Robert (Bob) Gordon
| First name | Robert (Bob) |
|---|---|
| Last name | Gordon |
| Country of Origin | Scotland |
| Date of Birth | 3/8/2009 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 1926 |
| Submitted by | Mary KENT |
Story
[Reason for leaving homeland]
At 17 years of age he migrated to Australia, under the Dreadnought Scheme, a joint venture between the United Kingdom and Australia to bring young people to Australia to work on the land. He was one of ten children from a poor family, living in Aberdeen, Scotland. He was working as a brass moulder and fitter.
[About the Journey]
On 11 April 1926 be boarded the TSS Demosthese at Tilby Docks, London. The group of boys migrating were housed in temporary cabins, eight boys to a cabin. Their bathroom was a row of hand basins with a row of open showers using only cold seawater, so they had to purchase special seawater soap. They were rostered to a variety of duties on the ship. The dining room had tables of twenty with three sittings. Stewards carrying twenty plates at once amazed them. The Bay of Biscay was rough with nearly all passengers sick. They dropped anchor off Tenerife Reef off the Canary Islands and barges brought out fresh supplies as well as beautiful Spanish girls to entertain the first class passengers. They went ashore at the next next stop, Cape Town, where they took on coal and also seen and tasted fresh pineapple and other fruits they had never seen. Albany, Western Australia was sited on 18 May and they stood off port and took on supplies. They arrived in Melbourne on 23 May, after a rough crossing of the Bight, and had three days there exploring the city before continuing their journey.
He arrived in Sydney on Sunday 30 May, and after church and a meal at the YMCA, spent the night onboard the ship. The next day he was taken by train to Scheyville Training Farm, near Windsor, to prepare for life on the land, and that was fairly hard work. You were rostered either to bush work, kitchen duties, dining room, stables, or dairy, and as well had lectures at night. You worked from daylight to dark for two shilling a fortnight providing you had no “bad reports”. You were not allowed to leave the farm.
On 26 July he left Scheyville for Sydney where the Immigration Department were to give him details of a job and a train ticket to get there. In Sydney he was told there was no job and to come back tomorrow. There seemed to be about 100 or more doing the same thing, waiting for jobs. He was fortunate here that he met James Mitchell, the then Commissioner of Police who recognised his accent, as he too was from Aberdeen, and he secured him a job and train ticket, as well as arranging accommodation for him for the night.
His first job was near Canowindra, with a farmer on a soldier settlement block, and he put in two harvests with him, before the farmer asked him to leave so he could employ another youth. There was no social security/dole in those days and with the Great Depression on work was hard to find. Often farmers had no money to pay you, and on many farms he experienced the worst poverty he had ever seen. He travelled, by horse, through country NSW looking for work but preference was first given to ratepayers, returned soldiers, and married men.
It was at Ardlethan that he met his wife to be Jean Middleton, and they married there in 1934. He worked in the tin mine at Ardlethan. His son Donald and daughter Mary were both born in Ardlethan and another daughter Jeanette was born in Queanbeyn. In 1940 the family moved to Captain’s Flat, a mining town with a thriving community of 2000 people. He spent 23 very happy years there until the mine closed in 1963. At this time the suburb of Dickson, in Canberra, were just being developed and he purchased a house there.
He loved Canberra and embraced the lifestyle and every new development with enthusiasm until his death in 1995.