Speakout Street Interviews 7

H = Hina     W1 = 1st woman etc.     M1 = 1st man etc.

H:     I feel good about life at the moment. I live in a fantastic city and I’m really happy with my job at the BBC. Tell me about you.

W1:  I have a fabulous partner, four beautiful children, a great job- and I live in London.

W2:  I’m enjoying my life at the moment because I have a good circle of friends. I have a job that I really enjoy and I’ve just bought a flat.

W3:  I enjoy living in the UK, and I have been over here for about nine years, so I do enjoy my life.

W4:  I am just about to go on holiday so I am, yeah, looking forward to that.

W5:  I’m happy with where I am, yeah. I’ve just graduated for two weeks.

W6:  My life’s great. I’ve got two lovely children, a great husband and I just finished paying for my house.

M1:   I’ve got a career opportunity going on, progressing a bit, started a new one, just changed the career a couple of years back. Started a family as well. I bought a house. Things like that, you know. Things are going well – so I’m so far, happy.

H:     Is there anything you’d like to change?

M1:   Eventually yes. But not at the moment, things are going alright.

W2:  No, not at all. No, not at the moment, no. A little bit more travel.

W3:  I’d like to be richer.

W4:  Nothing that I can think of.

M2:   I’d like to go on more holidays.

W5:  I would like to get into graphic design. That’s something that I’d really want to change.

W6:  I’d like to be able to afford to join a gym so that I could get fitter.

H:     My life has changed a lot in the past 10 years. I’ve lived in three different countries. How about you? How has your life changed in the last few years?

W1:  My life has changed quite a bit in the last two years. Specifically in that I had a five-year break from work, put my career on hold and returned back to full-time employment.

M2:   I’ve recently had a young girl, a daughter – my wife’s given birth. And yeah, that’s a big change in your life.

W4:  I’m living in a new area that I hadn’t lived in before. So I was completely new to that part of London. So that’s probably the biggest change.

W3:  Ten years ago I was a student and so I used to get up late, and I used to have lots of time. And now I have to go to work.

W2:  My life has changed. I’ve developed more of an established career. I’ve moved around quite a bit since I’ve moved to the United Kingdom.

M1:   Yeah, I’ve changed in every possible way really. Career-wise, I made a big decision of changing my career, coming to HSBC. And then personal life - got married, I had my first child, bought my first property.

W6:  I’ve had a family and so I don’t see so much of my friends any more. We do a lot of family things and a lot of my friends have moved out of London so we don’t get together so much any more.