Bobs Your Uncle 1.5 with Leanne Devine, Irish Australian hairdresser and entrepreneur

Meet Leanne Devine from Northern Ireland, hairdresser, salon owner, entrepreneur, an immigrant to Australia, mother of 2 young boys... loads of good stories to tell. 
Here we are:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bobmendo/51971388392/in/album-72177720296857670/
Here's her wedding in Ireland:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bobmendo/albums/72157642519642125

Our former sponsor, Amanda, is no longer working as a travel agent. 

These 18-minute episodes are what call 'bite-sized' meaning you can hear an entire episode while on a jog, or after a job, in your car driving back and forth to the shops... and you can comment, review, make it reach further and further, if you want. I certainly appreciate it. 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. This is Bob Mendelssohn, and this is the Bob's Your Uncle Podcast. Today we speak about migration from Ireland to Australia, being an entrepreneur, and even some history of England and modern hairdressing. You will meet an amazing woman, Leanne Devine. Thanks for joining me for this Bob's Your Uncle Podcast season one, episode five. Of note, the opinions are strictly my own and those of any of my guests. You can now find us and comment to us wherever you get your podcasts. Spotify, Apple iTunes, and the list goes on. We have a lot of topics to discuss. Even so, on the Bob's Your Uncle Podcast, you are part of the show. We do want to see and hear you. Send us a message on Facebook or Instagram. In the weeks to come, we'll speak about pickleball, country music, Israel, Iran, and wars and rumors of wars. Let's see where the spirit leads us. Whether you're at home, online, on the road with me in your headset at the gym or out for your evening constitutional, wherever you get podcasts, that's where we will be. Thanks for being with us for these 18 minutes. Amanda McGuinness is both my travel agent and the sponsor of this podcast, and it will help if you book your next trip with her, including hotel and flights and all things tourists. Amanda, thanks again for sponsoring the Bob's Your Uncle podcast. Let me ask, you book lots of different types of trips. What's your favorite type to book?

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Well, when it comes to booking flights, I do love around the world airfare. I think we did one for you a couple of years back on your Poland trip. And I love seeing how many destinations we can get into one ticket. I do love booking family holidays, though, as well, because I think it's so exciting for children to travel and to experience different cultures and destinations. So combining around the world family holiday would be ideal.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

As the world opens back up, do you think that travel trends have changed over the last couple of years?

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Yes, definitely. I think one of the big trends we're going to be seeing a lot more of is along the lines of slow travel and the sustainable travel movement. As the world slowed down over COVID, we saw the benefits to the environment for a lot of destinations that weren't inundated with people. And I think that's really resonated with a lot of travelers. The more that we discuss the climate crisis as well, I think people are starting to take ownership over their own ecological footprint. And that really includes traveling. So ensuring we're using ethical suppliers, purchasing carbon offsets, and encouraging other methods of travel where possible are really important nowadays.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Do you have any worries about travel in this time?

SPEAKER_00 3:16

I think if you didn't, that would be unnatural. And I guess the big the big thing at the moment is if you're aware of the risks, and that includes catching COVID overseas or getting stuck, having your travel plans change, but I know for myself personally the risks are outweighed by the benefits of reuniting with my family after two and a half years.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

On this date in history, 29 March 1901, the first federal elections were held in Australia. Also, in 1867, the British Parliament passed the North America Act to create the Dominion of Canada. Today we welcome to the podcast a woman I've known for 12 years. She hails from Northern Ireland and moved here to Sydney to start a new life. She's a joy to be with, and I think you will enjoy our interview.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

Very good.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Recently you had a St. Patrick's Day festival in the Rocks. Did you participate?

SPEAKER_02 4:43

Yes, yes, we sure did. My cousin was getting her citizenship, um, her and her husband, so we wanted to go down and take photos for her and celebrate because I got my citizenship twelve years ago on St. Patrick's Day Festival too. Obviously, because we opened the salon on St. Patrick's Day and I got married on St. Patrick's Day, so it's all happening, so it's a very special day for us.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

I'd say 120 years ago, the government of Australia federated, making all the colonies into a nation of its own. You are a citizen of both Ireland and Australia, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Yes, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

You didn't have to give that up. Why did you choose to come here to set up your new life?

SPEAKER_02 5:21

Well, my mum and dad, they came to Australia and I think it was 1974. They came from Belfast in the Troubles. My dad was a teacher in the Falls Road, and he just seen an advertisement in the newspaper where he needed for teachers, and him and my mum got married, and then they came over. So Australia has always been a big thing in our family. We used to have photographs of Australia all over our house of earth rock and things like that. So when I was younger, I always wanted to go to Australia. My dad's sister emigrated over to Perth, and when I used to give off about the weather in Ireland, I used to always say, Why is it always rain here? And my dad would go, Just go to Australia. It's sunny, it's easy there, there's beaches. So that always had it in my head, and then I used to watch Home and Away, which is massively famous in Ireland, and I was like, Right, I'm gonna go there someday. When you were a teenager when I was a teenager, so I always said I was going to Australia. It was always in my head that I was going, so I came over backpacking with my cousin from London when I was 23. Um, and we travelled all around Australia. It was one of the best times of my life. It was so much fun. We met so many people, um, and then she had she went home and I got sponsored in the city in a hairdressing salon there, and I'm here 20 years later, um, after the first year, and then I met my um husband Barry Devine on my 24th birthday in an Irish bar, as you do.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Look, I've seen you employ women in your salon from Ireland and New Zealand, from England, uh of course here in Australia. What criteria do you use to choose someone to work with you? What's the most important characteristic that keeps people here who worked with you for a long haul?

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Well, the the big thing for me is it's their personality, you know, work ethic. Yeah, it's uh they have to have a good personality to go along with their skills and because if they don't have uh they don't have the good personality and they don't charm the clients, then the clients aren't going to come back. So Irish people have a good work ethic? Yes, yeah. They've always been told to go out and work from they were like you know, so young. So um I do find that their work ethic is good, and the hairdressing education in Ireland is probably one of the best in the world. Um that's we're known for it, you know. Um and the English are good hairdressers as well. Well, I suppose England was the first country in the world to change hairdressing into professional hairdressing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

When do you reckon that was?

SPEAKER_02 7:47

Oh, that was in like 1969, in around that. They changed it from short back back and sides to like, you know, glamour, really good, you know, advanced hairdresser.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

That recently, I'm shocked. So when my mother, I don't know when she, but she always went every Friday, she would go and get her hair combed or washed, whatever. And I never understood why she just couldn't do it at home like I washed my hair.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

But for some reason she went to a beauty salon.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Because they like they like they like to come in and get somebody else to do it for them, you know, professionally. Um and they like to have the chat with the other with the hairdressers and the other clientele that's in there. So it's very enjoyable for women to come in, relax, and get pampered and feel amazing when they walk out the door and their hair is going to be looking good the whole weekend.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Uh, you married on St. Patrick's Day eight years ago, and now you have two beautiful little boys for whom you are mum. They are dinky diozzies, aren't they? Do you regret being so far from your parents in this crucial time of the boys growing up?

SPEAKER_02 8:53

So I think Australia is a great country to bring your kids up. Um you know, there's so much to offer here. The outdoor lifestyle is absolutely amazing. I love the fact that you can just put your child into the pram and go for walks, you know, without it raining. It's a lot more harder that way at home in Ireland. But I was at home in Ireland for Christmas this year, and that was my first time nearly in 20 years where I really felt like I wanted to move back home. I think it's because the parents are getting older. Plus, we got coronavirus when we were home in Ireland. My auntie gave me her little cottage up in the mountains, she was in London, so it was just a support of the family. You know, they fung you say, Do you want to get some food? They drop food off, they drop everything off for you, they were just there. Um, the support was just unbelievable. And me and my husband realised that you don't have that support as much over here because you really are on your own, because blood is obviously thicker than water, and you know, nobody cares more about you than your family. So we really enjoyed our time at home this time because when I got married, we had there were seven weddings in our family in the one year. So obviously, they all have kids in around the same time as what we had them. So there were so many cousins, and we just watched our kids play with their cousins and they just connect. But for the first time now, I felt a bit unsettled being back. I usually enjoy coming back, um but I really enjoyed home this time. Maybe it's because I'm getting older and your family are getting older and your priorities change, and you know, you just feel like oh, I miss my family so much, you know.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Your husband is a real estate man, isn't he?

SPEAKER_02 10:36

Yes, he is, yes.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

And he's a mad sportsman. Uh does he get you to play any sports with him?

SPEAKER_02 10:42

Um well, he plays football now every Saturday for the over 35s, the Glebe soccer team. So he brings the kids down and then I go and collect the kids. Um so he's made one boy obsessed about soccer. And when we were home, we took him over, he flew him over to Manchester United and brought him to and done the big show around the place and got amazing. He rewarded himself. And a few beers, but uh he yeah, he was he was in a fitness mode there for three months there and he and he's looking good. But yeah, and the kids he teaches the kids how to play soccer as well. He uh is into Gaelic football, which is Irish football. Um he's played that his whole life, and he works over in French as forced, and some schools have contacted him there recently to teach Gaelic football to some of the secondary school boys.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

I think excellence is a characteristic that you value as you want every customer to experience that in your care for them and their look when they leave, when they exit the salon. How did you come to that belief that excellence matters?

SPEAKER_02 11:52

I definitely do believe that that was in Masons working in Peter Market back home when I was 16. Because we worked in a company salon that had 74 salons, so there was a system there, and you had to follow the system, and there was education there, and that's the way you were trained. So I believe if I wasn't trained in that in that company, I might end up being have that always excellent attitude towards because um a lot of my staff do come from Penamarket in Ireland, and it's just easy for me because we've been trained the exact same way. I don't have to educate them, I don't have to tell them what to do, they know the professionalism, they know how to do the hair, they know the customer service is so important, and and that's where it came from, and you know, customer service is vital as well. Some days, you know, you know, you do better than others, but you try your hardest every single day, you know. Um and 99% of the time the clients are happy, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Those two little boys you have, and maybe you'll have more, we don't know. When they're 15, when they're 20, when they're on your side of 40.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

What do you what do you want for them to be or to do or to think? What's your do you have a single goal for them? Not talking about sport or that they'll be a lawyer and a doctor. But what characteristic do you want them to demonstrate?

SPEAKER_02 13:18

So I want them to be, obviously everybody says I want them to be a good person, but I want them to have confidence. I want them to have be able to know their own mind, know who they are, where they're from, um, have good values. I think that's more important than going to university. Uh you know, you can go to university four or five years and you can waste it. They show up at work every day, and if they want to do something that they believe in and they dream of, I will let them go that way. I won't push them into something that they don't want to do. So I let them do, you know, whatever they want to do, whatever they want to do in life, as long as they carry on that tradition and be kind to people and look after people and be down to earth and have gratitude. Gratitude is massive.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

You know that if you are entitled, if you are deserving, you never are grateful. But if you know you don't deserve, then everything you get is a bonus and it's a joy. So you become grateful. How are people supposed to contact you? You've mentioned Bondi Junction, you've said a salon, but what's the name of the salon?

SPEAKER_02 14:28

It's head office hair specialist. So head office hair specialist. Um my auntie gave me the name of head office, and she was a hairdresser and she lived in Perth. Sadly, she's passed away. Um when I was 17, she's like, if you're gonna open up a salon, Leanne I've got a name for you, and I was like, Watch it was a head office, and that always stuck on me. So I did when I was 30. I obviously opened up and I called it head office. And you can kind of you can go onto Instagram, you can go on to Facebook, or you can go onto our website where they're and you can read up all about us and where we're at and what we're doing.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

People can book in, they can get their cut, color, weaves, implants, and I don't know. They do all kinds of things here. And it's a beautiful salon, you're a great lady. I appreciate our friendship over the 12 years now.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

Yeah, I know. You were my next door neighbor from the first salon up the street for three and a half years.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

And then we all got the boot.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

I used to always get you to print my stuff out for me, or sometimes I would get Bob to reword my letter my letters for me. Well, we've we've obviously I'm a hairdresser, I'm artistic, you know.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Yeah, we we have different gifts. And I'm really grateful for your friendship. And I look forward to what God's gonna do in your life here at the salon with with Baz, with the kids, uh, as we keep watching each other over the decades. Exactly. It's all the best to you.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

It's great and being your friend, Bob. You've been so helpful over the years.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Thanks so much.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

And you did go to my wedding as well.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Who wants to miss an Irish wedding? That was great. Thanks, Leanne.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

Thank you so much, Bob. That was brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Every week we read a verse or two from the number one bestseller of nonfiction since Gutenberg went to press over 500 years ago. Today's reading is from Peter's first letter. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may, because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation. Don't forget to post a review on iTunes or Spotify Stitcher wherever you are listening, and share our podcast with your mates, your friends, your enemies, and your work colleagues after hours, of course. Word of mouth or word of email or word of Facebook is the key driver in this social media starved world. Thanks for helping us get known out there. Also, please follow or subscribe to the podcast, obviously, and hit like as well. We can use all the good speak we can. Don't forget to book all your travel needs with Amanda McGuinness at travelpartners.com.au. Next week I'll be speaking with Siobhan Coombs in Sydney, a comic book specialist, entrepreneur, and mother of two young boys. How does she do it? And I'm hoping to have good words about a conclusion of a war in Ukraine. Please, God. Remember to join us wherever you get your podcasts. Until then, from me, Bob Mendelssohn, when things seem bleak or uncertain, look up to God. He's in heaven, and Bob's your uncle. Shalom from Sydney.