Heather Dwyer
| Town/City | Salisbury North |
|---|---|
| First name | Heather |
| Last name | Dwyer |
| Country of Origin | Nyasaland |
| Date of Birth | 2/7/1948 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 1963 |
| Submitted by | Heather Dwyer nee Morrison |
Story
My paternal grandfather, Alexander Bishop, arrived in the Chinde, British Concession at the mouth of the Zambezi in 1896. Chinde had a flotilla company that transported supplies to land-locked Nyasaland. My grandparents had 10 children and all survived, the youngest being born in Nyasaland in 1926.
My father, born in Scotland and an orphan at the age of 7 was brought up by his grandmother. When the depression hit he joined the Palestine Police as the Glasgow docks closed down and he still had to support his grandmother and younger sister. His years in the Palestine Police were from 1931-1940 and he then transferred to the Nyasaland Police. My parents married in Blantyre, Nyasaland in 1942.
I was born in the very small country town of Lilongwe (now the Capital of Malawi) in 1948. I had an extremely happy childhood in a very safe country – that is, until “the winds of change” blew across Africa and there were talks of Independence. My parents had witnessed the refugees coming out of the Belgium Congo and feared for the safety of their two daughters.
We left Nyasaland at the beginning of 1962 and headed for “home” as England was called in Colonial Africa. We sadly farewelled a large number of relatives, friends and of course family servants who I’d known all my life and felt they too were family. My mother’s family were the largest European family in Nyasaland and my grandmother had been introduced to the Queen Mother on her 1957 visit as being one of the pioneers of the country and also due to her large family.
We arrived in England on a cold, grey day in February 1962 and the culture shock was enormous. The cold was unbearable but the vast divide in our cultures was too much to bear and it wasn’t too many months before my parents knocked on the doors of Australia House.
We left England on the “Arcadia” in March 1963 and I had a wonderful time on board ship as a teenager, meeting and making friends that I’m still in contact with today.
I believe we landed in Outer Harbour, South Australia in April 1963 and we boarded a coach to take us to an immigration hostel in Elder Park, right in the heart of Adelaide. The setting was beautiful and I had my first “Aussie Pie” from a kiosk there, which cost all of 10d!!
Adelaide, has of course, changed over the years and many of the landmarks have gone but it is nice to see that Elder Park is still as beautiful as the day I first stepped foot on her turf.