There’s a scene in BBC Two’s new four-part drama Mix Tape in which Daniel, the series’ 40-something protagonist, flies to Sydney from Sheffield to meet his teenage sweetheart Alison next to Bondi Beach.
Daniel’s decision might have felt far-fetched to many viewers. Would anyone in their right mind really fly 10,000 miles for someone who might not even be interested? Actually, quite possibly. Because for me and my boyfriend, the parallels with our own love story were too striking to ignore: 18 months ago it was me sitting on that 24-hour flight from Gatwick to Sydney, wondering whether I’d really have the courage to tell my friend of 13 years how I really felt. Sure, the setting might have been a little different – the riverbank in Melbourne, not Bondi Beach; and an old university friend, not a childhood sweetheart – but the circumstances were largely the same. Two people living on opposite sides of the world. A history of dancing around each other, one of us always in another relationship. Unfinished business. Not to give away too many spoilers, but we now live together in Australia. The most unexpected thing of all? We’ve met half a dozen couples out here who’ve done exactly the same thing.
So what is it about UK-Australia romances, exactly? And how has it taken this long to see one on screen? That depends who you ask. “It’s the spontaneity factor,” is the verdict of my friend Harry*, a Brit living in Sydney who recently reconnected with an old flame from London. The two of them had parted ways several years previously, assuming they’d never see each other again – then she messaged saying she was visiting a friend in Manly, Sydney, and suggested they go for a drink. “It felt like all pressure was off this time, because she was flying back in a couple of days. Ironically, I think that made us both lean in more.”
Anne, my Dutch friend here in Sydney, believes it’s that sense of fun that comes with a holiday romance that was the real driver in her case. “I think we both went in with a bit of a ‘why not’ mentality; that sense of having nothing to lose because we were never going to see each other again,” she says of getting-together with her now-boyfriend Ben when she was visiting Australia last new year.
The two of them were strangers, not old flames, but our stories are otherwise oddly similar: a whirlwind few weeks together in peak Sydney summer, daily FaceTimes for a few months from opposite sides of the world, an airport reunion before moving in together in sunny Sydney (obviously, we were never going to make them move back home). Our boyfriends – a Scot and an Englishman – like to joke that living in Australia made them more attractive (happiness is a magnet, go figure). Anne and I tease them and nod along, obviously, but the truth is it wasn’t the sun that made us seize the moment; it was how short that particular moment was. There’s something about the fleeting, now-or-never countdown of a 24-hour flight that makes people do, well, pretty brave things, it turns out. Even if you’re naturally risk-averse like me.
It’s not just a millennial, jet-set generation thing, either. My late grandfather reconnected with an old flame living in Australia after my grandmother passed away just over a decade ago. They fell back in love again in their seventies and eighties, half a century after their first romance.
Just like Daniel and Alison in Mix Tape, my grandfather and his second wife had gone their separate ways after the relationship ended in their early twenties. They’d both married other people and had families of their own. They lived on opposite sides of the world for almost five decades, but the spark was still there when they eventually met again through mutual friends. They had a happy second marriage for eight years before my grandfather passed away in 2023. Perhaps seeing them so happy was what gave me the confidence to make my own long-distance love story happen, too.
My step-grandmother lives down the road from me now, in outer Sydney, and we often compare notes on our respective UK-Australia romances. The magic of that airport reunion. The risk of moving countries for another person. The difficulties of one of you having to leave your life behind to make the relationship work.
Getting on a plane for someone who might not even like you back might seem somewhat risky, but if there’s one thing I’ve learnt since I had my own Mix Tape moment 18 months ago, it’s that a surprising number of people are willing to do it when it comes down to it. Perhaps it’s the thrill of a holiday romance, or perhaps it’s the thought that they’ll live 10,000 miles away if it all goes horribly wrong, but there’s a special type of courage that’s needed to jump on a plane and tell someone how you feel – which I think was good for me personally, and is a pretty good starting-point for most relationships, come to think of it.
“I know this is so crazy, but do you think you might stay a little while longer?” Alison asks Daniel in episode three of Mix Tape, just as he’s departing for Sydney airport. I won’t spoil the ending. But perhaps, actually, it isn’t quite such a crazy suggestion after all.
