Josy, Colin, Debbie, Martin Billing

Story

The Billing family arrived in November 1972.

Since I met Col I had mentioned a few times about migrating to Australia but being an English country boy he was a little hesitant. In 1971 it was he who instigated our migration.

We both wanted more out of life than just living hand to mouth which is all Col’s wages allowed us to do. We purchased a cheap caravan so we could travel to wherever there were motorway constructions. Col would operate earthmoving machines whilst I worked in an office and our 2 children attended pre-school. This gave us a decent combined income and allowed the family to be together.

It was nearly time for Debbie to start school so, thinking we had better settle down, we managed to save the £200 required for a deposit on a new house being built nearby.

We visited a Building Society in Clevedon, Somerset with the intention of applying for a mortgage. The girl at the front desk said that before we fill out any forms she will ask us a few questions. Getting to the end of the ‘interview’ she told us that it is pointless us filling out any application forms for a mortgage as we would be refused. Asking her ‘why’ she informed us “because you are gypsies and have no fixed abode.”

We came out of the door, shattered. Col looked at me and said “Lets get out the forms for Australia”. We had previously decided Australia was the country that could offer us, and our 2 young children, the most in opportunities and life style.

Whilst the date of our application to Australia House eludes me, I did record in my journal that we had our interview on the 20thOctober 1971 and Medicals on the 4thMarch 1972. We were accepted on the 30thMarch 1972 and chose to leave in October 1972, sailing on the 16th.

We caught the train at something like 6 in the morning of the 16thOctober 1972, travelling to Southampton where the R.H.M.S. Ellinis was ready to take us on our new adventure, journey of discovery to the land of opportunities.

There were rellies and friends on the dock to see us off. My eldest sister told me at a later date that my dad got pretty sick over our leaving. She said it was worse saying farewell at a wharf than at an airport. The ship seemed to take forever to go out of view ‘like a slow living death’.

It cost us £10 each for Col & I but nothing for Debbie and Martin.

The food was fantastic, although come the end of the trip we were longing for some good old fashioned fish & chips wrapped in newspaper. The ages of Deb and Mart required them to have their food at ‘the childrens setting’. This allowed the parents to accompany and supervise the youngsters.

The Captain put on a few parties for the adults which included a ‘Welcome Aboard’ party. Other special occasions were also celebrated, some more formal than others.

Our first Port of call was Las Palmas in the Canary Islands.

The Crossing the Equator Ceremony where King Neptune arrived with his Queen, servants and slaves was a good laugh.

We arrived at Cape Town and were blown away by Apartheid. Segregation for the shops, pubs, toilets and so on. But the positive thing we did notice was how clean the place was with no doggy poo to be seen.

It was very rough from Cape Town to Fremantle with about 40% of passengers being seasick – including Col, Deb and Mart.

Before being allowed into Australian waters everybody had to have their arms inspected to make sure there wasn’t any cholera or other diseases being brought into the country.

Timing didn’t allow us to go ashore in Fremantle so the first impression of our new country was in Adelaide. The very old fashioned train arrived around a corner in what appeared to be a scene from a movie. The shops in the city were fantastic but we were very surprised at the pornographic books on show.

Melbourne was very busy and had trams by the dozen. It had smashing shops with fabulous selections of items.

As it was 2.30 in the morning when we arrived in Sydney neither the Harbour Bridge or Opera House were lit up. This was very very disappointing to us new arrivals, but we have since made up for it.

After the formalities we were bused to East Hills Hostel near Liverpool.

We know we made the right choice and have never regretted our decision to migrate to Australia.

We captured the complete fantastic month long cruise on our Super 8 movie camera, took still photos and kept an entire journal with a multitude of details of our journey to becoming Aussies.

February 1977 saw us become Naturalised Australians.

< Back to the Stories