Daniel Hardy

Story

I was born Daniel Charles Hardy in Tottenham, North London on the 1st June 1922. My father was a self-employed ex soldier of WW1. We were reasonably comfortable ven with he hard times during the great strike of 1926 and the depression of the 1930s.

Aged 17 I joined he British Army and later became a commando, was captured during he invasion of Sicily and was a POW in Austria.

After 7 years of army life I found it hard to settle. I used my demobilisation pay to purchase a seat on a BOAC flying boat at the cost of 260 pounds sterling to come out to Australia to meet up with two Australians from POW life. I left England 24th April 1947 and arrived at Rose Bay, Sydney midnight on the 3rd May. The trip took nine days, landing very night. The flight was held up in Indonesia one extra day while they were fighting for their independence. We couldn’t land at Bowen, Qld as it was too rough. Six young Greek women were very sick, as were their chaperons.They had been married by proxy. On arrival a porter sent me to a B&B run by a war widow, an English lady who introduced me to he national breakfast of steak and eggs.

I had 6 pounds five shillings left of my money, so I had to find work at once. The landlady told me to go to Darling Harbour where I found work the next morning, moving a wheat stack which was collapsing. I made seven pounds 10 shillings in 2 days which paid my fare to Melbourne, where my Aussie POW friend lived. His house was my base for a couple of weeks until I found a job pruning trees in Northern Victoria. Not a pleasant period, as the workers all seemed to on the run from something or other and suspected me, as my speech and clothing were different. I had a lot of trouble there.

I worked in Victoria for some time, fencing and farm work, in fact anything. One day I got talking with a stationhand who told me to go into NSW to Woomera West Station as they wanted two jackeroos to work there. In those days jackeroos were taught farm management for 2 pounds a week plus keep. I knew them that I had arrived at the real Australia. A marvellous time.

For some years I worked at rice farming, sleeper cutter and stockwork. After losing all my money in a disastrous rice crop, when wild ducks left the rice bays bare, I headed for the Snowy Hydro Scheme, where I worked as a diamond driller as they searched for good tunnel rock. That was in 1953.

When the State Government started to spread electricity power into the country areas I left the Snowy and jot a job with a French company called “Electrical Transmission”, erecting the towers, pylons and poles, etc, all for high tension. Once the grid was working I left to work for a furniture retailer. This fitted in better with married life which was expanding quickly – My Australian wife and seven children.

Now we are grandparents of 15 little Aussie grandchildren with the combined blood of Irish, Scottish, English, German, Polish, Danish, Indonesian, Hungarian and Romanian.

We retired to the NSW South Coast in 1975 and are quite satisfied with how we have played out our lives. Not bad for someone who came out to Australia with just a jingle in his pocket!

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