In today’s video podcast, I have an engaging conversation with Troy Rahme, a South African who made the move to the UK six years ago. Join us as we delve into the vibrant aspects of life in the UK, exploring exciting recreational activities such as fishing, motorbiking, cycling, and camping.
Troy shares his personal experiences and insights into the UK lifestyle, shedding light on what makes it an enjoyable place to live. One of the highlights of our discussion is Troy’s deep passion for community, evident in his commitment to helping others. Troy manages a thriving Facebook group, bringing together approximately 22,000 South Africans in the UK.
Join us as we explore the expat life, the thrill of outdoor adventures, and the importance of fostering a supportive community, all through the lens of Troy Rahme’s unique journey.
You can join Troy’s FB group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/291784791541164/
#Oorsee is a community app for South Africans. Either abroad, going abroad, or just interested to know more. Connect, make friends, and help each other settle overseas. Hunt for jobs, share your business, or just see what everyone is up to!
Get it here: linktr.ee/oorsee
What time it’s a late late morning it’s the first day the first day we can chillax uh yeah that’s right because you you kind of you’re kind of rushing and struggling just to get Christmas done getting like Christmas lunches and everything and but right up to boxing
Day and then yesterday was a mate and one’s birthday which we did a party at my house so it’s been manic up until today yeah now we’ve my wife and I actually just spoke about it because we we we had the Christmas party at our house um this
Year uh normally we go camping over Christmas which I thought it was a really smart move because we’d go away and then none of the um the responsibilities or anything it’s just us five and um yeah we’ll be relaxing next to a lake somewhere sorry let me
Just get that life but um we decided this year you we need to spend it with some friends so absolutely but it’s so yeah a ton of work later it’s over it was fun it was loads of fun and we’ll probably do it again but yeah it’s
Always worth it really is it’s a fantastic time of year it’s it’s it’s friends and family but that’s what this time of the year is if you know for us uh experts if you’ve got family you’re very lucky so cherish it um otherwise it’s your your extended family which
Become your extended family yeah and if you if you’re like um if you’ve been overseas for quite some time and you know all your fames back home and you you barely see them you your friends becomes family exactly so yeah we sit and I mean I’ve
Got friends here that that oh they they now my I mean I’ve still obviously got family but they are my f my local family um and I’m I’m blessed because my brother-in-law lives here which sort of dictated the area we came to and and then uh my wife’s cousin who happens to
Be a good friend of mine also followed me here so there’s three of us that are quite close and then all our friends and everything become extended family um stranger mostly South Africans as as we as we become you know we sort of stick together um there there are a few others
Um I’ve got a really good friend who’s Irish um and uh yeah you know you sort of put yourself out there so you make other friends but they they’re friends the ones that are really family mostly South African yeah well Troy thanks for that we just got straight into it um and the
Viewers would still have no clue who am I talking to so would you please take a minute and just introduce yourself where do you live what do you do for living where you from okay um well first it’s the first interview I’ve ever done soble just forgive me uh Troy uh Troy
Ramy I live in the UK in a little town called wokingham gorgeous little place uh I come from South Africa um originally Orange Grove sort of area uh later on closer to fourways um been in the UK for about six years uh when I arrived in the UK I really struggled
Because I come from a construction background and in South Africa we sort of learned you know different ways it wasn’t all about studies it often it was about developing as you went through through jobs and I ended up doing really well in the career that I had no studies
In because I I studied marketing and I I was a registered person on the stock exchange and a few but completely different and I ended up being in the construction industry for 25 odd years and uh loved it but came to the UK and yeah you you go from managing teams
Of 40 50 people to how many bricks can you lay yeah um which was yeah it it it was difficult um and a very humbling experience um it sort of taught me a few things and retrained uh and decided what what do I like doing because the one thing about
And I’d imagine you’re in Australia it’s similar there you’ve got opportunities that are slightly different you know you can actually make a living uh doing things that you enjoy yeah and I didn’t realize the time but this is what I enjoy I enjoy people my
Job before the part of it I enjoyed was always the people I mean I enjoyed you know seeing things and handing really good products over but I enjoyed the people so um I retrained and I went into of all things mortgages and life insurance and then I added to the
Repertoire Wills trust and power of attorney documents so I advise and I I broker on all of these things um and I I retrained for that um absolutely loving it uh I have the world’s best client base they just you know the majority of my clients are South African and we just
We have a lot of commonalities um and you know we come from a very similar background so the the transision is something that I can relate to and I can explain to my clients yeah you know prime example whereas when I look at a mortgage sometimes I’ve got 8,000
Products in front of me whereas in South Africa you got five lenders six lenders really you know unless you go off the beaten you know path and find Wayward lenders over here it’s vastly more competitive and advisors are really needed but that’s just work it’s not really who
I am you your question a little bit deeper uh and I I’ll jump backwards and forwards when I arrived um you know from buling careers in South Africa it was all about who you knew you know I had a big Network in South Africa um um and knew a lot of people which
Sort of made finding clients and building building business uh propositions easier you land in a new country and you know nobody it’s sort of like getting onto a bus that’s full of people and you’re alone and you got to get out of your comfort zone and for a while I really
Struggled and while I was struggling I sat and I said why am I struggling and I realized it’s because I know nobody and how am I going to fix this and I saw a lot of Facebook groups that supported South Africans which were great but at the time most of them were just
Immigration and adverts yeah so I thought to myself well we can do better than that and I actually started a Facebook page which in the beginning all I really wanted to do was 3 400 people people on it and it sort of got out of hand which was really
Great uh it’s got over 22,000 people on it now and um although it’s South Africans networking in in in the UK it’s it’s rarely about South Africans helping South Africans you know it’s not an iny yourface advertising classified section um so people talk there’s only one day
Where they can advertise and the rest of it is talking and helping each other and you know emotional support which is a big thing and and and and you get people who come to me and and I try to put the group behind people who do things like
That so there there’s everything from immigration agents to guys who make buong and bring in spices and guys like myself who offer services and and so on and so forth but it’s really about helping each other um so you’ll find somebody asking a question that they’re struggling with other people giving away
Something and then you’ll you’ll find especially when we have commonalities like the pro tiers or the spring box or even South African hockey and you know these are things that I’m passionate about and then there’s been branches off from it over time so we’ve got like a motorcycle group where South Africans on
Motorcycles in the UK and we’ll get together we try and support South African pubs um so we’ll do rides out to pubs and whatnot which is also fantastic and and it’s just oh that sounds lad of fun it’s just about gorgeous people but yeah that that really what it is and
Um somebody sent me a video today uh I forget who it was um in any case it was the the Crux of the video was and and and and I think it actually strings true to the today’s conversation it it was a haulk that’s flying over a forest and it
Looks and it spots its prey now we all know walk CU you know it’s bir of pray it’s a powerful creature that prays on small birds and small animals and and you see the Hulk diving down towards it all of a sudden you see the strength of the little animals because there’s so
Many of them one of them sees the Hulk before the Hulk comes and block an alarm that alarm rings through the forest by the time the Hulk gets there there’s nothing there that’s because the friends were more powerful than the one powerful creature yeah and it it rings true to to
Us as a community yeah you know if all we do is stick together and look after each other we’ll never be found wanting I mean make no mistake in the UK for example there’s 66 odd million people and we’re a small small portion of it but and and by no means everything but
It’s it’s a soft Landing for anybody who comes here you know I can’t imagine how difficult it would have been for somebody immigrating 20 30 years ago where you know nobody and you can’t make friends especially at our ages you know if you’ve got young kids you make
Friends through their schools maybe yeah but you know when you come in in later years it’s difficult and social media has opened opened that up vastly and you get spin-offs like WhatsApp groups and so on and so forth which is a little bit more direct people are actually communicating and they they
Arrange lunches and their arrange dinners and Pub crawls and you name it BR it’s it’s it’s just fantastic to see yeah now when when when we went over to the UK that was 2015 we made our first friends through cell cell group through church and we we
We had meetings at another lady’s house she was South African her husband um Dave was was British great people um wonderful kids and then through them our Circle grew mostly South African as you pointed out earlier um because we tend to stick together but we do we we we
Connected with more and more British people and I found let whisper this next bit I found that the British people were forthcoming for for friendships than say for instance the Australians um because we’ve now been here almost six years and um we’ve made some made some friends but
Mostly South Africans and we stick together and yeah we’re going we we’re all leaving tomorrow going camping and we’re going with another group of South Africans so it’s there’s I think there’s one Aussie in the mix that that will join us but other than that it’s it’s
Just us and um if we don’t seek out each other yeah there will be no Community absolutely so yeah I mean we we’ve got that commonality we stick together we we also do things slightly different you know I mean the Brits blessing they are a friendly Bunch you
Know a lot of people say they’re not they’re cold they’re not you need to get to know them and understand them they they are friendly they’re just different to us whereas we’ll invite people into our home we’ll have a BRI they don’t you know I find the fact that I’m good
Friends with I’ve never been to their homes what happens is they’ll sit and say oh meet me at a pub yeah you know um so they don’t invite people into their space whereas us as South Africans we’ve sort of brought up that uh you know my
House is your house I think I think that might be a common British mentality because their houses are so small and the the pubs the pubs are packed every night everywhere it’s crazy my wife and I did a London um ing one evening just to go do Pub crawling I was just so
Flabbergasted of how crowded every single Pub was I mean fortune come on we’ve got a visitor now there you go was feeling lonely anybody loves dogs yeah I know I know woking him a little bit I lived in olders shot right so that’s about the road 15 minutes from from working um and
Then we I worked in gu a beautiful little town like you you probably know um and I remember in in the mall in woking is it so did you say wokingham or woking workingham workingham work about half an hour from me um from the opposite direction is working that’s
Right um but one of the two had a mall and inside this mall is a little I almost want to say an Alleyway or or Gap with a sort of pagola overw overhead or whatever but there’s a little stall there and the guy yeah all right yeah um
It’s funny how a lot of the towns have similar names just a slightly different ending now um I I see on your profile picture you actually posting there with a motorbike so I I take it you are quite into your bikes well it’s it’s interesting um in South Africa I’d never
Ridden a bike in my life U maybe once and I think it fell off um it’s yeah I had different Hobbies you know South Africa you’ve got different there’s different opportunities I did a lot of 4×4 in camping that sort of thing and then I we had a boat that we kept at
The Vall and we used to go down and do boating um over here and let’s be honest England’s gorgeous and it does have gorgeous Summers but you got it it’s very hard to gauge so boating is really a rich man’s hobby because you got to have the boat more the boat store the
Boat and use it one week a year that’s right so that wasn’t going to happen so I then I went I thought you know when I first got you going a little bit crazy I’ll try my hand at 4X fouring I went once um it was a lot of fun but it took
Me two weeks to get the mud off the vehicle I said you know I’m not doing that again you you can’t rock up with the car washer they’re going to look at you and think you’re bloody mad and want to charge you 200 to clean yeah no so I
I never did that again um I did have fun um and then yeah like like I said I struggled for a while and then Co hit and then I I struggled a bit more and at that stage I was starting a new career and I just finished studying and all
Sorts of things and uh I just had to find something to do it was actually my wife’s idea because she could see I was struggling with this Cabin Fever go get a bike license and get a bike and oh wow so yeah and that’s fact I started the
Bike the black Facebook group I Le did she take was hilarious I was taking rides on my learner plates did she take out your life insurance at the same time I’d look into that no I had it before I had it before um i’ added more life insurance
When eventually I bought a house and that’s they actually they loaded me because I ride bikes now yeah know I would I would leave that part out if I Was Here let let’s explore that that that that whole um point of view a bit about um the the recreational stuff in
The UK and I’m going to compare it with what I know here now in Australia now I had my I had to go at some of it because I used to love fishing and things like that in South Africa and um oh gosh I we did it like every second weekend and if
My wife would have would have led me I would have gone all the time not that she really M cared but we we have we have we had my a little baby at that time and obviously I need to be present so in the UK I remember we had our week
Of Summer and we we went to Portsmouth normally and stayed there in the motel or whatever and then we would drive through to um uh what’s the the beach there half an hour away not not new that’s the opposite direction West wiing and we would a gorgeous you can even on that
Beach which is lovely yeah on your little your little portable your Tesco and um and I bought a fishing rod to try it out on poon because I saw there’s someone standing there fishing W it was just it wasn’t in I didn’t think I think
I got one bite I don’t even know what it was but it was it’s not like South Africa no it’s not and then I came to Australia and obviously I told my wife listen here I’m going to be doing everything that I’ve missed in the UK so
I I got my fishing rod and pretty much from the start just had loads of fun with that that later in um escalated to a kayak and then I bought a boat like a little dingy tiny they call them here which I sold again because it’s it’s
Hard work getting that thing in and out of water when you’re alone I now have a a Hobie Pro angle parked over there love that’s I love that thing to bits but um we we’ve got we spoiled for Choice really and um and and also the camping
Now I know people do camp in the UK but I’ve always it looks hard it looks wet I I’ve been camping a few times yeah but it’s it’s not the same as camping in the bush over here you go camping it’s very structured it’s you know it’s not the
Same as South Africa and and imagine Australia in South Africa I used to go to dra up River beds and camp in that you know you can’t do that here over here there’s campsites that you pay and you go to but it’s very organized and you know there’s no bush camping that’s
What we’re gonna do this this for the next week we’re gonna be gone we’re gonna be uh at a site something very civilized for the kids a little bit of while going on there and then for a couple of days after that we’re going into the Into the Wilderness where there’s no
Re yeah that’s what you want do you want the the solar panels to run your fridge yeah that’s all I’ll flip I’ll flip the camera I’m actually sitting outside the Caravans over there or the oh there you go you sorted well yeah we’re still busy packing really I’m squeezing in this
Interview because I I really want want to wrap up the the year with a nice UK chat and um I thought who else better than than Troy because we we we’ve talked a few times on Facebook and yeah you look like a fun guy and it turns out
I’m right you got to have fun but I used to fish in South Africa well I was never a good fisherman so I I used to cry my hand at fishing I used to go out I had one really fantastic day which sort of where where I caught a load of fish and
It was fantastic and then there after I think I caught one fish each time I went out if I was lucky um and then I came here and I had loads of fishing equipment and I went to a fishing pond over here and it just wasn’t the same
Firstly all my hooks were illegal because they’re not allowed The Bobs you’re not allowed to eat what you catch unless you fish in the sea so it was and then it’s it’s so easy because they got all these fishing ponds that the fish breed in it’s it’s like going to a trap
Form yeah you know it’s it’s fish catch catch release fish catch release you know for me fishing was you go you put a lineing North you in the sea we would go out on a boat and go fishing try catch a Dorado or something
You take it home and you make a BRI on the beach that’s what fishing was you know have a couple of whiskies while you’re doing it it was you know very social very you know part of the recipe it’s part of it’s part of the recipe yeah whereas over here it’s it’s it’s
Very much a catch and release H solitary thing so you find a lot of people around likees let me let me tell you something interesting so that’s car right yeah yeah so there’s carp here as well but if they catch you throwing it back you get fined you’re not allow
That’s hilarious you need to you need to bury it kill it or burry and bury it because they it’s it’s an invasive species that and the r uh which um and and I’ve caugh I’ve caugh a cop a cop sorry cop cop about um four weeks ago
And I was so surprised cuz the first one ever I caught in Australia I’m like oh well and this was a really big one as well so I had to like chck it into the bushes and I had to explain to my little girl now the c c didn’t make but yeah
But um it’s quite funny we in the UK they sort of rever the fish they don’t even taste good so yeah no they’re terrible CBS not nice eating but it’s it’s it’s it’s very different I mean listen it’s when you understand why the like my nets for example I couldn’t
Use my Nets I had to buy a new net because my Nets could hurt the fish oh shame you know it makes sense you had to get you had to get Landing mats and you had to get so it’s a whole big rig moral and I sat and eventually I
Just I gave all my fishing stuff away so you know I need something new this is just too much PT for me out fishing do you know that little light between uh between um Ash and Guilford it’s like a little road that you um because I can
See there’s like little tent spots all around this Lake and um I can see the guys camping there in their t for the night and that’s what they do all night is fishing most likely have you ever spotted some of those sites as well I’ve seen there’s one up the road from me
It’s a massive Lake it’s gorgeous called Denton and you go around and there’s it’s about a Four Mile or three mile track around it that’s quite big it’s lovely you take your mountain bike ride there you can picnic there and whatnot and then there’s all these little Pathways that lead down to little
Sections for fishing and you see loads of people go and they they pitch their little it’s not so much a tent I don’t know what they call it um but it’s it’s sort of like a a shade that you sit in your fish I don’t know if they say
Overnight um it it it looked like it um and I thought well okay maybe that looks like something and I thought about it for quite a bit maybe taking my my son out and just sparking it next to the lake but then I realize we’re catching C
No yeah if it was like a trout and you trout or you allowed to keep it then maybe but because I do love a good smoke trout but yeah Trout’s lovely cp’s not great and the thing is I’ve got a mate that goes to the sea to go fishing over
And he takes his kids which is lovely but they go off the pier and they’ll spend a few hours fish if they catch they take it home but it’s it’s it’s not the same fish as South Africa so I I it it never caught me you know for me I I
Want a rock card or I want to go out I want to get a Dorado or you know we we we’ve got what we Snapper so I caught a couple of Snapper lately I caught him that’s 55 CM um Australian salmon the other day that thing just put up such a
Fight but oh when I got the thing into the kayak I was I was buzzing I I I’ll put in a pick um so the viewers can see yeah um that that’s no that’s a great topic I’m I might just do a whole series regarding recreational stuff like
Camping and fishing um oh absolutely but motorbiking I promise you now it’s the best thing to hit the UK see when summer hits there’s more bikes out than there are cars this place comes alive with motorcycles and I know the bike the the not motorbiking but the actual cycling
Is also quite big in the UK because I’ve watched on it on YouTube and it looked so much fun they would like cycle like like an immense distance just to and they do it in sort of in groups um which makes it also very social yeah we have a social group for
That actually so um we call it uh well it’s being very uh uh interesting it’s just called the Cycling group it’s a WhatsApp group it’s it’s mostly British guys and there’s a few of us South Africans yeah um and we we’ll cycle through summer like once a once a week or something do
A little bit of a trip like 10 miles or 15 miles or something and and they try build it up and then once a year we’ll do a three-day weekend and see who can make and there’s usually about 15 of us um and it’ll be like a 60 70 mile ride
Out nice um and then uh we’ll spend a few days and ride around the area so every time it’s a different location um so I’ve I’ve done that three times is it a is it a public is it a public group or is it enclosed to people
That want to join no it’s enclosed um it’s not actually my group there’s one I was invited into it’s it’s Brits uh lovely guys um it it becomes a a a good a good party a good piss as you would imagine when it’s mostly BR and uh yeah I’ve done I’ve
Done it three times twice on on my bicycle and the last time I was away and I came back on the second day so I just met them out on my motorbike oh that’s cheating that’s cheating you should have pedal like the rest of them just suffer
All the way well I did I went past him like this that’s funny yeah um Troy sorry um I’m gonna um to as an enclosed topic and and I I really enjoy this chat I think we need to do it again definitely um and I’m I’m going to be um linking your
Facebook page your group in the description so other Africans in the UK that really want to connect um can sign in um I wanted to touch Bas a little bit on the work because you said a few interesting things which um I felt carried a lot of weight is um about the
UK offering so many opportunities because that’s what I found now I was I was a business owner in South Africa not by choice but I couldn’t really get a job because um I was I was I was more than qualified and and experienced but the thing is um yeah you you know anyway
So I was for to work for myself and it turned out I did really well um I had a big clientele I did website design um and and app development and and things like that for companies and I sold I sold the business um back in 2015 and
Thanks to those funds me and my wife could move um um to the UK but and then something that you really said resonated with me was um from managing 40 50 people now laying bricks and that’s what I found it’s like I had to start at the
Bottom I want to really tell you this story because um I think it’s it was quite funny because my I was trying to start a new his own business and my father-in-law saw no this not happening I got like one or two clients small jobs
And then he says now you need to take your CV go to the the car dealerships and and the Shops and and go find a job and I’m like couldn’t believe it I had staff in sou now I’m a I’m nobody but I thought to myself hey look even if I’m
Begging on the streets I’m still any pounds it’s the UK so I took my CV I borrowed my father-in-law’s jacket um just to sort of look okay and um I remember rocking up at um at the voel at the dealership and giving him my my CV and sitting there with a sales manager
And he looking at me he’s like do you really want this job and I looked at him I was like not really enough I just couldn’t I hate cars I I do love the car that I drive but I I just I don’t like working on him because
I don’t understand like I do computers but um I ended up um giving my CV in at a at too and they needed a technician which was also then manage manager um and um they hired me on the spot because they they the manager there he was
Portuguese he really took a like you mean we just got along so well and um but through that I managed to start off at the bottom and then get through that I got into education and today I’m I’m I work in it for for school year as I did
In in Guilford but um it’s it’s it’s the thing that you said there about you just lay your bricks and you enjoy the work you know that’s something that it it it dawned on me while I was actually doing that laboring I loved it I loved not having that stress constantly weighing
Me down of oh I need to provide for my family or my kids my kid gonna go hungry and and my wife is g to think less of me it it really felt good to know that you know I’m working for boss I’m doing great work I’m getting I’m getting my
Salary and um and you mentioned it’s a humbling experience absolutely I totally agree it it really is and and the the thing is you you can look at you know I’ll use a good friend of mine as an example South African BL he’s come he his eldest was the equivalent of
A level so he came from South African School straight into a levels he and he struggled obviously because it’s very different it’s vly different um so he went the trade route and uh he ended up becoming a plaster now as a plaster in South Africa as in physically doing the
Work you’re not going to make a good living you’re going to struggle to keep a family going whereas over here he’s now married he had his wedding in Italy that he paid for as his son he’s now living just outside of London you know he’s still a plaster he earns a he earns
A decent w and he loves it yeah you know he loves what he does he’s got social media pages and all sorts of things whereas had he done the same vocation in South Africa he would have really struggled yeah totally agree and and over here you sit and and you look I
Talk to everybody I talk a lot and I go down to the Morrison which is uh like a spa and they’ve got a a few South Africans that work there and there’s there’s a South African lady who’s a tent and I was talking to her and I mean as a teller she’s a
Homeowner now think about that in South African terms if you were a teller at Spar would you buy absolutely well no no I mean but absolutely previous I mean she she maybe didn’t manage to get a great job but she’s okay she gets a wage every week or month however she she earns
And she can live on it she not going to get rich as a tell don’t get me wrong she’s not going to be like an entrepreneur earns a million pounds a year yeah she’ll she’ll she’ll go home relax have a Bailey’s coffee same as you and me and that millionaire and she’ll
Have a roof over her head which is something which was a a risk a stress you didn’t you had in South Africa that you couldn’t have whereas if you didn’t have a good vocation in South Africa to actually bring up a family was difficult yeah and I think and there’s a little
There’s a threat you can pull there and and and area to explore South Africa I would say the history of South Africa sort of um downgraded those roles from the beginning and and like even things like Plastering brick laying was all cheap labor and you can you can get it on
Every on every corner at every 7-Eleven you can pick up some some cheap labers good plot is good Brick Layers good tius they’re all there and they’re working for the lowest wage and that’s why that that trade will never be big enough for someone to actually buy a
Home or unless he owns the company you know that that that exactly that changes that but then he’s an entrepreneur he’s not necessarily a brick La you know but once the it’s a big change over you know but when you’re sitting and you look here and let’s say you’re earning Uh 20 an hour as a skilled laborer so as a brick layer or a plaster or a um a handyman that’s generally what they earn roughly 20 pounds an hour and you work out on an8 hour day because you’re not going to get paid for lunch yet so that’s that’s
£60 a day now you throw that into ran terms and this is as a skilled labor this is the that that are standing outside of Builder’s Warehouse that’s 160 whats a Time 23 odd quter times 20 keep it simple 3,200 Rand a day yeah yeah you know that’s it’s not a
Tence you know it’s really it’s not a tence so it’s it’s it’s vastly vastly different to South Africa from that aspect and the other thing that that you find is things that are different like I’ve met people that are extremely wealthy and actual fact in South Africa I never
Once met a mayor or anything over here within the first year I’d met the mayor of working him twice you know just by being a rotarian I’m no longer a rotarian because I just ran out of time there too many things happening but for for the first four years yeah I was an
Active rotarian um and through that I met some very wealthy people and something that stood out is in in in in you know from my friends in South Africa people use that they have nice lavish cars and and beautiful houses some of the wealthiest people I
Knew had L grounds but really old houses and a car that was paid for 15 years ago that they’re still driving today meantime they’re worth1 million yeah well that’s you know they don’t have to they don’t have to prove anything to anybody nothing and and and most
Importantly they never looked down on me at the time I was working as a handyman no never once did they look down on me no and it’s the same thing for people that’s cleaning streets and stuff in London it’s hon job the bus drivers no one is looking down on anyone absolutely
I don’t think there was any job that I could see that people were sneering upon um every every role had had a line of respect that that people would give it um I think the only time when I notice slight little sort of people that sort
Of look down on on on what other people were doing was is when those people were from other countries like for instance South Africa Yeah well yeah um harsh to say but yes we do we have it ingrained in us because that’s how we were brought
Up you’ve got two Roots either study and go into a professional career better lawyer or an accountant or an engineer or something or becoming on entrepreneur and open a business yeah for us the Lesser roles as we were brought up you couldn’t keep a family whereas
Over here you can which opens up a different aspect of life a less stressful which I think when you look around you people aren’t so stressed in South Africa we were very stressed over here guys are less stressed you know um the stress levels are way down
Because apart from the fact that you know you your your employment rates and if the unemployment rate is very low um but the people who are doing you know the postman for example yesterday I had a 20-minute conversation with my Postman I’ve never once looked down on him he’s
A lovely block we bought him a Christmas present he gave us a card yeah you know you don’t look down on anybody he goes home with a a a decent wage looks after a family he has a great job he works from 6:00 a.m. to 300 p.m. every day and
He house he owns a house and he loves it he absolutely loves it and he’s he’s been doing it for 20 years and and if anything all you see is respect for him people greet him they talk to him they nice to him you know in South Africa I
Never once knew my Postman I wouldn’t know if they came once or twice you know or I had a regular person I I I never knew them yeah you know which in a way is wrong of me because I never took the time to um but it was also how were brought
Up with this hierarchy whereas yes I’m sure there is a hierarchy over here but it’s it’s not so evident yeah I think the middle class in the UK is so big that you sort of you you’re you’re protected from um your your hierarchy your um your really really
Wealth people and people that actually make the big decisions and all of that absolutely and and when you meet them they they’re just like you and me bud they’re lovely they are really really lovely people I’ve I mean I’m obviously not going to mention names but I’ve I’ve
Become really good friends with some of them and some of them are extremely wealthy and I’m talking loads of zeros at the end of their account yeah down to earth they’re down to earth they’re like you and me they they’re friends you got you can joke with them you you know the
The type of friend that you can prank and you know and so on and so forth It’s it it’s just it’s it’s it’s so nice to see yeah thr that thank you so much that’s that’s another topic that I really want to get into is um is your
Different kind of people in different countries and how to connect with those people and there’s there’s just another topic over there um I mean as a sou African expert um all those sort of things for me personally is important because that teaches me how to connect
With people all over the world um again thank you so much for your time and um I feel like I feel like this ain’t over we should we should definitely do this again um oh we can yeah Merry Christmas and happy New Year and um yeah and thank
You for for setting the time aside to be my my last um interview for 2023
2 Comments
Awesome interview! Great to chat to such vibrant person.
Great interview. Amazing people on the channel.