'I'M PROUD TO BE A TEN POUND POM!'

TOUGH TIMES SOON PROVED TO BE WORTH IT FOR MARY

- Phillip Koch

Mary Warren, a greatgrandmother from Whyalla in South Australia, was just 25 when she and husband Jim boldly decided to upend their lives in England, and move across the world with their two small daughters to a town they had never heard of.

“We were young and I suppose we were looking for something different,” Mary, now 81, explains. “It was the warm weather and the fact that we could get a house or at least a chance of a house that appealed.”

Mary and Jim, who sadly died in 2019, were among one million British people who paid just 10 pounds sterling to come to Australia on chartered ships and planes under the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme after World War II. This period of history is the focus of the new Aussie drama series Ten Pound Poms, which is streaming now on Stan.

“It was daunting,” Mary continues. “But I didn’t worry about it too much.