Jared Edwards did what many other Kiwis his age do – escaped the isolation of New Zealand to explore the world while earning British pounds.
He and his Kiwi girlfriend live in Scotland’s capital Edinburgh. Jared teaches drama at high schools, and spends weekends and school holidays traipsing around the British Isles and Europe.
While most Kiwis tend to start off their OE in London, Jared opted for the ancient buildings, icy winters, varied culture, friendly disposition and drams of whisky Scotland is famous for.
Why did you choose Edinburgh over London?
Jared Edwards with girlfriend Kirsty outside the Glenfiddich whisky distillery in Scotland. Photo: Supplied
I made the move to Edinburgh because no-one in my family had gone to Scotland. They’d all done London or Ireland or somewhere like that, and I wanted to do something slightly different.
You hear with the London thing, you go over there to experience the London lifestyle but you end up just flatting with other Kiwis and hanging with people you know ... I thought somewhere slightly different would force my hand and try meet different people.
You went from three years’ teaching seniors at a high school in Auckland, to teaching drama part-time at two very different high-schools in Edinburgh – one public, one a private boys' school. How are you finding the change?
The private school is a suit-and-tie type of thing: the boys hold the door open for you when you arrive. The public school is just down the road and it can be quite challenging and very difficult.
Over here, the public and private thing is quite massive. There’s a massive jump for people to try and get their kids into a private schools, it’ quite interesting. And I’d never taught just boys before.
And how about those upper-class families?
Some of it seems put on at times. Like in the private school, when the boys are working on a performance piece, as soon as they get on stage they will put on a lower-class accent – but when you approach them and they are just being themselves, they have this very sort of traditional English-sounding accent ... There’s that perception that ‘If my boy is going to succeed, he has to go to a private school’, which I don’t think is necessarily true.
But a job is a job, right? And for you it’s a way to explore the world. How do you find life in Edinburgh compared to New Zealand?
Living in Edinburgh is wicked. You start to take things for granted pretty quickly, but just every now and then when you’re walking around, you look up at the skyline and see all these old historical buildings and it’s still quite breathtaking.
I think being so close to everywhere is obviously the reason we Kiwis all come over here – being able to jump away for the weekend, hire a car and go up north, or fly to somewhere like Stockholm
Flights are cheaper than it is to get from Auckland to Christchurch, and you are going to a whole new country. That’s the real benefit of being here – being so close to the world.
I think being so close to everywhere is obviously the reason we all come over here, being able to jump away for the weekend, hire a car and go up north or fly to somewhere like Stockholm.
There is truth to the cliché that you mentioned – that Kiwis will go to the UK with the same travel dreams, but end up stuck in London working dead-end hospitality or office jobs, sharing rooms in order to pay the bills, and frittering away most of their income on nights out in London.
But you seem to be having the best of both worlds: seeing Europe as well as good nights out. How?
I’m living in a flat that is pretty grim, like in my early student days, but you make sacrifices.
The flat isn’t that nice but you’re saving money and working every day in the week and then have holidays to look forward to.
Flights aren’t expensive; I stay in cheap hotels; food is reasonable and booze is cheap, so you make do.
I want to travel and to be able to up and leave when I want to, so I don’t buy too much stuff. I invest it all into travel while I’m here.
Any chance of seeing you back home any time soon?
Every place we go, we come home and add more places to the list. While we’re over here we want to see as much as we can.
We’ve made the jump over here and want to see as much as we can, until we think about heading back.
This content is brought to you with financial assistance from New Zealand On Air.
