Ken @ Areo's Jean Batten jacket

[Ken at Aero Leather]

Any idea of the exchange rate of the Aussie £ to the UK £ back then?
If they were of the same value it was little wonder Brits were queuing up in The Aldwych to move to OZ
I recall being on just over £10 a week in 1962 (working for Bally) and all my friends being very jealous

 

[dinomartino1]

Any idea of the exchange rate of the Aussie £ to the UK £ back then?
If they were of the same value it was little wonder Brits were queuing up in The Aldwych to move to OZ
I recall being on just over £10 a week in 1962 (working for Bally) and all my friends being very jealous

Only slightly less with the added advantage of no rationing.

Australian citizenship did not exist until 1949.
The idea that there was such a thing as an Australian nationality as distinct from a British one was considered by the High Court of Australia in 1906 to be a "novel idea" to which it was "not disposed to give any countenance".

"Throughout the 1960s, Australian citizens were still required to declare their nationality as British. The term ‘Australian nationality’ had no official recognition or meaning until the Act was amended in 1969 and renamed the Citizenship Act. This followed a growing sense of Australian nationalism and the declining importance for Australians of the British Empire. In 1973 the Act was renamed the Australian Citizenship Act. It was not until 1984 that Australian citizens ceased to be British subjects.'
The relationship between Australian citizenship and a citizen of the British Empire or Commonwealth continued to evolve. In 1986, the Australia Act 1986 severed almost all of the last remaining constitutional links between the United Kingdom and Australia. Subsequently, in 1988, for the first time, the High Court ruled that anyone who was not an Australian citizen, whether or not a subject of the Monarch of the United Kingdom, was an alien."

Before ww2 the British Government handled most of Australia's foreign policy, any dealings with other countries had to go the Dominion Division within the Colonial Office in London for approval.
Australia did have any diplomatic service until 1940 when the first ambassador was sent to US.

Little known now but religious sectarianism was common in Australia up to late 1950s, about a quarter of the population was of Irish descent before the war and tended to be working class labour voters.
Right up until the 1950s some of the largest department stores in the country where known as catholic or protestant stores based on who they would hire.

 

[Ken at Aero Leather]

So that makes the £25 Suede Jacket really expensive in 1953

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Pound_Poms

A tenner sounds a good deal, but it's hard to leave "God's Country" AKA Scotland