39th anniversary of first arrival in Australia, 3/11/1978 in Freemantle

[MARYROSE02]

It was a Friday too just like yesterday. I was looking through my diary for 1978 last night. I never thought I'd reach the "veteran" stage. My two brothers followed me in 1979 and we all settled in Sydney (where I arrived in Dec 1978).

We all followed different trajectories as I went back to England for 12 years, and one moved to the USA (triple citizen), I'm a dual citizen, and the third, the most Aussie of us, who has had two holidays in England in 39 years, has refused to get an Aussie passport. 

I can't remember why I came now. It's not in my diary. December is also my 9th anniversary of coming back to Sydney. I've not been back since so I guess I'm settled. I no longer care about the "Yes it is. No it isn't"  debates about UK v OZ. I just live here. End of.

[Guest263228]

Probably came because you could. Early days of the back packing experience to Australia. Most didn't venture so far and preferred to remain in Asia. The Hippy Trail would have been something I'd have enjoyed doing. Travelling is all so sanitised in the main these days.

[Quoll]

No doubt it seemed like a good idea at the time. We were just behind you at 28 March 1979. Now we are 6 years through our UK hiatus (though I would like to be free of this responsibility thing before we hit 12 years!). Looking back, it can’t possibly have been that long ago!

[Toots]

2 minutes ago, Quoll said:

No doubt it seemed like a good idea at the time. We were just behind you at 28 March 1979. Now we are 6 years through our UK hiatus (though I would like to be free of this responsibility thing before we hit 12 years!). Looking back, it can’t possibly have been that long ago!

................  and we were 2 years after you Quoll.  Like you I'm always surprised to realise I've been here that long   ............  more than half my life.

[MARYROSE02]

10 hours ago, Pura Vida said:

Probably came because you could. Early days of the back packing experience to Australia. Most didn't venture so far and preferred to remain in Asia. The Hippy Trail would have been something I'd have enjoyed doing. Travelling is all so sanitised in the main these days.

I wasn't much of a back packer - had a heavy suitcase and like so many before and since regretting packing so much. The journey wasn't that much different to now. I could have flown all the way but I had a deal with a flight with Dan Air (remember them?) to Singapore, then a 7 day voyage to WA. I travelled across to "the Eastern States" by Greyhound and Ansett Pioneer coaches, and Greyhound still criss-cross Australia and I don't suppose the buses have changed that much.

[MARYROSE02]

9 hours ago, Quoll said:

No doubt it seemed like a good idea at the time. We were just behind you at 28 March 1979. Now we are 6 years through our UK hiatus (though I would like to be free of this responsibility thing before we hit 12 years!). Looking back, it can’t possibly have been that long ago!

I remember when you went back to England. I could have stayed longer than 12 years. I'd settled back into life there and had a decent job with Royal Mail whom I worked for almost from the day I arrived in England, well, I started a month later. Perhaps if my brothers had both still been in England I would have stayed.

[MARYROSE02]

9 hours ago, Toots said:

................  and we were 2 years after you Quoll.  Like you I'm always surprised to realise I've been here that long   ............  more than half my life.

I've taken to telling people that I arrived in 1878 (sic) to show just how long I've been here.

[Parley]

39 years and still don't know how to spell Fremantle ?

[Guest263228]

7 hours ago, MARYROSE02 said:

I wasn't much of a back packer - had a heavy suitcase and like so many before and since regretting packing so much. The journey wasn't that much different to now. I could have flown all the way but I had a deal with a flight with Dan Air (remember them?) to Singapore, then a 7 day voyage to WA. I travelled across to "the Eastern States" by Greyhound and Ansett Pioneer coaches, and Greyhound still criss-cross Australia and I don't suppose the buses have changed that much.

No I realise you weren't much of a back packer, although I don't think that term had been coined then. They preferred the term traveller.  Yes recall Dan Air. I remember the flight/ship deal . From Singapore either on a Soviet or Kota vessel. A shame you never spent time in Singapore and crossed The Causeway. South East Asia was far more 'exotic' in those days. Few Gap Year types and few travellers outside of 'hot places' like Kota, Penang and Singapore.

Yes I don't see the coaches having changed much. More of course hitch hiked across/around OZ in those days as well.

[Guest263228]

18 hours ago, MARYROSE02 said:

It was a Friday too just like yesterday. I was looking through my diary for 1978 last night. I never thought I'd reach the "veteran" stage. My two brothers followed me in 1979 and we all settled in Sydney (where I arrived in Dec 1978).

We all followed different trajectories as I went back to England for 12 years, and one moved to the USA (triple citizen), I'm a dual citizen, and the third, the most Aussie of us, who has had two holidays in England in 39 years, has refused to get an Aussie passport. 

I can't remember why I came now. It's not in my diary. December is also my 9th anniversary of coming back to Sydney. I've not been back since so I guess I'm settled. I no longer care about the "Yes it is. No it isn't"  debates about UK v OZ. I just live here. End of.

I'd been back in 77  and already returned to London finding OZ incredibly boring, well Perth at any rate. A very small town gig in those days with a strong local 'flavour'. It (Perth) couldn't begin to match the life possible for a very young fellow in those days. Loads thought the same thing as well.

Of course those coming the other way from possibly regional UK centres may well have thought a similar thing.

[Parley]

Are you trapped here Flag ?

[Guest263228]

18 minutes ago, Parley said:

Are you trapped here Flag ?

You mean was I trapped here in 77 and the answer if reading the entirely of my post was a definite no.

[MARYROSE02]

4 hours ago, Parley said:

39 years and still don't know how to spell Fremantle ?

There is a suburb in Soton - Southampton - with the same name and I can never remember which one has one "e" and which one two - "I feel like,a,Two es,  I feel like a Toppers or two!"

[MARYROSE02]

2 hours ago, Pura Vida said:

No I realise you weren't much of a back packer, although I don't think that term had been coined then. They preferred the term traveller.  Yes recall Dan Air. I remember the flight/ship deal . From Singapore either on a Soviet or Kota vessel. A shame you never spent time in Singapore and crossed The Causeway. South East Asia was far more 'exotic' in those days. Few Gap Year types and few travellers outside of 'hot places' like Kota, Penang and Singapore.

Yes I don't see the coaches having changed much. More of course hitch hiked across/around OZ in those days as well.

It was a Soviet ship, the Turkemenia I think.  I must see if I can find some photos. I can't remember the Kota ships. You have a better memory than me and I keep a diary. I just looked in it and my account of the voyage is mostly a record of Swan Lagers and Bacardi and Cokes consumed, with no mention on my cabin mates,  one from WA and two from Christies Beach in SA who had their bikes in the cabin to cycle home. 

All three shook my hand rather than calling me a PB, thus shattering one naive illusion. 

The other thing that struck me reading my diary was the sense of severing my old comfortable life at home with my parents and brothers and the feeling of "WHY?" (Did I do that?) The ships then used to do the streamer thing tied from ship to shore to symbolise I think the sense of farewell (to the old life?) 

Funny really because I never thought of it until now but I WAS a traveller in the sense of a step into the unknown and the fear of the (Australian) other. I have a mate who very sniffily explained that he was a "traveller" whilst I was a "tourist!"

I did do Bali or at least Kuta and? Legun?in 1985 breaking up a long Garuda flight from London. 

[MARYROSE02]

3 hours ago, Pura Vida said:

I'd been back in 77  and already returned to London finding OZ incredibly boring, well Perth at any rate. A very small town gig in those days with a strong local 'flavour'. It (Perth) couldn't begin to match the life possible for a very young fellow in those days. Loads thought the same thing as well.

Of course those coming the other way from possibly regional UK centres may well have thought a similar thing.

Yes, Perth did seem exciting,  exotic even, after my rather yokelly life in my New Forest village. Perhaps it was the Sunshine and heat and beaches after an English autumn but I loved Perth.

I didn't like Sydney when I first arrived, at least compared to Perth, but two years I went back to Perth,  still liked,it, but instantly thought "they don't do crowds here." I may go back for the first time in 20 years.

I could no doubt get used to living in a New Forest village again.  It would be nice to have countryside surrounding me. For all the hustle and bustle of inner city Surry Hills I live a sort of village life here,  rarely venturing further than I can walk - to Redfern last night. 

[Parley]

I think I told you before but I beat you by a month.

I came here Oct 13th 1978 and lived here permanently ever since.

[MARYROSE02]

1 hour ago, Parley said:

I think I told you before but I beat you by a month.

I came here Oct 13th 1978 and lived here permanently ever since.

I don't remember u telling me that.  Did u emigrate. Come on working holiday,  marry an Aussie??? Did u go straight to, Melbourne??? 

[Parley]

15 minutes ago, MARYROSE02 said:

I don't remember u telling me that.  Did u emigrate. Come on working holiday,  marry an Aussie??? Did u go straight to, Melbourne??? 

I was a child. My Mum was Australian so I was Aussie by descent.

My Dad was English and I was born there but when thy got divorced we came back here. All her family here was in Melbourne so yes we came to Melbourne to live.

[MARYROSE02]

1 hour ago, Parley said:

I was a child. My Mum was Australian so I was Aussie by descent.

My Dad was English and I was born there but when thy got divorced we came back here. All her family here was in Melbourne so yes we came to Melbourne to live.

I don't remember you telling me that.  I know so much as well, life long member of the ALP, until you decided to join the Greens?!

I always thought you were a "new chum" like me. Did your mum go to England and end up staying before you were born?  

 

How was it when you first arrived?  Were you homesick? Hassled at school?

[Parley]

God forbid. I have never been a member of any political party and definitely not Labor or Greens.

Or are you talking about yourself ?

To be honest I am not interested in all the ancient history. What is important is the present and the future.

[Guest263228]

7 hours ago, MARYROSE02 said:

Yes, Perth did seem exciting,  exotic even, after my rather yokelly life in my New Forest village. Perhaps it was the Sunshine and heat and beaches after an English autumn but I loved Perth.

I didn't like Sydney when I first arrived, at least compared to Perth, but two years I went back to Perth,  still liked,it, but instantly thought "they don't do crowds here." I may go back for the first time in 20 years.

I could no doubt get used to living in a New Forest village again.  It would be nice to have countryside surrounding me. For all the hustle and bustle of inner city Surry Hills I live a sort of village life here,  rarely venturing further than I can walk - to Redfern last night. 

I guess the  punch ups all too prevalent then and hoons tearing around yelling abuse at pedestrians from their hotted up wagons and cars, or the racial abuse if remotely 'of colour' may have appeared exciting to a New Forest Yokel, as you refer to yourself.

Cleo's down in Fremantle was a bit of a blast as well. Girls galore not to difficult shall we say, place full of merchant mariners from visiting ships, aboriginals, wharfies  and pretty much guaranteed a 'blue'  First time I witnessed a "wild West' style pub riot.

But the booze was dirt cheap. Drunk driving was pretty much de rigour . The George at six am was often full of night shift workers (in the city) Alberts Tavern another city blast. Spent a lot of time there. I guess Sydney paled in comparison.

Yep them was the days.

[Guest263228]

1 hour ago, Parley said:

God forbid. I have never been a member of any political party and definitely not Labor or Greens.

Or are you talking about yourself ?

To be honest I am not interested in all the ancient history. What is important is the present and the future.

Actually the past remains very important in order to understand the future. Not all of us are necessary goldfish. Although being such could solve certain issues.

[MARYROSE02]

Like Jethro Tull, I tend to Live in the Past although I do try and keep up with new genres.  Young guys in one of the pubs I go to started playing something which sounded weird - Grime - but I warmed to it  once I realised some of the players are Spurs fans from N London. 

 

I saw a guy playing a flute,at Parramatta station who looked like a demented Ian Anderson. 

[Guest263228]

17 minutes ago, MARYROSE02 said:

Like Jethro Tull, I tend to Live in the Past although I do try and keep up with new genres.  Young guys in one of the pubs I go to started playing something which sounded weird - Grime - but I warmed to it  once I realised some of the players are Spurs fans from N London. 

 

I saw a guy playing a flute,at Parramatta station who looked like a demented Ian Anderson. 

Probably no bad thing. Living in the past. Beats living on line, as so many appear to do in more modern times  at any rate. Not forgetting the music was far better , beer was a steal, girls somehow looked far sexier but any number interesting as well, less narcissism, no selfies, less conformity , and a gaff in Central London remained affordable for those on normal wages.

[Toots]

3 minutes ago, Pura Vida said:

Probably no bad thing. Living in the past. Beats living on line, as so many appear to do in more modern times  at any rate. Not forgetting the music was far better , beer was a steal, girls somehow looked far sexier but any number interesting as well, less narcissism, no selfies, less conformity , and a gaff in Central London remained affordable for those on normal wages.

I don't really live in the past as such but by gum I do have some fantastic memories of carefree, happy teenage years, and adventurous 20s.  As you say PV the music was so much better but I suppose each generation thinks that.