Immigration
The current hysteria
gripping Australia concerning the number of refugees arriving daily by boat,
prompted me to recall the events that surrounded my own family migration to
this country, after the Second World War.
There was an
element of escape about our decision to desert Britain. We had endured six
years of war, with its regular nightly bombing, sprinting down to the bottom
of the garden, saucepans on our heads, there was not enough helmets to go round,
to reach the air-raid shelter. Past resident Dad’s Army anti-aircraft embankment
and it’s handy source of sand for small boys .
By the war’s
end my father was dead, grandfather had lost a leg, and an uncle had been
killed in the regular nightly Spit-fire battles near our village. We had the
good fortune to live very close South England Air Defence headquarters!
My mother
and grandmother were both born in Australia, so they were able to obtain a
passage home on a returning troop ship.
The voyage was exciting for a ten year old, pickpockets among the sights and
smells of Port Said. Arab boys diving for coins in the Red Sea at Yemen, and
the appearance of Neptune as we crossed the equator.
It had been
intended that we disembark in Sydney, but at the last moment we were diverted
to Melbourne. This was a great disappointment to my grandfather after his years
at sea, fighting pirates off the China coast, blackbird native labour for
colonial planters on Pacific islands. He could never make up his mind
whether Sydney or Rio de Janeiro could
claim the most specular harbour.
My first
impression on arrival was the blinding light, sunglasses were not a fashion
item as they are now, so I spent my first few weeks squinting into the
distance. It took several days to reach Sydney by train, every state had a
different rail gauge, and we obliged to stay overnight in Albury waiting for our
connection. The war years had curtailed most infrastructure development, along
with housing construction. On arrival we found there were few houses for sale or rent for that matter which set in
trail the series of events that follow ed. At least we did not have the difficulties of our current arrivals.
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