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PROUD DAY: Gillian Thompson accepts her citizenship from Mayor Clare McLaughlin.
Gillian Thompson has always considered Whyalla home and that won’t change anytime soon for our newest Australian citizen despite heading overseas again soon.
Gillian left Whyalla once as a teenager when she travelled back to her birthplace of Dunfermline in Scotland but she couldn’t wait to get back “home” again.
“I came out from Scotland with my family when I was seven and I’ve only gone back once,” Gillian said.
“That was when I was 19 and I got so home sick, I came straight back.”
This time it will be a bit different as Gillian travels overseas with her husband Ian and their Australian-born son Harry. To prepare for the trip, Gillian made her citizenship official at a ceremony with Mayor Clare McLaughlin last week.
“We’ve been talking about it for several years,” Gillian said.
“I’ve always considered myself to be Australian but we thought the time was right to become official citizens so we can travel overseas together as a family,” Gillian said.
Gillian came to Australia as a little girl with her parents Brenda and David Crawford and her two younger brothers David and Stephen in 1973. Excitingly for the time when ship travel was the norm, the family flew to Australia and stayed for a couple of weeks in a Sydney migrant hostel.
It was then a bus to South Australia for another short spell at the Milpara Migrant Centre in Whyalla as dad David started work as a labourer at BHP.
“I can remember the train ride from Dunfermline to London to catch the plane and catching the bus to Whyalla,” Gillian said.
“But to me it feels like I’ve lived here all my life here, Whyalla has always been home and I love it.”
Gillian works as a service manager for Whyalla Aged Care while Ian is an operator at Liberty One Steel. Ian is also in the process of making his Australian citizenship official for the Thompson’s big overseas adventure.