Frank Ferruccio Charles Niero (and family)
| Town/City | frankston north Victoria |
|---|---|
| First name | Frank Ferruccio Charles |
| Last name | Niero (and family) |
| Country of Origin | TRIESTE - ITALY |
| Date of Birth | 30/10/45 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 1957 |
| Submitted by | Frank Ferruccio Charles Niero |
Story
Reason for leaving homeland – NO WORK FOR MY FATHER SPARTACO NIERO IN ITALY.
About the Journey – SHIP AURELIA FROM NAPLES TO MELBOURNE
Impressions on Arrival – THIS WAS THE PROMISED LAND!
SEE MY FULL STORY IN MY WEB SITE – http://fromtriestetotheark.spaces.live.com/ copy/paste.
In a letter from my father in Australia, he said he still had his job as technician at Melbourne’s Astor factory where they made television sets and other electrical consumer items. The job gave him a regular income and he was now able to make arrangements for his wife and children to emigrate. He had migrated in 1956 at the time of the Melbourne Olympics and it took another year before we could join him. Red tape completed, father forwarded us the required fare.
The last heartfelt goodbyes to our relatives were quite touching. Italians can get quite emotional. Finally, we boarded the train and travelled a seemingly endless journey to Naples and we were ready to depart on the ship, Aurelia.
Mum kept saying how much she loved us and built up excitement for the journey ahead. And we were very excited. Wanting to see Australia and dad again.
We spent over a week awaiting our departure in a large building, full of rooms with large corridors. We toured Naples by foot; it was picturesque but the squalor took away the sparkle of the blue Mediterranean.
PAGE 4.
Children got about in next to nothing (even nude!) In the slums of Naples, living in extremely humble conditions; some of their parents having a hopeless look on their faces, the squallor and degredation of those images have left a permanent bad impression in my brain, an image one day I would like to see changed “MAKE POVERTY HISTORY” Is today’s cry…but is this wealthy WORLD doing it ?? Much of Naples looked very poor and we were only to see a few good spots. Vesuvius was interesting and the Bay of Naples quite spectacular. In Italy there is saying, ‘See Naples and then die’. Well, I could have died of concern for those poor people we left behind.
As we were leaving the port and Italian shores, thoughts flashed through my mind of the people I had known, the places I had seen and grew up in, the schooling they drummed into you, the love of one’s country ITALIA ! Yet, here I was leaving it and the fondest memories to last a lifetime. I could not speak one word in English, but the shipboard lessons did help a little. I was eleven and a half then and here I was on a ship with no friends, with brother Claudio too young to do the things eleven-year-olds like to do. He always stayed with mum and I roamed the decks exploring and meeting different people.
We shared with three other ladies, making it six in five beds in a second class cabin. Claudio and I shared the single.
On deck we caught the final glimpses of my beloved Italy, just off the Sicilian coast. Later we stopped at Malta where we saw men in small boats similar to the gondolas of Venice. They came aboard and left some people then returned in a flotilla towards the docks.
We docked at Suez and the red-capped dark-skinned people of the Egyptian Customs boarded along with another flotilla of small craft this time offering an exotic array of bargains to sell or trade with the passengers. My mother bought a leather school bag after much haggling. Anything else the seller said? Mum thought how nice it would be to buy a whip for the horse she wanted her son Claudio to have in Australia. Within seconds the whip was produced, but it felt too stiff to be effective – concealed inside was a long dagger which horrified mum, who ordered it sent back. A couple of Germans bought a large bunch of bananas and ate them in one gluttonous swoop, offering me one small banana that I ate with delight. Their greedy smiles turned to a bad case of indigestion for the next few hours.
As the ship moved through the canal we passed by the pyramids and later to the Red Sea and the port of Aden out to the Indian Ocean. We did the traditional crossing of the Equator with a wild party, King Neptune and all the regalia.
The ocean was full of flying fish and dolphins that played happily close to the ship. For such a boring trip they made us feel alive and expectant.
When the weather turned sour, great waves would break on the ship’s bow, this made a lot of people seasick.
SEE MY FULL