Well, Friday afternoon August 26th arrived, a lovely late winter sunny afternoon. I'm given a lift by a friend to the ACT Legislative Assembly for the Australian Citizenship Ceremony where I hand in my letter of invitation. I am asked to prove my identity by showing my UK passport and given a form to change my electoral status from UK citizen to Australian. I am escorted down to Row C. Row's A, B and C have Bibles on the seats, a pledge of allegiance, order of ceremony and the words to Advance Australia Fair. The seats in the row behind me do not have Bibles.

Two seats to my right is a lady from Malaysia. Behind me a gentleman from Thailand, next to him a woman from California. A petite woman sits down next to me and we exchange pleasantries. She is from the Karen, her parents fled Burma in the 1960's and she was born and grew up in a camp in Thailand. She met her Aussie husband there. A guy from the USA sits down on my left. Most of the people around me have lived in Australia from 4 to 6 years, much laughter erupts when I admit to having lived here for 40 years, and that I am becoming an Australian out of financial expediency to assist with university study costs.

The ceremony begins, the politicians make all the usual spiel about how great we all are adding to the tapestry of Australian life. Citizens from the UK are particularly noted as contributing especially to building Australia over the past 60 years. My chest swells with pride.
Suddenly I find myself on my feet with the other occupants of rows A, B, and C pledging our oath to God of allegiance to Australia. Changes to the oath make interesting reading.

Then we sit down and row D make their pledge without reference to God. So it looks like 25% of new Aussies do not wish to involve a deity in their citizenship ceremony.
Then we have to sign our electoral papers, they are collected and we sing the first two verses of Advance Australia Fair.

Then I tumble outside and walk back to work, an errant Englishman no more.
Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, OY OY OY!