Ancestry
My great-grandmother is of English descent going back at least 3 generations. She grew up in her younger years in Lancashire which had cobbled streets, double-decker buses, and many three-storied buildings. This was through her primary school years during the Great Depression. this was a time in history which meant there were not many jobs and families were living on small amounts of money or on the dole. When World War 2 started her family had to move to London because her dad was a mechanic on the English warplanes. Growing up through her teenage years during world war 2 was hard. Great-grandma Marji had to go through lots of hard times during the war such as walking an hour to school because her school had turned into a military base. There were constant air raids when bombs were being dropped, which meant she always had to carry a gas mask and take cover in shelters if the sirens went off. There were wardens called ARPs that would come and make sure no light was coming out of your curtains at night. At night sometimes she could hear 100s of Germain warplanes flying over and then the propellers spinning as the bombs dropped. Eventually, the war ended when she was 18, and London was destroyed but she and her family stayed living there.c
Great-grandma Marji left London to immigrate to New Zealand with her family after the war because of a promise her mother had made to her aunty many many years earlier. She was only 20 years old when she arrived in New Zealand ready to start a new life.
My Great Grandmother was born in Blackburn Lancashire England on the 8th of May in 1927. She moved to London at the age of twelve because my great-great-grandfather was working on warplanes.
During World War2 in London, they had to carry gas masks at all times, and if the bomb siren went off they would have to put on the gas masks and take shelter.
Every night there were blackouts where no light was allowed to be seen from houses and the entire country would sit in utter darkness. Great Grandma Marji talks of ARP wardens that would come around and check on houses and how you would get in trouble if light could be seen. A.R.P. stands for Air Raid Patrol.
School finished an hour earlier around 2:30 pm to allow time for students to get home by foot before dark started to fall in the winter months. Great Grandma had to go to a new school, Shandles, as her school was taken over by the military. She lived in Harrow Weald in Londen.
This area of London was heavily bombed to bits by Hitler and the Germans trying to find and destroy the kodak planes so there were constant air raides. The kodaks were planes that took intelligence photos of France and Germany and were only stored 2 miles from my great grandmother’s home.
She came to New Zealand after the war had ended because her mother had made a promise to her Aunty to immigrate in the 1920s.
This was delayed because at the time because my Great Great Grandma Eveline was having children, then the great depression hit England, and then World War 2 started.
My great-grandmother Marjorie came to New Zealand two years after World War two ended in 1982
My Great Grandma's mother Eveline had made a promise to her sister (my Great Grandmothers Aunty) in the late 1920s that she too would immigrate to New Zealand.
After the war, Britain needed both economic and labor assistance to rebuild society. The British got financial help from America, but they had to actively invite people from abroad to get the necessary manual labor. For this, they turned to their colonies, and especially the Caribbean islands.
2nd Push factor
England was still recovering from the war which took nearly a decade and life had not returned to normal yet. People were still living on rations for years after the war had ended. The loss of the empire allowed Britain to concentrate its money on development at home rather than funding wars elsewhere. ... In 1973, Britain joined the European Economic Community and became part of a trading community based on free trade between the countries of Europe.
Discussion of Push factors
My Great Grandma Margorie did not want to leave England, she was very happy with her life living in London at 20 years old dating an MGM photographer. Her mother Eveline would not leave England without her. My Great Grandma Margorie had just come of age where she was able to get a job
Pull factor
New Zealand was offering a wide range of job opportunities for working-class families who want to immigrate to New Zealand
Post-war recovery was much less than England, and New Zealand was not living on rations like England was
Pull factor 2
Most of all great-grandma Marji’s aunt was here in New Zealand
Grandma did not feel she could let her mother break a promise to her aunty
She would leave it the great depression had hit and they could not go because the planes were not working and after the great depression world war two had just hit and her dad got offered a job to work on the warplanes so they needed him to stay in England
Discussion of pull factors
My great-grandmother needed to make sure that her mum would not break a promise with her sister and she wanted to see her aunty and cousins that she had never met a lot.
Conclusion
By choosing to immigrate she was able to live in a country that was recovering much faster from the war instead of living on rations. She also had many job opportunities and the chance of getting to meet extended family.