Mary's Blog

Fomer ‘bin man’ Stephen Mutch with Simon Reeves before his trucks giving him and his wife a much deserved new lease of life

It was fascinating to watch Simon Reeves excellent BBC2 series portraying, among other things, former Hull City Council ‘bin man’ Stephen Mutch making good by educating new lorry drivers in the BIG PLACE (Australia).

After learning that his hours and salary were going to drop by two thirds, he took his destiny into his own hands and took a great leap into the unknown. That unknown being a territory fertile with new job opportunities for those ready to knuckle down and graft.

The programme took a revealing look at life in Australia and the opportunities that exist for people ready to make a new start and dedicate themselves to a new way of life. And what a life!

Through sheer hard work and entrepreneurial spirit he has achieved a lifestyle he and his wife could only dream of when working for the council.

The programme showed Kalgoorlie and its gold super pit, the vast mining and mineral wealth now feeding China’s insatiable consumer appetite, and an experimental blue fin tuna farm. These are just some of the many new employment opportunities available for anyone ready to throw themselves in at the deep end.

This story is a lesson in humility. It is so easy to pidgeon hole people and leave them by the way-side, when they possess latent potential. We all possess latent potential; we just need a spark to ignite it and the opportunity to let it blossom. Not only do we need to do more as a country to nurture this kind of spirit here, but we should also be helping people working in struggling industries emigrate to Australia to relieve the pressure on our own unemployment.

This is not as crazy as it sounds; 565 Spanish job hunters have found work with German companies struggling to fill posts in just the last 12 months thanks to a concerted initiative between those two countries.