Salvatore Saitta

Story

My father first came to Australia in 1950. His reason for migrating was possibly a mixture of adventure plus the search for a better life (or vice versa).

Six years later in 1956 after 6 years of lonely hard work and preparation, he moved the the family of seven: mum, five daughters and me to Melbourne (a very costly move). We came to Australia on the Flotta Lauro ship “MS Sydney”. The journey was certainly an adventure for the younger ones, especially myself. For my mother and my older sisters, however, it was probably the scariest event in their lives after the experience of war in Europe.

We only spoke our mother language, so our arrival in Melbourne was more than confusing. Our first impression of the country is difficult to describe with words. Everything was different to what we were used to–the houses mostly built of wood not stone, wide open spaces and even the taxi ride from Port Melbourne to Newport seemed a long way, not to mention a totally foreign language.

My parents never managed to learn English, other than a few broken sentences, my older sisters did a little better and my younger sister and I were fuent in the language within six months. It was very hard back then, as there were no special language classes, not even for the young. We were placed in a classroom of English speaking children and we were with not given any special lessons in English. We just had to learn the hard way.

Mum & Dad have long passed on but the six of us first generation migrants have produced 16 for the next and they in turn have 17 offspring of their own, a total of 33 at present and still growing.

The change was difficult, but we made it. Australia is now and always will be our home. Italy, however, is where we were born!

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