stack in the brickwork's where bricks are made, which I managed to hold for a couple of weeks, until a bigger gang came and I became a bit confused in the middle of all those people, and I lost my first job for lack of knowledge or lack of understanding English. But anyhow I had my first work experience and I was sure that soon there was going to be another one.

Anyhow, I need to say that Australia is a great country to be in, because people are given their opportunities as they deserve, if you are willing to work hard for it.

And in the unemployment offices the officers are just great people to deal with, or at least they were when I came to Australia in the sixties. 

Anyhow this blog is long enough, so, in my next blog , I am going to talk about how I ended up working in the Australian building industry for good.

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This blog is, old man-lifeworks

Australia was the land of opportunities 

IS TO BE CONTINUED WITH

The Australian building industry 

See you soon.

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I believe that on the internet, it is  helpful if we keep our personal links handy, so that we can visit our sites from anywhere we are. These links hereunder are some of my links, feel free to visit them. 

 http://manneedsgod.co.uk

http://frankmenchise.com

http://diybrickwork.com 

https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/prayersofreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/godintheuniverse/

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