Janis Anne Brown

Story

I immigrated to Australia with my parents, John Lunn (Jock) and Janet Greig (Nettie) Brown. I have no siblings. We left Scotland to start a new life in Canberra, Australia, joining other relations who had already arrived from Scotland a few years before us. Other relations arrived to join us here in the few years following.

We were just three out of a large extended family of “Browns”. My father, Jock, had owned and operated a bulding contractor business in Fifeshire, Scotland. He was one of the first contractors to own and operate a new ‘digger’ machine for digging drains for new buildings. Before this machinery, this task was done manually with picks and shovels. The snowy winters in Scotland more than often, prevented his business from allowing him to work, and many times during these winter months, he would be employed by local councils to use the teeth from the buckets on the digger to scratch and scrape away the solid masses of ice from the main roads so that traffic could pass through. Over the years he tired from the bad weather and longed for the sunshine of Australia. He had been drafted temporarily to Australia during World War II when he was in the Royal Air Force, and knew how beautiful this country was, and how it would be a better lifestyle for his wife, Nettie and for me, his daughter, Janis. It was the best gift my parents could have given me in my life. I love Australia and have them to thank for bringing me here. Jock passed away in 1998 aged 85 and Nettie passed away in 1993 aged 79.

I was thirteen years old, heavily laden with luggage but I still managed to hold onto a large white “Beatles” balloon adorned with the faces of the famous ‘Fab Four’, when my parents and I left our hometown, Dunfermline, Fifeshire, by train bound for Edinburgh. It was around 9:30am on the morning of Saturday 22nd February, 1964 and a rather sad farewell as we said goodbye to loved ones for the last time. We then departed Waverley Station Edinburgh on the famous train, the ‘Flying Scotsman’. This took us to London where we spent that Saturday night in a hotel before leaving Heathrow airport on a Qantas V-Jet bound for Sydney. The weather was bleak and wet and very cold in London that Sunday evening the 23 February. The flight took 32 hours and first stop en route was Instanbul where it was snowing. Our aircraft refuelled and went onto Tehran where it was warm and sunny. Other stops along the route from memory, were New Dehli, Bahrain, Singapore and then into Darwin arriving at 3:00am in the morning on Tuesday the 23 February, 1964 . I suffered air sickness all of the journey and did not enjoy the flight at all. I ate nothing and could only have soda water for two days during the flight.

I remember my mother’s first reaction of landing on Australian soil was one of dismay. The heat and humidity rising off the wet steamy tarmac, after a heavy downpour, was unbearable – so much so, that one could hardly find breath after disembarking the airconditioned plane. Darwin was our second last port of call before arriving at Kingsford Smith Airport, Mascot, Sydney on a spectacular sunny morning at 8:00am. We were met at the airport by an old Air Force colleague of Jock’s, Hector Bardon and his wife, whom he had befriended during his time in Australia during the war. This initial meeting was very brief as we then had to board a Qantas Viscount flight to Canberra, arriving at 10:30am on the 24th February 1964. We were met by relatives who had come to be our welcoming party. A gorgeous sunny morning in Canberra where the airport was all but a tiny wooden shed at the side of the tarmac. A drive from the airport through to Ainslie, where my Cousin and her family were to provide us with accommodation in their home until we bought our own home three months later, also in Ainslie. We were very excited to see such a wonderful city which would be my new home till this day, forty-five years later. I have seen it grow and grow and love it even more as each year passes by.

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