Wendy Matthews
| First name | Wendy |
|---|---|
| Last name | Matthews |
| Country of Origin | Bristol, England |
| Date of Birth | 22/05/53 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 1964 |
| Submitted by | Wendy Flahive |
Story
My sister Gill was 12 and I was 10 when our parents decided to migrate. The intention was to go to a warmer country and therefore Australia was the preferred choice to Canada, we were told, as our father George had travelled widely and knew what he wanted. Our mother Pamela was less enthusiastic but the chance of a two year “holiday’ overseas with the Assisted Passage Scheme for 10 pounds each had its appeal. The process of leaving home for another country was a huge adventure for Gill and I, who knew little about Australia, even the awful smallpox injection and other nasty events leading up to emigration did not dampen our enthusiasm.
According to Dad the plan was to emigrate to a cooler part of Australia and spend as little time in a migrant hostel as possible and purchase our own home as we could., then, after a lovely two year holiday go home again, back to a life in Yorkshire close to family again. The sale of Windy Ridge, our stone house with apple orchards in Aughton meant our parents could have some control over avoiding the dreaded migrant hostels as much as possible as their reputation had filtered through as being only for low income families and not a good place to live. We had no choice but to stay there initially though as we knew no one in Australia and it was the cheapest option.
Our parents chose to travel by aeroplane instead of ship as the financial burden of not working for so many weeks they considered risky, besides Dad had spent 13 years in the Royal Navy and the possibility of travel by air was another different adventure. For two English countryside girls the plane trip was like a story out of an adventure book, but exhausting to the extreme. En route we spent hours at airports waiting for connecting flights and the whole journey taking over 36 hours with little sleep. The pain in our ears taking off and landing was awful due to inadequately pressurized cabins. The heat of landing in the Middle East, strange dress, smells and exotic jewellry will remain with me forever, a love of travel that continues. We arrived at Melbourne airport on April 7th 1974 a date that changed our lives forever as we glanced out of the window of the plane to a sunny Melbourne day.
We were met by a government official and taken to the Altona migrant hostel by taxi. I will never forget that taxi ride, looking out of the window at the different pastel coloured wooden houses that lined the streets once we got through the main city but too tired to take much else in. Our two room accommodation was bleak to say the least, paper thin walls and one miserable heater that we huddled around in the cold of the evenings to keep warm. “Welcome to sunny, warm Australia” Dad would say cynically. The bunk beds were an exciting alternative to what we were used to but the hammock shape of the springs on the beds and the skinny black stripped mattress made for an uncomfortable nights sleep despite being dog tired. That first exhausted sleep was when I woke up in the middle of the day screaming having had a nightmare with my mother trying to hush me as strange neighbours from a few feet away hovered around concerned. The lovely sunny but cool month of May was memorable but the smells of the Altona and Mobiltown factories close by spoilt our first impression of Australia. The Altona and Williamstown beaches were close though and we enjoyed many swims there on weekends and after school when warm enough.
I was sent to Williamstown Primary school where they accepted many migrants and I discovered children from not only the United Kingdom but also European countries who were interesting and different. I became aware of my broad Yorkshire accent and that some people could not understand my English accent and asked questions I had never needed to answer before. Where are you from, why did you come here, have you met the Queen, have you met the Beetles? I longed for home, for Windy Ridge, for the open spaces and my friends but I tried my best during the difficult six weeks in the hostel and even made a good friend there called Carole who I left behind when we moved to our first house in Maidstone. Our lives changed for the better when we moved into our own lovely new home and the hostel life eventually faded into the background as our amazing new life began in earnest.