Vera & Lawrence Cotsford

Story

Post War England was hard, food being rationed, and my father considered that Australia was advertised as being the land of opportunity so he packed up our family against my mother’s wishes (3 children Sylvia, Martin and Susan), paid his own way and we arrived in Australia in January 1950 at Launceston Tasmania

We travelled to Melbourne on the SS Strathnaver ( P& O Lines) and across Bass Strait on the SS Taroonah (Union Steamship Co of NZ) to Beauty Point on the Tamar River. Extremely rough weather across the Bay of Biscay – all suffered from sea sickness. We called at Port Said, Aden, Bombay, Colombo, Fremantle Melbourne on the voyage to Australia.

Impressions on Arrival – children

My father was a “Whinging Pom” – he expected better in Australia and never really found what he considered to be his rightful place but my mother adapted well and we three children, after initial teething problems at school (having Pommy Accents did not help) also adapted well.

We moved from Launceston to Burnie in 1951 and stayed there till 1960. My parents then had two shifts to Sulphur Creek and then Penguin. My older sister Sylvia was killed in a horrific car accident in 1956 at the age of 17. She was a well known girl in the town of Burnie and one of the largest funerals the town had witnessed with approx 300 mourners . In 1964 my father died at 58 years of age from the uncurable disease muscular athrophy. I after gaining my Matriculation at Burnie High School went off to sea with British India Steam Navigation Company in 1960. When I left the sea in 1970 I settled in Melbourne because of work reasons and both my mother and younger sister Susan both eventually also came across from Tasmania. Mother (Vera) did not like big cities and settled in Rosebud where she is to this day at age 102 (Not out)

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