71 It’s A Long Way from Lancashire to Here, Part 2: 27 October 2024

I once asked Cliff why the family had migrated to Australia.  His answer was that before WW II, Liverpool had been an economic basket case.  While the war raged, Liverpool had boomed and the boom had continued after the war had ended.  Although the boom continued after the war, Cliff said that he had not been fooled for a moment by this.  He knew Liverpool would soon return to being an economic basket case.  When the Australian Government invited migrants for Australia – and offered to pay most of the fare to get there – he couldn’t apply fast enough.

There must be elements of truth in this explanation, but the underlying reasons must have been more complex than this, but Cliff didn’t want to talk about the real reasons for migrating.

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Cliff wove Melbourne Cup folklore around our arrival in Australia.

The Melbourne Cup publicity machine describes the Melbourne Cup as “The Race That Stops a Nation”.  Supposedly, everything stops while the horse race called the Melbourne Cup is being run.  Cliff claimed that when the New Australia had docked in Fremantle, Western Australia, he wandered through the Fremantle streets and they became empty.  Cliff wondered where everyone had gone, until he entered a shop where he found people huddled around the radio listening to the Melbourne Cup.  Supposedly, everyone in Fremantle had stopped could listen to the broadcast of the Melbourne Cup.

Cliff’s story uses believable and enjoyable folklore; I wish he had not made it up.

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New Australia arrived in Fremantle, Western Australia on Friday 23 November 1952.  The Melbourne Cup always happens on the first Tuesday in November.  In 1952, the Cup took place on Tuesday 4 November.  The winner was Delray.  New Australia arrived in Fremantle 18 days after the Cup had been run.  We also arrived in Australia on a Friday and not a Tuesday.

We landed in Fremantle scant days after my brother Bill turned 5.  New Australia arrived in Melbourne on Thursday 27 November 1952.  In 1952, Christmas Day was on Thursday 25 December; we finished our voyage to Australia precisely 4 weeks before Christmas 1952.

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Late November 1952 was not a good time to arrive in Australia.

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New Australia docked at Station Pier in Port Melbourne.  There used to be a railway station on Station pier.  When we docked, Cliff spent his last threepence buying a paper to look for a job.

I suspect this story is true.  If it is, Cliff wasted his money.

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The New Australia Passenger List gave our address as “C/O Commonwealth Department of Immigration, 8 Elizabeth Street. Melbourne”.  We knew no one in Australia and we had zero money; there were no welfare payments in Australia in 1952 and we had nowhere to live except where the Immigration Department dumped us.  We also knew nothing at all about Australia.

We discovered the Immigration Department would not be housing us in Melbourne.  We were ushered from the ship onto a train at the Station Pier railway station.  The train took us to Bonegilla Migrant Hostel.  Bonegilla is 340 kilometres (212 miles) north of Melbourne and located near Australia’s longest river, the River Murray.  The nearest town to Bonegilla is Albury, which in 1952 was a very small country town.  Bonegilla had no public transport except the train to Melbourne.  Bonegilla is still not a town - or even a village.  Wiki rather enigmatically calls Bonegilla a “bounded rural locality”.   Bonegilla is a lump of rural land in the north of the State of Victoria.  It is not much else.

Bonegilla’s only distinguishing feature is the now historic museum preserving the remains of Bonegilla Migrant Hostel.

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Bonegilla was a great clearing house for migrants entering Australia.  Those who could not speak English were given English lessons and attempts were made to give survival skills to the new arrivals,.

Because Bonegilla is so far north of Melbourne, it is noticeably warmer than Melbourne.  For those used to European summers, Bonegilla in December was oven like in temperature.  Bonegilla was a very hot, hard to Australia.  We stayed in Bonegilla for 2 weeks while Cliff vainly tried to find work.

Most records of those who passed through Bonegilla (including ours) no longer exist, but the remnants of Bonegilla Migrant Hostel still exist.  Bonegilla is now an historical museum maintained and operated by friendly volunteers.  I visited Bonegilla in November 2016 for the first time since 1952.  The sign outside Visitor Reception said it operated from 1947 to 1971 and that 300,000 people had “passed through” Bonegilla.  The descendants of the 300,000 supposedly numbered 1,500,000 people when I visited.

The surviving Bonegilla accommodation surviving is significantly better than what we got after we left Bonegilla just before Christmas 1952.  I doubt Bonegilla had got better.  It is more likely that Fisherman’s Bend Migrant Hostel – the next hostel where we were dumped – simply had far worse accommodation on offer.

I took this photo of Bonegilla in November 2016.

In 2016, Bonegilla looked clean and orderly – and so very much better than it ever did in 1952.

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Just prior to Christmas 1952, the Hankin and Bellew families were bussed to Bonegilla Station and bundled onto a train back to Melbourne.  Our permanent, Australian Government provided accommodation had been selected.

Until we found our own place to live, we were stuck at Fisherman’s Bend Migrant Hostel in Port Melbourne.

Fisherman’s Bend was named after bend on the south side of Melbourne’s main river, the Yarra.  In 1952, the area called Fisherman’s Bend contained docks, lots of heavy industry and an airport. 

The gaps between the docks, the factories and the airport were occupied by swamps. 

The main local shopping area for Fisherman’s Bend was Bay Street, Port Melbourne.  Bat Street was 3.9 kilometres (2.4 miles) away from the Hostel.  This is not far if you have a car.  It is a long way to walk.  We did not have a car.

1952 was a year of full employment in Melbourne, but we arrived at the worst possible time to find work.  In 1952, every factory in Australia shut down for a Christmas break.  Annual leave during the Christmas/ New Year shut down period was compulsory and factories and most businesses closed for 4 weeks during the Christmas/ New Year period. 

Cliff borrowed £10/-/- from another migrant to carry us over until he could find a job.  In 1952, £10/-/- was about 2 weeks’ wages. 

We were so desperately poor.

We were saved by good luck.  An urgent order at the nearby General Motors Holden factory allowed Cliff to start work before the closure period ended.