John,Pat,David,Veronica & Celia Foster-Bailey

Story

We, my father John, my mother Pat and my brother and sister, David and Celia lived in Cornwall after the war. Food was still rationed and decent accommodation scarce. (We, a family of five and my grandmother shared a house with a mother and her six children) My parents were Salvationists and when the Salvation Army advertised for emigrants to be sponsored to Australia my Dad decided we should apply. We sailed to Australia on the Anchor Line Ship TSS Cameronia out of Glasgow. Some years before she had been back to the builders to be refitted as she had a strong tendency to pitch. In October of 1952, she seemed to have pitched all the way to Australia.

Many passengers including my Mum were ill. From Glasgow through the Bay of Biscay and into the Mediterranean she was confined to her bunk. Mum lost so much weight and became so weak that David was convinced she was going to die. Me? There were many occasions when I was sure we were all going to die, ‘by drowning.’ The ship pitched and rolled and the waves came crashing over the decks especially through the Bay of Biscay. At times like this, members of the crew were posted on the hatches to stop any of us going out onto the deck lest we be washed overboard.

We children shared a four bed (two bunks) cabin with Mum whilst Dad shared a cabin with three other men. Therefore, Celia topped and tailed with David or I and Dad slept in Celia\’s bunk so that we all could be together. The food provided was nothing more than a marvel to us children the Australian Government had paid for the food and we could eat anything we liked. After rations, hardly any decent cuts of meat and a dearth of fruit it was ‘food utopia.\’ Sometimes In the evening, we would go up to the Saloon deck with our parents and listen to Radio Australia. This was where we first heard the well known signature tune for the ABC news and the famous call sign ‘This is Radio Australia.’

It took about four days to sail through the Mediterranean to our first stop, Port Said. This was quite early in the ‘Suez Cannel Crisis. On the 23rd of July 1952 (just three months before we sailed) a military Coup overthrew King Farouk and established an Egyptian republic under President Gamal Abdel Nasser. There was a lot of Anti-British sentiment around.

We waited overnight at Port Said to join in the convoy of ships to sail through the Canal. Police had boarded the boat and cameras were forbidden. It was only a couple of weeks later that the situation started to really deteriorate which ended in cargos being intercepted and removed and crews being thrown into gaol. We finally came to the end of the 192 Km Canal and into the Red Sea. l felt like I was travelling in Bible History and with the tangible fear relayed by my mother I felt a bit like Moses escaping from the Egyptians. At one stage we were surrounded by a locust plague, very biblical! After leaving the Red Sea we stopped at Aden in Yemen and then onto Colombo.

We arrived at Station Pier in the Port of Melbourne on 6th November 1952. I will always remember it as it was the day after Guy Fawkes Day. The weather was wet and drizzly and we were looking forward to finally getting off the ship once and for all. I had not realized that it would take nearly five more days to get to Melbourne once we left Fremantle. After all Fremantle was Australia and we were there, I thought. It was starting to dawn on me just how big Australia might be.

After a couple of weeks around Melbourne, the Salvation Army sent us to Nhill in the Wimmera district. In the beginning, life was tough, dad injured his hand badly and was off work for about six weeks, Mum managed to get some work at a plastic factory so we could live. However, Mum and Dad refused to be ‘whingers’ and did not complain. Though it was not the land of milk and honey we had believed it to be by late December things were getting better and we had the biggest Christmas we had ever experienced. We lived in Nhill for two years and then moved back to Melbourne where my parents entered the Salvation Army Training College for Officers.

We all loved Australia and eventually in later years, Mum and Dad settled in Tasmania where they had initially served with the Salvation Army.

David who entered the Australian Navy for a time also settled in Tasmania and now lives on the beautiful North Coast of Tasmania (not far from Wynyard) Me? I did a commercial course and married a Maryborough boy and after serving some years as Salvation Army Officers we finally settled down in Ballarat where I have worked in Credit Control for the past 25 years. Celia went into nursing and married a Stawell Boy and she too now lives in Ballarat.

Veronica Nowell

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