Anne Roberts

Story

I was five in 1968 when my parents informed me that our family was to migrate to Australia and they asked my sister, Lynn, and I whether we would prefer to fly or sail from Romford, Essex to our new home in Australia. We were both excited about flying, so our parents opted for the plane as our mode of transport to our new home.

The London Blitz of World War II had disrupted both my parents\’ opportunities for anything other than a basic education, but life experiences and commonsense prepared them for a productive life. My Dad, Ron, was evacuated from London and billeted with a family in Kent during much of the War while Mum, Doris, remained with her family to tough it out. Schools were closed and neighbourhoods devastated by the daily bombing raids by the Germans.

Mum and Dad were born into the working class and as such were very much dependent on the fortunes of the job market. Dad earned a living driving a truck making deliveries in and around London and Mum took jobs in various local factories on process lines.

My parents\’ decision to leave England was mainly a result of the increasingly difficult local job market that threatened their ability to support their family, so on December 22nd 1968 we left to begin our new life. The two day Qantas flight from London to Australia was not the first for my parents who had migrated in the fifties only to find jobs scarce in Australia then, forcing their return home.

During the two-day journey our plane touched down in Rome, Athens, Tehran, Hong Kong, New Dehli & Sydney, before arriving in Brisbane. As little girls, we were able to sleep between the seats on the floor of the aircraft. My sister succumbed to air-sickness on a couple of the landings and I still remember our excitement when Mum joining us up to the Qantas V-Jet Club. We proudly displayed our badges and continued to receive newsletters for many months after.

We landed on Christmas Eve and I wondered as I walked across the searing hot tarmac at Brisbane airport whether or not Santa would find me to deliver my presents the following morning. Our sponsors, Mr and Mrs Williams, met us and we piled into their sweltering hot car to travel to their home in Ipswich. Dad and Mum were given a private room while Lynn and I slept on an old iron bed and chaise lounge in the sleep-out. How different from our cosy winter home in England which now seemed a million miles away.

We did not feel deprived in our new home even though we struggled with things like shallow cold water baths dribbled from the corrugated iron tanks out the back of the old Queenslander. Typical of migrants just arrived in a new country, Mum and Dad\’s friends were mainly English and right up until Dad died, in 2007, still were. Monthly garden parties at the Migrant Hostel at Kangaroo Point maintained our connections with England. We were introduced to Mrs William\’s scones and lamingtons, and discovered a new found freedom in her great big garden, something we would not have experienced back in England.

Dad got a job in Queensland Rail as a tradesman. He considered himself very fortunate. He was homesick, but didn\’t complain, and many years later a curious thing happened after he made his first trip back to England. On his return the longing for the land in which he was born never resurfaced. Mum adjusted to the Australian way of life without a hiccup working first as a school cleaner and then as a process worker in the Rothmans Tobacco Factory close to our home. The free carton of cigarettes a month was a bonus Mum enjoyed. She has recently become homesick following Dad\’s recent death, but couldn\’t drag herself away now because of her grandchildren who live here.

Like other brave migrants, my parents made a very difficult decision to move their family into the unknown in search of a better life. In doing so they placed a huge distance between themselves and their support network of family and friends in their homeland. However, in my family\’s case the benefits far outweighed the obvious losses. My sister and I grew up without an extended family and our old friends, but we made new family and friends here in Australia. We grew up under endless blue skies and with freedoms that we could never have experienced in England. Upon reflection, the security of economic stability and a lifestyle unique to the citizens of this country was more than my parents must have hoped for. Their decision gave my sister and me a life of hope and opportunity.

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