John Hulskamp

Story

Postwar policy was to invite large families from the Netherlands to come to Australia. I was one of eight, whose parents sought new beginnings after the World War 2. I was the eldest of the offspring of six.

We departed from Hook of Holland, on 16 January 1951, arriving at Harwich, UK, en route to Tilbury Docks to embark on the P&O Ship Maloja. We were a minority of Dutch on an English boat to Australia with other Ten Pound migrants. I remember the Scottish Pollocks who settled in Summer Hill, Sydney. The trip took six weeks: the emergency drill in the Bay of Biscay, towards Port Said, the Suez Canal, Aden, Colombo then to Fremantle, to Port Adelaide, Port Melbourne (where we were stuck due to a wharfies despute, finally arriving on 3 March 1951 at Pyrmont, Sydney: I remember going under the Harbour Bridge,

My first impressions were related our trip to the Bathurst migrant holding facility: leaving the boat; the double decker bus to the railway,and the early morning arrival at Bathurst, learning the Advance Australia Fair, very early. We subsequently went to Uranquinty, then to Cowra, before we finally arrived in Queanbeyan. We lived in a two-roomed shack built by my father and his mates out of packing case material, for 18 months, before our family settled in Canberra, in the then most north-westerly house (1953). I went to Canberra High School, and then to the Australian National University, where I graduated with the first B.Sc in 1962.

I could go on.

John Hulskamp

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