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Features > A Home Away From Home by Steve

In a follow-up to last week’s Out of Erinsborough feature, which looked at the neighbours’ holidays outside their home town, this week we look at the destinations where the neighbours have made their permanent homes. In the first few years of the show, everyone seemed to move to Queensland, but since then, destinations have ranged from America to Italy to… Darwin.

With many of the Ramsay family living in Brisbane when the show began, it made the perfect destination for existing characters to relocate to when they left the show. The first of these characters to leave was Maria Ramsay. Although her character originally moved to Hong Kong with her new boyfriend, word eventually came through that she was back in Queensland and her estranged husband Max went to join her. In-between, their son Danny had also moved to Brisbane. In the years that followed, Scott and Charlene also made Queensland their new home as they moved to a house given to them by Charlene’s grandfather, Dan. And when she originally left the street in 1992, Madge also made sure that she was close to her family in “Brissy”. Other residents to have made Queensland their new home include Bill Kennedy and Anne Wilkinson, who moved to art college in Dawber, and Joel Samuels, who left to further his marine biology career on the Great Barrier Reef.

By the mid-nineties, there was a new destination of choice for the discerning Ramsay Street resident. When news came through of a new Lassiter’s hotel in Darwin, it wasn’t long before Gaby Willis was moving up there with her son, Zac and partner, Jack Flynn, to help with the opening. Only weeks later, her parents, Doug and Pam, were joining her up north as Doug took over building the hotel with his construction company as a way to reverse the family’s poor fortunes. As if losing her entire family to Darwin wasn’t bad enough, Cody was set for another blow when her boyfriend, Rick Alessi, moved up there to work as Assistant Food and Beverages Manager at the new hotel. In 1999, the entire Martin clan, Phil, Ruth and Hannah, moved to Darwin when Phil was offered a job there and saw no reason to stay in Erinsborough.

Other areas in Australia that have been popular for ex-Neighbours include Sydney, where Cathy and Benito Alessi relocated in 1993 as he was offered a lucrative new job there. Mark Gottlieb and Taj Coppin also made Sydney their new home as both were offered jobs in the media. Mark, in 1995, was offered a new career as a TV chef, starring on Healthy Wealthy and Wise, while Taj moved there at the beginning of 2004 to work as a runner on a movie. In 1993, newlyweds Brad Willis and Beth Brennan moved to Perth, where she had been offered work, while in 1998, Nick and Caitlin Atkins also moved back to Western Australia when their mother returned from the Middle East. In 1995, Jen Handley moved north to the Arnhemland to join an artist’s course. When Gail Robinson left in 1989, she made a new home for herself in Tasmania with her natural father, Ian, and later, her triplets. Lisa Elliot also moved to Tasmania, specifically Hobart, when she quit teaching in 1997. Adelaide in South Australia has also been a popular destination, with Beverly, Matt and Hilary Robinson moving back to live there, as well as Paul McClain packing up to move south when he was drafted by the Adelaide Crows football team. Although he was originally seen moving to Perth in 1990, Des Clarke actually ended up in Adelaide aswell, as was revealed when his son Jamie returned to Erinsborough in 2003. In 1991, both Gemma Ramsay and Adam Willis moved to Newcastle, where they both found work in their respective fields of animal care and medicine. In 2002, the entire Hancock clan moved to Albury in New South Wales, while the Rebecchi clan is now infamous on the streets of Colac, a city in Victoria, not far from Melbourne. Even closer to home, Amy Greenwood moved across the city, to be closer to the airport and her job as a flight attendant after marrying Damien Smith, while Phoebe and Stephen Gottlieb moved to Anson’s Corner, the next suburb, with daughter Hope to open a record store.

Slightly further afield, Henry Ramsay ended up moving to New Zealand when he was offered DJing work out there. He was joined some months later by his fiancee Bronwyn Davies and before long, her sister, Sharon, had also joined them. Another ex-Ramsay Street to move to New Zealand was Lori Lee, in 2003, but she was simply returning home. In 1996, Danni Stark moved to Malaysia to work in the fashion industry, and when she caught malaria, her boyfriend Luke Handley joined her there, where the couple later settled. It wasn’t the first time Luke had moved to Asia with a girlfriend, as the year before he’d moved to Japan with Ren Gottlieb. However, the relationship didn’t work out, and Luke returned a few months later, while Ren stayed on to work as a nanny. Both Lochy McLachlan and Rosie Hoyland made Papua New Guinea their new home after Erinsborough, while both Marlene Kratz and her grandson Brett Stark left Ramsay Street to tour the world. Brett in 1996 to sail with his friend Max Geppart, and Marlene the following year to go on a cruise with her new man-friend George Marshall. Europe also now plays home to a few ex-residents too. Caroline Alessi fled to Milan in 1992 after a brief affair with her brother-in-law Paul, while Marco Alessi settled in Italy with family after fleeing from debt collectors later that year. More recently, Susan Kennedy’s niece Elly Conway made a fresh start with her mother, Liz, in the Swedish capital city of Stockholm.

America is another place where several Ramsay Street residents have made a new home. When the show began, Helen’s adopted daughter Rosemary was already resident in New York, a sure sign of her business prowess. Over the years, both Debbie Martin and Lucy Robinson went to live with her in the Big Apple, though Debbie came back after a year. In 1991, Melissa Jarrett moved to the US when her father was offered a job out there. Meanwhile, after leaving to run a hotel in Hawaii, Paul Robinson was later forced to flee to Brazil with wife Chrissie and son Andrew when a return to Erinsborough for Helen’s birthday revealed that he’d been involved in major fraud. In 2001, after spending several years being unlucky-in-love, Lance Wilkinson found the woman of his dreams, Allana Truman, and the couple left town together to travel around America. The following year, Tad Reeves also left to travel the United States, as part of an Extreme Games tour. And once the Scully children began to leave home, they chose the rather upmarket destination of New York. Flick left for the Big Apple in 2002 to work for the branch of Lassiter’s hotel there, while her younger sister Michelle followed in 2003 as part of an exchange programme.

Of course, several residents have also made a new home in the United Kingdom. When Nell Mangel married John Worthington in 1988, he took her away to live in St Albans, and the following year, her granddaughter Jane Harris moved there to look after Nell when she became ill. The following year, aspiring artist Nick Page also moved to England when he was offered a place on an art scholarship. Annalise left Ramsay Street in 1996 to travel the world, but by the end of the year, she’d settled in England, where her estranged boyfriend Sam Kratz agreed to join her. Similarly, Mal Kennedy and Catherine O’Brien left to travel together and ended up settling, and later marrying, in London. In 1999, Sarah Beaumont married Peter Hannay and they left for Amsterdam, but by the end of 2002, word got back to Erinsborough that the couple had separated and Sarah was living in Norwich, England. And finally, after jilting Darcy at the altar, teacher Tess Bell fled to England in 2002 where she later found teaching work.

It seems that, despite the cliché that all of Ramsay Street’s former residents end up in “Brissy”, they really are all spread out across the globe and hopefully, some of them might even be happy.

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