Migration, then and now.

[kangaroo.bruce]

Maybe something for the wannabe migrants to chew over.

 

When I migrated here in 1969 Australia was not the country that it is today, in fact it could be described as 'The wild west'.

 

Migrants arrived by ship after a 5 week voyage and usually ended up staying in a 'migrant hostel'. Two famous ones in Sydney were the Cabrammatta Hostel and the East Hills Hostel. These were primitive army camp style premises where migrant families were housed in old Nissen huts. There were no seperate rooms for adults and children, merely blankets hung as dividers. Toilets were communal and outside as were showers and baths. Meals were eaten in a large canteen building. Most hostels held around 500-600 people. To be blunt, it was bloody awfull. To show the degree of dinginess these places were, when the Vietnamese Boat people invaded Aussie shores in the late 70s and early 80s, the Government had to place them in emergency accomodation. They looked at some of the old 'migrant hostels' and deemed them unfit for habitation by humans and refused to put them in them.

 

those were the good old days

lmao

:biglaugh::biglaugh:

 

[Guest snow white]

lol i cant imagine what it must of been like then, i know i do moan a bit weve only been here 16 months me oh and 6 kids but we came herre believing a lot of things that we have found out are not as they were meant to be, i would warn trades people now to find out as much info before they arrive and then go back and find some more !!!! we have a smaller house it cost us more to live here, and hubbie can only have his provisional plumbers licence after being a plumber gasfitter for over ten years in the uk he is paid a measly apprentice wage. he can only get his full licnese once hes either worked for the same company 12 months and has his work signed off, hes been paid off 3 times since we came here, or sit a course which takes ages to get on costs a fotune and while your taking course you cant work no win situation, for a land that desperately needs trades people they sure dont give us much of a chance. god im truly becoming a whinging pom x i know this probably has no comparison with when you first came here but some rules seem to be ridicolously stupid how can you put his job on the modl pass it with the tra then when we arrive say sorry mate you can only have ya provisional!!! grrrr sorry chris ive went off on one slightly

lesley x

[Petals]

The good thing about back then it was all about "can you do the job" not about what piece of paper you have so in a way its harder now. The easy thing now is the communication and the planes. If we had had those back then it would have been great.

 

Never had a problem getting a job, plenty of jobs around. Things have become far too complicated these days, you just fronted up for a rental and got one.

 

Resumes were unheard of, there were agencies but they just set up interviews.

 

Human Resources was only being discovered sometimes I think its the worst thing that happened to streamlining work.

 

:emoticon-signxmas:

[Guest snow white]

oh can not only do the job but shows the ozzie plumbers a thing or two, its just all beaucratic crap! if you ask me something should be done you cant give a qualified tradesman in england a fastrack permanent skilled visa recognise his skills enought to want him here and then give him a provisional licence. is it me or is something seriously wrong here?

lesley x

[Guest snow white]

sorry chris think i went off the post a little there, i remember the tv program ten pound pom i watched it wasnt there a woman on there who moved here when she was young stayed till her own family were ole enough to leave home then went back to england to retire leaving her family here??? im sure she was the one who mentioned birds in oz crow not tweet something like that, anywau it was great to watch what they went through when they arrived

lesley x

[Guest donovan]

Maybe something for the wannabe migrants to chew over.

 

When I migrated here in 1969 Australia was not the country that it is today, in fact it could be described as 'The wild west'.

 

Migrants arrived by ship after a 5 week voyage and usually ended up staying in a 'migrant hostel'. Two famous ones in Sydney were the Cabrammatta Hostel and the East Hills Hostel. These were primitive army camp style premises where migrant families were housed in old Nissen huts. There were no seperate rooms for adults and children, merely blankets hung as dividers. Toilets were communal and outside as were showers and baths. Meals were eaten in a large canteen building. Most hostels held around 500-600 people. To be blunt, it was bloody awfull. To show the degree of dinginess these places were, when the Vietnamese Boat people invaded Aussie shores in the late 70s and early 80s, the Government had to place them in emergency accomodation. They looked at some of the old 'migrant hostels' and deemed them unfit for habitation by humans and refused to put them in them.

 

Funnily enough, the majority of folk who suffered those hostels made a go of it here in Aussie. I wonder if todays migrants would be willing to put up with those conditions. Listening to a few on this site I seriously doubt it.

 

 

Very sad to see what folk went through, but great to see so many made a go of it in Oz

 

Sarah x

[Guest tenquidder]

sorry chris think i went off the post a little there, i remember the tv program ten pound pom i watched it wasnt there a woman on there who moved here when she was young stayed till her own family were ole enough to leave home then went back to england to retire leaving her family here??? im sure she was the one who mentioned birds in oz crow not tweet something like that, anywau it was great to watch what they went through when they arrived

lesley x

 

Hi Lesley x

 

No need to apologise, I feel a lot of sympathy for you and other people whose other stories I read on this forum, trying to make a start in a new country. Maybe it's just me getting old, but things seemed to be a lot less complicated back then. Petal is right, you could just about walk off the boat into a job. It may not have been the job you were hoping for, but it kept you going until you found something better. I got my first job in 1968 without even writing a CV.

I don't have a lot of good to say about hostels, but it was supportive to be with people from a similar backgrounds and exchange local info about OZ. There was a sense of community and many people made lasting friendships.

 

It's been a while since I watched the DVD, but from memory it was pretty evenly split between those who couldn't stand the place and went back, and those who made a go of it. From my memory of England, rooks and crows over there croak just as much as they do here. But they don't have laughing kookaburras or squawking parrots.

 

All the best, I hope thing piick up for you

Chris

[Guest snow white]

Hi Lesley x

 

No need to apologise, I feel a lot of sympathy for you and other people whose other stories I read on this forum, trying to make a start in a new country. Maybe it's just me getting old, but things seemed to be a lot less complicated back then. Petal is right, you could just about walk off the boat into a job. It may not have been the job you were hoping for, but it kept you going until you found something better. I got my first job in 1968 without even writing a CV.

I don't have a lot of good to say about hostels, but it was supportive to be with people from a similar backgrounds and exchange local info about OZ. There was a sense of community and many people made lasting friendships.

 

It's been a while since I watched the DVD, but from memory it was pretty evenly split between those who couldn't stand the place and went back, and those who made a go of it. From my memory of England, rooks and crows over there croak just as much as they do here. But they don't have laughing kookaburras or squawking parrots.

 

All the best, I hope thing piick up for you

Chris

 

thanks for your best wishes chris,

me and my family like many others willl keep battling on at the end of the day its one thing the british are good at lol. as for the support the hostels offered i guess its also a bit like these sites they offer the same sort of thing theres always someone somewhere waiting to help out, and it is good to know if you have a question you can ask it and im sure you will get an answer.

all the best for xmas

lesley x

[Guest Barry7]

I started this thread off about migration in the old days and we have focussed mainly on 'The ten pound pom', yet there were other types of migration both at that time and earlier. One in the 50s and 60s was the 'Big Brother' scheme, where young, single British men from early teens to early twenties, were sponsored out here to start a new life. This was a very successfull scheme and many, many thousands of young blokes started out this way.

 

The other 'scheme' was not so successfull. Some of you may have seen the TV Documovie 'The Leaving of Liverpool'. This was an enactment of the shamefull actions of the Post war British Government who were faced with hundreds of thousands of unwanted children. These children were usually born to young British teenage mothers, fathered by Servicemen, plus orphans of people killed in air raids. The Government decided to ship them out as cheap labour to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Rhodesia and other 'Colonies'.

 

An aquaintance of mine was one of these children. Shipped out at the age of 7 to Perth, he was told he was an orphan who's parents, both Irish, had been killed in an air raid in Liverpool. He was housed with a religious order in WA and used with hundreds of other kids building a seminary. They were clothed, fed and educated by this religious order but were also physically and sexually abused, raped on a daily basis over a number of years. This aquaintance ran away at age 17 and started a new life here in NSW.

 

I first met him when he was the deputy Mayor of the City I resided in. He talked with a terrible stutter and lived by himself. He always believed he was Irish and was extremely patriotic as far as his ancestry was concerned. One day in the mid 1990s he received a letter from the British Government giving a background and explanation of the whole affair which had blown up after a TV expose' on the BBC.

 

He wrote back telling them of his ordeal and he was invited, with a number of other people who had similar experiences, to go to London, meet The Prime Minister, Mr Major, and give an address to a full sitting of both Houses of parliament about his experiences. This he did.

 

Whilst over there and after his speech to parliament he was handed a letter that informed him that he was in fact NOT an orphan. His Mother was only 14 when she gave birth to him and was in fact still alive and living in Liverpool. He was also told that he had a number of Brothers and Sisters that he knew nothing about. He got to meet his Mother and siblings for the first time in about 50 years. His Mother died three years later so at least he had the joy of knowing her for that short time. he also found out that he was in fact English, not Irish. As for his terrible stutter, that disappeared completely after he found his family.

 

Not exactly the brightest of era's for a British Government, but it is now resolved. As for my mates feelings about his adopted country, you would not find a more patriotic or committed Australian than this bloke, anywhere in Oz. So as you can see, many 'migrants' did it a damn site harder than the vast majority of those lucky enough to get the chance to come here.

[Guest snow white]

I started this thread off about migration in the old days and we have focussed mainly on 'The ten pound pom', yet there were other types of migration both at that time and earlier. One in the 50s and 60s was the 'Big Brother' scheme, where young, single British men from early teens to early twenties, were sponsored out here to start a new life. This was a very successfull scheme and many, many thousands of young blokes started out this way.

 

The other 'scheme' was not so successfull. Some of you may have seen the TV Documovie 'The Leaving of Liverpool'. This was an enactment of the shamefull actions of the Post war British Government who were faced with hundreds of thousands of unwanted children. These children were usually born to young British teenage mothers, fathered by Servicemen, plus orphans of people killed in air raids. The Government decided to ship them out as cheap labour to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Rhodesia and other 'Colonies'.

 

An aquaintance of mine was one of these children. Shipped out at the age of 7 to Perth, he was told he was an orphan who's parents, both Irish, had been killed in an air raid in Liverpool. He was housed with a religious order in WA and used with hundreds of other kids building a seminary. They were clothed, fed and educated by this religious order but were also physically and sexually abused, raped on a daily basis over a number of years. This aquaintance ran away at age 17 and started a new life here in NSW.

 

I first met him when he was the deputy Mayor of the City I resided in. He talked with a terrible stutter and lived by himself. He always believed he was Irish and was extremely patriotic as far as his ancestry was concerned. One day in the mid 1990s he received a letter from the British Government giving a background and explanation of the whole affair which had blown up after a TV expose' on the BBC.

 

He wrote back telling them of his ordeal and he was invited, with a number of other people who had similar experiences, to go to London, meet The Prime Minister, Mr Major, and give an address to a full sitting of both Houses of parliament about his experiences. This he did.

 

Whilst over there and after his speech to parliament he was handed a letter that informed him that he was in fact NOT an orphan. His Mother was only 14 when she gave birth to him and was in fact still alive and living in Liverpool. He was also told that he had a number of Brothers and Sisters that he knew nothing about. He got to meet his Mother and siblings for the first time in about 50 years. His Mother died three years later so at least he had the joy of knowing her for that short time. he also found out that he was in fact English, not Irish. As for his terrible stutter, that disappeared completely after he found his family.

 

Not exactly the brightest of era's for a British Government, but it is now resolved. As for my mates feelings about his adopted country, you would not find a more patriotic or committed Australian than this bloke, anywhere in Oz. So as you can see, many 'migrants' did it a damn site harder than the vast majority of those lucky enough to get the chance to come here.

 

i can understand that in your friends situation he had the absolutely worst and hardest experience of a lifetime, but there are lots of people on here who you or me dont know the full story of their life or why they wanted to come to oz some of us might have had something they hoped to escape from also, things they might not want to open up to everyone and anyone to just read about . whether its mental abuse physical abuseor whatever life seems to throw at people etc. at the end of the day there are a lot of reasons why people want to leave their lives and build a new one in australia or anywhere else for that matter.

once again i sympathise with your friend and all that happened to him, i cant imagine how the hell hes coped and i have the greatest admiration for others like him believe me

lesley x

[Guest Deb62]

Hi Barry;

This has been a great thread to follow. I wrote an assignment a while ago for my Open University MA in history on the children shipped to Australia. I had never heard about this terrible system before that. I got to go up to London and read the original letters written by politicians and those directly involved in what happened. Made my blood boil. It really was a different era, a different way of thinking.

 

I think it all needs to be kept in mind when looking at the Stolen Generation. It was another mindset and not all racism. I wonder if aboriginal people are generally aware that we did the same to our own kids and if that would help if they did.

 

Deb

[Guest Barry7]

Lesley, I hear what you say. This post was made by myself to look at the various era's of migration only, not to seek sympathy for those who had it much tougher. Migration, whether to this country or any other country has always been fuelled by people who want to move or escape for a better life, todays migrants are no different to those in my day. In this instance these 'migrants' had no choice in the matter, in fact they were only a few steps up from the original 'migrants' who sailed here on the convict ships with Governor Phillip who had no choice in the matter either.

 

Deb, I totally agree with you. Much here is made of 'the stolen generation' and I doubt if the Koori population knows or fully understands that it also happened to White children as well.

 

As a child growing up in the UK I was educated in a system that had a major emphasis on British History and I grew up with a head full of stories of Hero's such as Nelson, Clive, Monty, Churchill etc and famous battles such as Waterloo, Trafalgar, Mons, Ypres, The Battle of Britain etc. My brain was fully emersed in British history and it's greatness in world affairs. I was so enamoured in this that it was the main reason I joined up into the RAF in 1964.

 

It was only after I migrated here that I learned another side to British history and I got quite a few surprises. I now have a better understanding of history and can understand why a certain generation of Australians have little respect for our own 'Perfidious Albion'. There again, when you are the generational 'Superpower' with an Empire straddling the whole world you are allowed to write your own version of history aren't you ? GB did it through books, poems and propaganda, The USA does it through Hollywood.

[The Ozcans]

Hello Barry

I`m enjoying reading about your experiences.

I wonder if you could tell me more about a few things - (in the new year as I know you`re having a big family xmas)

 

I don`t know why the 10 pound scheme was started, do you have any info about that? What was the agreement between UK govt. and Oz?

Also, you must have seen some small out of the way places grow and develop over the years - any interesting stories/thoughts about that?

 

:emoticon-signxmas: and Happy New Year

Sue

[TheBrammies]

Maybe something for the wannabe migrants to chew over.

 

When I migrated here in 1969 Australia was not the country that it is today, in fact it could be described as 'The wild west'.

 

Migrants arrived by ship after a 5 week voyage and usually ended up staying in a 'migrant hostel'. Two famous ones in Sydney were the Cabrammatta Hostel and the East Hills Hostel. These were primitive army camp style premises where migrant families were housed in old Nissen huts. There were no seperate rooms for adults and children, merely blankets hung as dividers. Toilets were communal and outside as were showers and baths. Meals were eaten in a large canteen building. Most hostels held around 500-600 people. To be blunt, it was bloody awfull. To show the degree of dinginess these places were, when the Vietnamese Boat people invaded Aussie shores in the late 70s and early 80s, the Government had to place them in emergency accomodation. They looked at some of the old 'migrant hostels' and deemed them unfit for habitation by humans and refused to put them in them.

 

Funnily enough, the majority of folk who suffered those hostels made a go of it here in Aussie. I wonder if todays migrants would be willing to put up with those conditions. Listening to a few on this site I seriously doubt it.

 

if it would save me £10 i would lol

i've seen the programs and can imagine how hard it must have been especially with a family but what a great country all of you have turned it into

[Guest Barry7]

Hello Barry

I`m enjoying reading about your experiences.

I wonder if you could tell me more about a few things - (in the new year as I know you`re having a big family xmas)

 

I don`t know why the 10 pound scheme was started, do you have any info about that? What was the agreement between UK govt. and Oz?

Also, you must have seen some small out of the way places grow and develop over the years - any interesting stories/thoughts about that?

 

:emoticon-signxmas: and Happy New Year

Sue[/quote

 

Hi Sue,

 

Read about the 'Ten pound poms' in the following thread;

 

Ten Pound Poms - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Basically there was a need to populate the country or perish.

 

As to small out of the way places developing, I can give a good example of Campbelltown in NSW. Campbelltown in the 60s was a sleepy little town 60 ks south west of Sydney. It had a population of around 35,000 people and a small police station with a staff of 24. It only had around 5 suburbs (or townships). In the early 60s developers started a new suburb called 'Sherwood Hills' Land was extremely cheap, you could buy a block of land for $1,000 and the whole suburb was filled by migrant Poms buying their first homes. Over the years more suburbs were developed, Shopping Malls, shopping centres, hospitals, University, etc built to the stage where it is a City in it's own right with a population of around 160,000 in 25 suburbs. It now has a Very large Police Station with over 130 staff. All this in just over 40 years.

 

As an example of growth, I live in a suburb of Camden, a lovely little town with a population of 40,000. Over the next 10 years the State Government is developing new suburbs nearby to deal with the population growth. They are selling 70,000 blocks of land to build on. So we will be trebbling the population within 10 years. Frightening. The infrastructure just isn't there for this.

[Guest snow white]

hi barry you now have me hooked can you recommend any books that are worth buying to read into this topic a bit more

lesley x

[The Ozcans]

Cheers for that Barry.

Have a great day tomorrow.

Su x

[Guest fatpom]

I've met a couple of blokes from the stolen white generation. One story is that his mother had to go into hospital for an op. He and some of his younger siblings were put into temporary care for the duration. By the time the mother returned home he and half his siblings were sent off to Aus with the other half still in care in the UK. His mother got those kids back but two or three including him were gone.

Several decades later he tracked his family down still living in the Newcastle area.

 

The other story is a bit more sinister. He has no recollection of where he came from or how long he'd been in care. He had scars on his body but couldn't recall how or when he got them.

[Guest John Sydney]

I am also interested in the History of immigration and the how it helped Australia. Firstly Australia has always been a dumping ground for unwanted British people. After WW1 the Australian Government was paid by the British Government to take British Children by the thousand. They come out and work on orphanage farms until they were 18 or so then be turned loose to work as farm labours and farmers wife’s in the wider community.

Australia got such a fright during WW2 Australia due to its incredible man power shortages and equipment shortages, the Australian Government (labour) at the time decided that they would not be caught out like that again. Australia would have a car Industry and would increase its population.

Starting a car industry was done so Australia would have the skills and the manufacturing base to better defend Australia all the car companies were asked to build a plant in Australia only one accepted and that was GM – the Australian Government paid for the plant (Australia had assembled pre ww2 cars but never built every component from scratch)

As for the Population it had to be increased due to the ongoing shortages after WW2 – the slogan at the time was “Populate or Perish” this was understood by everyone at the time, there wasn’t a family in Australia which was not affected in some way by the Japanese. Japanese were hated in Australia right up to the late 1970’s. At first the Australia Government decided to accept British people but even by 1948 they could not get enough so they widen the net so to speak and included other Europeans including Germans. To make this plausible to the Australians the Government used the argument that maybe the parents would remain European but the children and grandchildren would become Aussies which was true. All of them had it pretty rough compare to today.

From my point of view being born in the 50’s the best thing that happen to Australia was WW2. It totally changed Australia and its outlook if you look and the GNP for Australia in 1930 – 39. 90% was agriculture based. GNP for Australia was actually 15% smaller than for 1928. (UK had increased by 10% over the same period ) By 1945 GNP had doubled the 1928 figures and Australia had moved into manufacture of all sorts of goods including planes – Australia is the only country which produced planes before having a car industry.

Today agriculture is 2 % of a very much larger GNP this general increase in GNP is due to immigration the population of Australia has increased from WW1 3.5 million WW2 5.o million today about 23 million and still growing and expanding.

To my mind Australia at present is coasting again, relying on luck and good fortune instead of hard work it’s a sleeping giant we need to look 20 -30 years down the road the politicians of today don’t seem to have that sort of vision. We seem somehow missed the drive to build bigger and better and cheaper like the Americans do.

[ali]

My husband has read the book 'the forgotten Children' by David Hill - it's about Fairbridge Farm School in NSW. From the back of the book - David Hills mother was a poor single parent who in 1959, reluctantly agreed to send her sons to Fairbridge. She was led to believe they would have a good education and a better life.

 

David's mother was one of the few who was able to follow her sons to aus. But from 1938 - 1974 thousands of parents were 'persuaded' to sign over legal guardianship of their children to this school.

 

Some of the children experienced abuse, appalling education and poor standards of food. My hubby said that it's not a pleasant read ..... but certainly worth reading.

 

Ali

[Guest fatpom]

My husband has read the book 'the forgotten Children' by David Hill - it's about Fairbridge Farm School in NSW. From the back of the book - David Hills mother was a poor single parent who in 1959, reluctantly agreed to send her sons to Fairbridge. She was led to believe they would have a good education and a better life.

 

David's mother was one of the few who waws aboe to follow her sons to aus. But from 1938 - 1974 thousands of parents were 'persuaded' to sign over legal guardianship of their children to this school.

 

Some of the children experienced abuse, appalling education and poor standards of food. My hubby said that it's not a pleasant read ..... but certainly worth reading.

Ali

 

The two blokes I knew came from this place.

[Guest snow white]

My husband has read the book 'the forgotten Children' by David Hill - it's about Fairbridge Farm School in NSW. From the back of the book - David Hills mother was a poor single parent who in 1959, reluctantly agreed to send her sons to Fairbridge. She was led to believe they would have a good education and a better life.

 

David's mother was one of the few who waws aboe to follow her sons to aus. But from 1938 - 1974 thousands of parents were 'persuaded' to sign over legal guardianship of their children to this school.

 

Some of the children experienced abuse, appalling education and poor standards of food. My hubby said that it's not a pleasant read ..... but certainly worth reading.

 

Ali

thanks ali,

will look for this its just better to ask someone whos read something and find out wether it was a good read or not, probably will cry my eyes out as such an emotional thing at times but i want to find out more info so once again thanks for that

lesley x

[Petals]

It was sad time for a lot of children from the UK and there have been quite a few docos on this and some of the children have relatives in the UK and the parents did not even know what happened to their children. There were stolen children too. Of course many of them are still alive and in their sixties now. We often see reunions in the news where people find their relatives after all these years.

 

I remember too when I lived in Suffolk my parents used to take a child each summer holidays from London to stay with us this was in the fifties. My parents were very much into helping others. I was an only child then so we had plenty of room.

[ali]

The two blokes I knew came from this place.

 

My hubby kept having to read it in small doses - he said at times it was quite a difficult book to read (because of it's content), and that it was still going on when we ourselves were children, so not something that occured in the dark and distant past.

[Guest ross.sinclair]

Hi Folks, im researching a TV show for Channel 4 in the UK. We are looking to speak to any original 'Ten Pound Poms' who landed and stayed in the Melbourne area. If you have any interesting/scary/funny/ stories i'd love to hear from you, ross.sinclair@hotmail.com Many Thanks.