Return To Oz

By John Brown

Return to Oz
by John Brown

Return to Oz, details the experiences of a young pom and the way he adapts to his new life style `Down-Under'; his untimely return to the UK, and how as a mature adult, he makes his long awaited voyage of re-discovery !
For those looking for an alternative to Bill Bryson's 'Down Under' travel writing, we can recommend John Brown's 'Return To Oz'.  The book details his return to Oz, re-visting places from his youth and how they'd changed. 
In addition, we get an insightful view of Australia today, from his long delayed Bridge Walk to uncovering the hidden delights of Sydney, Melbourne and South Australia

 

John has packed this edition with clever observations, humourous conversation and pure fun.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bookopedia
• Release date: Mar 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393373742

John Brown

John Brown (1800-1859) was a staunch abolitionist who came to believe that violence and coercion was the only way to stop the scourge of slavery in the United States. Fiercely religious and believing himself to be the instrument of God sent to earth to personally abolish slavery, Brown led a life of activism and violent resistance, finally deciding that the best way to set off a slave liberation movement would be to capture the Federal armory at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, arm the slaves and then lead a violent rebellion that would sweep through the southern states. During the raid, in October of 1859, five men were killed and many more injured, but Brown and his forces did indeed take over the armory. Very few slaves joined his revolt, however, and the armory was soon retaken by the local militia and US Marines, the latter led by Robert E. Lee himself. Brown was tried immediately, found guilty and hanged in December of 1859, the first person to be executed for treason in the United States. John Brown delivered the following speech at the conclusion of his trial on November 2, 1859. He would be executed a month later and become a hero and martyr to the abolitionist cause.

Book preview

Front cover illustration – Brian Sage

Contents

Introduction           1

Chapter 1  New Horizons            7

Chapter 2  Surf & Snakes          18

Chapter 3  The Brown Eyed Girl         28

Chapter 4   The Australian Wave           35

Chapter 5    To Coober Pedy       45

Chapter 6    Overland            56

Chapter 7    Farewell to Oz         69

Chapter 8    Jet Lagged & Stumbling    83

Chapter 9   Balmaine & The Bay        92

Chapter 10   Anzac       100

Chapter 11   Marooned on Garden Island      111

Chapter 12   A Lost People     120

Chapter 13   Ghosts of Moana         133

Chapter 14   A Little Fleurieu        148

Chapter 15  The White House      164

Chapter 16   Climbing in the Clouds       179

Acknowledgements    193

Bibliography  194

Dedicated To

Dedicated to - Carolyn, Georgie & Edward.

Only they know what it’s like to live with a ‘writer’.

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INTRODUCTION

I stood on the dockside at Port Adelaide, South Australia, for the second time in my life. Thirty five years had elapsed since as a youth of sixteen I had first set foot on Australian soil. The first time had been en-famille as a ten-pound pom. This was the princely sum required by the then Australian government to transport you to a new life in the sun.

As the front door to our little Cheshire home closed-to for the last time, a new world beckoned via Southampton and a cruise of some three weeks and four days, before being deposited in the ‘Promised Land’. The month was February and the Year 1965. Waterloo Station was still draped in mourning black following the state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill two days previously. This greatest of Englishmen had taken his last journey from the very place where I was about to set off on my future life in the sun. Like most ironies in life, only in retrospect does their profundity become apparent. I remember very little of the physical journey from Waterloo to Southampton. What I do remember however, was a palpable emptiness, having left everything held dear to me behind.

My mood changed from one of reflection to one of anticipation as the long train trundled into the station at Southampton Docks. In the near distance the majestic funnels of the Cunard and P.& O. liners suddenly appeared above the roofs of the port buildings. A large gateway led to passport control and beyond this area sat the m.v. Fairsky, a pristine white cruise-liner of the Italian, Sitmar Fleet, a regular on the Anglo-Australasian route, and my home for the next twenty five days. I remember the steep gangplank with its white posts and chain-linked safety rails, which led to a sparkling reception area on B deck, where we were greeted by a rotund Italian purser. Within twenty short minutes, having completed all formalities, we were escorted by a rakish steward to our cabins. I was to share a cabin with my brother James, and although the area wasn’t grand it was well appointed, and like everything onboard the Fairsky it was spotless. If cleanliness is next to Godliness, then this was ‘Maritime Heaven’. 

Unpacking could wait, I was off to explore! Along corridors, up and down staircases, back to front (sorry bow to stern) I surveyed this wonderful ship. There were cinemas, swimming pools, bars, shops and a games deck. The Fairsky wasn’t huge, just under 20.000 tons, but she had everything you needed for a three week journey, plus a crew of happy smiling Italians. The afternoon raced by in discovery and by 4.00 p.m. the white liner was ready to set sail. On the quayside a small band played a medley of rousing tunes, and as custom demanded we on board were handed rolls of coloured streamers to throw to the people below. Frantic farewells were shouted from the dockside to the ship and vice versa, in the vain hope of being heard above the general mayhem. Finally, the ropes fore and aft were loosened from their capstans and the Fairsky moved gracefully away from the quayside and slipped gently into Southampton Water. This was it!  However easy it had been to say the word ‘emigration’, the finality of the act was something far more daunting than even I had envisaged. Within a short space of time the English mainland was no more than a dot - a rapidly disappearing place that had moulded me into the young man I now was.

Three weeks and four days at sea can seem like an eternity, but stopovers en-route including Portugal, Port Said - Egypt and Aden - Yemen, helped to break the endless watery horizon. Crossing the equator lost a full day and night to various festivities, and soon only the Pacific Ocean stood between us and Australia. After skirting the tail-end of a cyclone, we eventually reached the continent of Australia, when, on the afternoon of March 2nd, we berthed for an overnight stay in Fremantle. The town was as colonial as Governor Philips. Row upon row of pretty red-roofed houses sat displaying comfortable verandahs and neat gardens festooned with palm trees and bougainvillea, which draped lazily over white picket fencing. The air was as dry as dust, and the sky high and clear. There were no pollutants here to rust the wonderful examples of vintage motor cars which stood in many of the driveways. Our stay in Fremantle, Western Australia, was brief - just one night. The Fairsky departed early the following day and for the next two days we steamed along southern coastline of Australia until we reached our final destination - Port Adelaide. There were no streamers or welcoming voices this time, but there was a band playing ‘Waltzing Mathilda’. Clichéd maybe, but oh! so very apt.

Part One

Bright Days

And Rolling Surf

Chapter 1

My abiding memory of Port Adelaide as I disembarked from the m.v Fairsky that March day 1965 was of painted iron (corrugated). The whole of the dock buildings were constructed of this material. The Australians love of this product in the first two post war decades knew no bounds. Coming as I did from the lush pastures of Cheshire, where every green of the pantone shade is taken as the norm’, I was visually assaulted by the profusion of tin. There must have been enough corrugated iron of various colours and thicknesses to build a new Australian fleet. Despite the severity of the material, Port Adelaide had a very relaxed feel to it. The paintwork bleached by the continuous sunshine gave a faded warmth to the buildings. Red roofs had mellowed to a wonderful watercolour thinness. Oh! and that sky! how blue can a sky be? There was as with Fremantle a sense of arrival and welcome. The dockside workers, a mixture of Australians and Italians, could not have been more charming had they been employed at the George V Hotel in Paris. Australia in the 196O's had an image not unlike the one portrayed by Peter Finch in the film A Town Like Alice. The Australians appeared on first sight proud and straight talking but certainly not unfriendly. A mixture of excitement and trepidation played across my mind as we were gently grouped for passport and immigration controls. The whole thing struck me as somewhat surreal. One minute I was in England about to start college and all that that entailed, when one day my father, the most stable person you'd have wished to meet, simply announced his intention to take us 12,000 miles away to start a new life in Australia.

Had I been a little more familiar with the effects of hallucinogenic drugs, I would have had serious grounds for having him investigated. As it was, we sold every major possession and upped sticks for Australia. So here I stood, a young Englishman of sixteen, wondering what the hell comes next. Once out of the quayside buildings and into the Australian sunshine proper, we were helped on to a silver and blue coach, very reminiscent of

the American Greyhound Buses. Sweeping out of the port gate, we proceeded apace (Aussies do love driving) along the Anzac Highway toward our temporary residence, Finsbury Park Hostel. As a ten pound pom or an assisted passage migrant, there were two ways in which you embarked upon your new Australian lifestyle. You were either sponsored by a relative or friend, or you were placed in a migrant hostel. The latter was our fate. After luxuriating on board a cruise liner for the best part of a month, the hostel came as something of a culture shock. The coach turned in through the wide mesh gate leading to our new accommodation. Why the place was ring fenced? I have no idea. Certainly nobody in possession of their full faculties would have tried to join five hundred poms in a place that was on first sight a cross between Butlins and a P.O.W. camp. Spartan was an understatement, this was not a place the Australian Government intended you to take up permanent residence. There was of course like everything about the Australian immigration system at that time, a good reason for making you feel uncomfortable - they wanted you out of the hostel A.S.A.P. to make way for the next boat load of poms. There were at this time two similar hostels in S.A. all under permanent pressure for space.

The whole family downed cases and looked around the three roomed accommodation - my mother burst into tears. Is this what she had left her beloved garden and home for? - A Better Life? I didn't expect the Savoy Hotel but bloody hell, this was grim. Communal showers and dining room, only added to the brutal assault upon my senses. This was a place to get out of at full speed. The one saving grace was the time of year it was March and was the middle of the Australian autumn, so temperatures climbed no higher than a comfortable 70 degree F. What it must have been like in midsummer heaven only knows. The only concession to air-conditioning was the two inch gap under the front door; an open invitation to our eight legged friends and others to limbo under and join us. The only hint of any forethought for our comfort was an ominous looking box of ant-powder placed strategically on a shelf near a small hand basin. In true Australian fashion, the employees within the hostel couldn't resist embellishing their helpful advice to wary poms. Always check your shoes before wearing them, pull back the bedclothes before getting in, you don't want to cuddle up to a brown snake do you? Oh! and be sure to look under the dunni seat for redbacks.  What did all this mean?  Without a code book on strine you were adrift in a sea of what in essence was good natured teasing. Hysterical poms, equalled good sport for the wicked Australians.

Despite the obvious fun to be had with these newcomers, the Aussies were by and large a kindly and well intentioned bunch. The peculiar thing about them was, the more rough and ready the Aussie, the more kindly they were at heart, whether the harshness of the climate or the dependence upon one another in earlier history had honed their sense of co-existence, I don't know, but one thing was to become clear very early on in my new country, the Australians wanted you to do well. Their devil-may-care attitude belied the complete conviction the Australians had to personal rights and freedom. Here were a people with a spirit of generosity and a zest for life unmatched anywhere in the world. One got the distinct impression that if you could do the job, then the job was yours, a fact that was to prove true time and again in the next three years.

Like internees within any establishment, one’s first thought is of escape. Unlike any normal prison this place had an open gate but the feeling of containment was still very real. After a disturbed night's sleep, I was relieved to wake and find I was still the only occupant in my bed. An attempt was made at the breakfast provided, but I had no stomach for the culinary offerings, much less the communal eating. Changing into suitable lightweight clothing, I escaped to the world outside the perimeter fence, catching the local bus to downtown Adelaide. The journey took me past the Cheltenham Racecourse (famous for the Adelaide Cup) and an area less like Cheltenham you couldn't imagine.  I couldn’t help but notice my fellow passengers were muffled up for something they laughingly called autumn. To me it was a bright summer's day. Radiant sunshine and not even a breeze. I alighted at the corner of King William Street and Rundle Street - this was more like it.

Here was a city laid out by someone who knew a thing or two about zoning. The plan for modern day Adelaide was drawn up by one Colonel William Light. Born in 1778 at Kuala-Kedah (Malaya) he spent his formative years in Theberton [sic], Suffolk. He served in both the British Army and Navy and was interned by Napoleon at Verdun in 1803. One month later, he escaped. After a brief visit to India he left the army in 1821. Two years later he was to be found fighting with revolutionaries in Spain, eventually pitching up in South Australia in 1836. He began his survey of what is now Adelaide in January 1837, not a man to hang around he completed his task by May of the same year.  A handsome obelisk marking the commencement of his plan was placed at the junction of the North and West terraces.

Despite his many earlier adventures, Colonel Light succumbed to tuberculosis in June 1839 and was buried in Light Square, Adelaide. A fine statue commemorating Colonel Light was erected in Victoria Square, although the greatest tribute to his genius is the city itself. This is truly a garden city, a place where commerce sits in complete harmony with verdant parks (there are four of them) and open spaces. Wide avenues with proud Victorian buildings ooze confidence. Adelaide owes Colonel Light a great deal and in a final twist of irony in 1938 Light's statue was moved to Montefiore Hill, the area just above Adelaide where Light was said to have first surveyed his city. The area is now known as Light's Vision. From here you can see the full panoramic impact of his great foresight. I think he would have approved. Adelaide was indeed a joy to behold. Clean, efficient, big enough to impress, small enough to welcome, and it even had a small tram system to the seaside. I loved it from day one. Despite the less than impressive conditions back at Finsbury Park, this was the place for me.

The number one priority for the sanity of my mother and the general cohesion of the family was the rental or purchase of a house. Now unlike the British estate agency system, where smart young things who can spot a boss suit at a hundred yards or relate the advantages of a 316 series B.M.W. over a 525 with mono-cruiser and hydro-gas stabilizers but tell you sod all about the average 3 bed semi, the Australian counterpart of the 1960's was light of foot, smooth of tongue and attached himself to the new migrant like a limpet. Quite how they discovered your name and details still eludes me to this day. Certainly, opening a bank account seemed to be the clarion call. Here was a hostel full of disorientated poms, without a clue of how the local systems worked, in short turkeys ready for plucking and stuffing.

The not unsurprising thing about realty (property) agents in the 1960's was that the great majority of them were new Australians themselves. Particularly hot in this field were the Dutch, who unlike their Aussie counterparts were willing to work after 4.00 pm on a Friday.  Even more appalling was the fact that they would work full weekends. This was a complete anathema to any born and bred Australian. Weekends were for beer, barbies and the beach. Single or married, unless you were dragged screaming to work, weekends were out.  A limited police and hospital service existed. The Fire Service by comparison was 70% manned by voluntary staff, particularly outside the city, so they would be on stand-by. No! in Australia Friday afternoon was truly poets day (P-—Off Early Tomorrow's Saturday). Against such little competition, it's no wonder the Dutch and other non-nationals did so well. They would work from dawn to dusk and on reflection they were bloody good at their job. Nothing was too much trouble, banks, site visits (sometimes a sixty mile round trip), mortgages, if there was a whiff of a sale, they would sacrifice their granny to get the all important signature on a dotted line. Our own brief stay at Finsbury Park Hostel was a mere fifteen days in which time our flying Dutchman drove us around more realty sites than you could shake a stick at.

He arranged a mortgage, opened a second bank account, relieved us of our deposit, arranged for shipment onwards of our worldly goods, and even ferried us, keys in hand, on the sixteenth day to our new home in Morphett Vale. Try doing that in the U.K. today and then remind yourself that this all took place thirty odd years ago.

Morphett Vale –

From Adelaide the A13 or main south road passed through the suburbs of Edwardstown and Bedford Park before starting its dramatic ascent to the summit of O' Halloran-Hill. Winding its way via Noarlunga and McLaren Vale, the A13 eventually met the Southern Ocean at Victor Harbour. Founded in 1830 as a whaling and sealing station, Victor Harbour lies 52 miles south of Adelaide and is the main town of the Fleurieu Peninsula. Whaling has long since ceased and these wonderful creatures are now free to pass unhindered on their annual migration between the months of June and October, when their progress can be viewed. The A13 was dotted with settlements of varying size and population. One of the first places en route to Morphett Vale was Reynella and probably the most pre-possessing, looking for all the world like a cross between colonial Oz and the Rhineland. The township of Reynella consisted principally of Edwardian brick faced buildings with full verandahs and the obligatory corrugated iron roofs in varying shades of burnt-ochre. Famous for its quality grapes, this was a fertile outpost of the wine industry.  Lush vineyards lined the outward route from Reynella, like battalions of proud troops they stood in perfect symmetry having tamed the semi-arid soil. Unlike the more famous wine region of South Australia, the Barossa Valley, this south eastern coast was dotted with wineries and vineyards of every quality, from the excellent wines of Reynella to the basic brandy of Morphett Vale.

On leaving Reynella, the landscape opened to reveal acre upon acre of flat almond groves on one side of the road and vineyards as far as the eye could see on the other. The influx of migrants to this area had pushed the building processes of twenty years tube-like into a five year cycle. In an effort to meet demand for new housing stock, rafts of land had been made available, pushing the value of building plots to unknown heights. Such was the demand that almond groves were suddenly worth fifty times their semi-scrub value, as realty companies moved in. Although development was rapid within the boundaries of these sleepy settlements, they managed to retain much of their pure Australian charm. The local businesses certainly benefited and were helped in their struggle to survive. Morphett Vale lay some five miles east of Reynella and boasted a hotel, (all pubs seemed to be called hotels in Australia, regardless of size), a garage, a couple of small shops and a delightful little church by the name of St. Mary's, built in 1846 as the first R.C. church in South Australia, again, sporting a red tin roof. The sound of a downpour on this must have added something truly extra to the Sunday sermon.  Morphett Vale was a little piece of Australia seemingly untouched by recent decades. So here it was we decamped to our new bungalow (all Australian housing tended to be single storey) which was the last word in luxury. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, oodles of land and no gaps under the front door, plus a tiled roof (red of course).

The morning following our arrival in Morphett Vale, I answered a knock at the rear door. There stood a young man of twenty five or so, muffled and shivering. G' Day, I'm George Kier your neighbour, he said. George was athletically built, swarthy in complexion and obviously of Maori extraction with a smile that