Like many students, Gillian Hooton liked the idea of working abroad at some stage. Little did she realise she’d end up permanently settled in New Zealand. Article by Emma Leask.
Originally from Largs, Gillian was studying medicine in Aberdeen when she got the chance to spend a year working in Vancouver and Whistler in Canada. She loved working overseas so much that she opted to do her elective in Sydney. As it turned out she didn’t like Sydney, but in January 2002 she spent a month travelling in New Zealand. She found that the cooler climate suited her better, and ended up falling in love with the place.
Back in Glasgow, Gillian took specialist training in obstetrics and gynaecology at Princess Royal Maternity Hospital, and spent two and a half years working in the field. However, she just couldn’t get New Zealand out of her head.
After a couple of glasses of wine one night, Gillian applied online for some jobs in Auckland. To her surprise she was offered a job without being interviewed. “It’s very easy to travel when you’re in medicine. However, it was all a bit too easy,” she says. “I got offered a one-year post starting in December 2005 as an obstetrician and gynaecologist registrar at the National Women’s Hospital in Auckland.”
Just after Gillian had applied she met Oliver Hawkley when she was sailing on the west coast of Scotland, and they started dating. Although, Oliver (26), from Barnt Green outside Birmingham, is a competitive sailor (he just missed out on the Athens Olympics in 2004), he was working in London as a recruitment consultant. After flying to and from London to see each other for a couple of months, Gillian told Oliver she was moving to New Zealand for a year. Oliver’s reaction? Despite only having known Gillian for two months, he asked if he could come too.
“I’d always wanted to go to New Zealand,” says Oliver. “I was ready to leave London anyway, I wasn’t enjoying my job and the July bombings made me think that London wasn’t the be all and end all. I’d always heard what a cool place New Zealand was, so I thought why not! The opportunity arose to follow Gillian so the decision was made.”
Forward-wind two-and-a-half years and today the couple are happily married with two nine-month-old beagle pups, Moki and Gobo, and plan to stay in New Zealand permanently.
Last August they were married on the Island of Iona, Scotland, and stayed on for a three-week honeymoon. “It was fabulous,” says Gillian. “It was slightly stressful getting my wedding dress back to the UK; my dad brought it as hand luggage and had to guard it with his life so that it arrived in one piece.”
They acknowledge that starting a new life on the other side of the world has been challenging at times. “Auckland is so far away from home and you don’t have your support network so we were homesick. We knew nobody here and we just had each other. You’ve got to make an effort to meet new people and accept every invitation that comes your way. I also had to sell my flat in Glasgow from over here which was difficult,” says Gillian. “I didn’t enjoy the job that I’d come here for. I’d really enjoyed my job in Glasgow - even though it was long hours I was really well supported – but I felt really unsupported here. I since discovered that obs and gynaes were on a skills shortage list which is why it was so easy to get a job.
“Oliver was happy in his job and I was miserable. I was missing out on nights out because I was working 12 hour shifts. I stuck it out until April. Then I changed career path and I’ve been a GP for the last 18 months. Despite this, within a few months of arriving we knew we loved New Zealand and didn’t want to go back. We applied for residency and in three years we’ll get citizenship.
Read the full article in our September 2008 edition.
