Joseph Cutajar

Story

Unlike most other migrants my reason for coming to Australia was not because I didn’t have a job. I worked as an apprentice painter at the naval dockyard. From a very young age I always wanted to travel to far away places, where there were rivers, mountains, forests etc. I was only nineteen years old when I first decided to migrate to Canada, but changed my mind and chose Australia instead. During the fifties Maltese were leaving their homeland by the thousands. I came to Australia on an assistant passage. We had to stay here for two years.

Left Malta on the 29th.January 1955 on a ship that was called Arosa Star. We travelled to Port Said then to Peraus in Greece where we picked up some more people, then on to Colombo, Fremantle and then Melbourne. I was seasick practically all the time. I only had two decent meals! That is when we went to shore in Port Said and in Colombo. I just wanted to die, being so sick on the ship.

The very first meal I had in Fremantle was a pastie and some grapes. The very first impression of Australia was the houses. I had never seen tile roofs especially red ones before. it was so different to the flat roofs we had in Malta. That was only what I saw first while still on board. As we got off the ship for our destination, I was so impressed and surprised to see the vastness of the wide streets the long distance, I even saw traffic lights for the first time! The trams and the trains, something we did not have in Malta.

I married Angela in 1960 had two sons Steven and John, they are both married with two children each. We are all very happy with our lives here in Australia. I still wonder after all these years how I had the courage to leave my family in Malta at such a young age and travel all those miles on my own!

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