Richard | Hoon Hay, Canterbury

“When I was growing up in the UK, I met this beautiful Kiwi girl that tempted me to come back to New Zealand. I was in my early-20s and she asked me to come back to New Zealand.

So, you think about life in the UK, and what you’ve got, and being used to where you grow up, and I woke up one morning and thought, well why not give it a go, and I have to say, moving to New Zealand is probably the best thing I ever did in my life. I love the place, and I never moan about New Zealand, because comparing it to where I’ve come from, I just find this a fresh and vibrant place.

I find being in the UK is very regimented. Here, you can be what you want to be, and I encourage that for my children, and there are so many opportunities to do things. I just find that you can really open up your mind and just do what you want to do. You can enjoy fun. It doesn’t all have to be about work. You go out there, and there’s so much to do in and around where we live, and you can just enjoy life for what it is. 

I was born in a little market town in the east East Midlands of England, called Market Harborough. Beautiful little town for what it is. I left there when I was 21, and came to New Zealand, and I’ve worked largely in the cleaning industry since I’ve been here. So my role is a customer relationship manager. I got around from site to site, just making sure that everyone’s happy with what we’re doing, our staff are doing. Yesterday was ‘thank the cleaner’ day. So, it was actually nice. We went to a couple of sites where locals down here all got together and gave a wee gift to the cleaner and said thank you for what they do. So, it’s really nice to see that, it’s not me doing the cleaning, but it’s so nice that people are thankful for the services that we provide.

I just think it’s great that people show an interest in what’s happening out and about, and it’s nice to come to places like Timaru. So, I think it’s a little jewel. I think down to Caroline Bay and it’s a nice little town.”