WHEN Brian Webb left Worcester for Australia 32 years ago, you could drive your car down High Street and, if you were lucky, park right outside Marks & Spencer. Kays and Royal Worcester still disgorged hundreds of workers into the city centre every lunch hour and you could smoke just where you wanted. Not now.

The main thoroughfare has long been given over to pedestrians, benches and trees, local cornerstones of the job market have disappeared and if you light up now in most restaurants and pubs, the manager will feel your collar and you will be ejected into the clean fresh air of the world outside.

"Coming back after more than 30 years, I think the most obvious difference is the traffic," said Brian. "There's a lot more of it.

"When I was growing up in Rainbow Hill in the 60s, you could walk down the road and see maybe two cars parked outside houses.

"Now they are nose to tail. There's hardy a space not filled by a parked car. If you want to drive down the side streets it's like tackling a chicane.

"Perhaps the problem appears worse, because where I lived in Margaret River in Western Australia, there's very little parking on the road. Everyone parks in the drive to their house.

"But I like the pedestrianised High Street. That's much better.

"I think they could have made better use of the riverside and something I really don't like is having to deal with call centres if you want to ring somewhere. They tried them in Australia for a while, but then ditched them because of the complaints."

Considering he has been on the other side of the world since the Bay City Rollers last topped the music charts, Brian has hardly picked up a trace of an accent. "I think however long you've been there, you're still a Pom," he said. "When I first went out I was in Perth and there were 12 families from Worcester there."

He was born in Worcester in 1953 and went to St Barnabas primary and Bishop Perowne secondary modern, when it was in Barbourne Road. He then joined Heenan and Froude as an apprentice engineer.

"Now there's another name that's gone," he said, referring to the engineering giant, although off- shoots are still very much in business.

After his four-year apprenticeship, Brian switched to the company's computer department and then two years later he was off to Australia.

"A lot of my friends were settling down and getting married and I didn't want to do that. I wanted to see a bit of the world."

An assisted package ticket cost him £44 and within a week of arriving in Perth he had a job as a computer operator with Swan Brewery, makers of Emu Bitter.

"My first impressions of Australia were that it was clean and fresh," said Brian. "At least it was compared with the Rainbow Hill area of Worcester where I grew up."

Following his spell at the Swan Brewery, he went to work as an estate agent, and then 12 years ago moved to the southern part of Western Australia to the small town of Margaret River in the beautiful heart of the state's wine growing region.

There are 120 vineyards in an area about the size of Worcestershire and Brian set up an operation running tours and promoting the local wine.

He has now returned to Worcester for some "quality time" with his parents.

However, being a Pom in Oz is not always a sunshine lifestyle.

"They never let you forget, especially when it comes to sport. They're always prepared to have a bet with you, because they know they'll usually win.

"That was why it was great to win the Ashes a couple of years ago. But it was terrible having to sit through that 5-0 whitewash this winter, when they got their own back."

But of course, one recent sporting occasion surpasses the lot - the day England won the Rugby World Cup by beating Australia in Australia.

It was almost as good as the day Worcester City FC beat Liverpool in the FA Cup on January 15, 1959... when Brian was five and Australia was a very long way away.