Note from the Editor:
This article was kindly written for the SDC by member Alan G.

As we sit in our beautiful home in Queensland surrounded by all the ‘mod cons’ and the comfort of a beautiful climate and excellent standard of living, I can’t help harking back to the early days when we first arrived in the ‘lucky country’.

I emigrated from England with my parents and an older and younger brother in 1955 when I was 11 years old. In England I’d just passed what was then called ‘The Common Entrance Examination’ to allow me to attend a Grammar School. When we arrived in Australia, having spent 5 weeks on the P&O ship Orsova we were put first into ‘transitional’ accommodation in Marrickville, then into a ‘housing settlement’ at Bradfield Park near Lindfield in NSW.



Because my father was a teacher, we didn’t have to live in the ‘Hostel’ part of Bradfield Park but had part of a self-contained gable-roof hut to make our home for the next few years. We had our own kitchen and sewered toilet – the huts had been constructed for the RAAF, and that service always looked after its personnel a little better than the Army or Navy (the new houses being built nearby had a septic system for toilets!). The Hostel part of the ‘camp’ had a communal dining room and public toilets, so we were very lucky.




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