It is sixty years since I arrived in Auckland. I was working in Knightsbridge and after talking to someone who was emigrating I booked my passage. Didn't really think it through, just booked. My mother came up to London with me to see me off and, in her usual fashion, encouraged me to keep buying things. Polaroid cameras were the new thing and there were salespeople in the street taking photos and trying to persuade people to buy. Of course, my mother wanted me to buy one as well as a cine camera. I did buy the cine camera but stood up to her on the polaroid. I was worried about arriving in New Zealand on my own with no money. It didn't seem to worry her.
My brother also came to see me off. Somewhere I have one of the polaroid photos taken to tempt me and one of my father as I was leaving home in Worthing.
We sailed to Bilbao, then through the Panama Canal stopping in Tahiti. After Tahiti we hit severe storms. Every car on board was a write off and the bow had a great chunk of heavy steel ripped. All entertainment and the final ball were cancelled and very few people were going to the Dining Room for meals. Luckily I was fine. I can remember you had to hold on to your meal to stop it sliding off the table. Max could remember seeing it on the nightly News.
So it is sixty years since I arrived in Auckland and my new life began. A pretty good life.
60 years!! That was a great decision. Have you ever been back??
ReplyDeleteI went back several times when my parents were still alive and once since they died.
DeleteYou went that way round the globe...just over a hundred years ago my grandmother went the other way, to Australia.
ReplyDeleteWhat decided the directions I wonder
I don't know if there were other ships going the other way. I just booked what was available. I paid my own way and was on F deck (from memory) and people on assisted passage were on the higher decks which irked me.
DeleteYes, one wonders...
DeleteMy great-grandma Bea left Australia for California around 1906. In her case, it was her father who dictated the move. Financial motivations.
You were at the time a brave lady.
ReplyDeleteYoung and innocent
Delete'Young and innocent', but also bold and daring, I would say. :)
ReplyDeletePossibly.
DeleteI have that photo. Don't we look young and well scrubbed!
ReplyDeleteWe were.
DeleteIt would have been very exciting for a young person 60 years ago. I have been to NZ several times and love it there but have only ever lived in Aus. My mother came to Aus in 1920 from Canada which would have been a very long sea journey.
ReplyDeleteI have been to Australia several times as well. From Melbourne to Port Douglas (before it got commercialised).
DeleteThis is such a fascinating post and I'm wanting to learn more! What did you do when you arrived? Was work easy to get? Sixty years ago I was a student looking at maps of the world and considering where I might go to escape smog-choked England. But I wasn't as brave as you and went nowhere!
ReplyDelete