76 It’s A Long Way from Lancashire to Here, Part 3: 31 October 2024

After a period at General Motors, Cliff worked as a sheet metal worker at Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (CAC) building Australian versions of the French F 86 Sabre jets.  Cliff also worked at the Government Aircraft Factory.

Josey initially worked at Government Aircraft Factory (GAF), which was next door to CAC.  Unlike CAC, the GAF was owned by the Australian Government.  It manufactured Beaufort fighter planes and Jindivick pilotless aircraft.  Josey then began work at General Motors.

Houses in and around Port Melbourne are now very highly sought after and astonishingly expensive. 

It wasn’t like that in 1952; then, Port Melbourne was a home for the poorer working classes.  Back in 1952, you could guarantee if you found any people with money in Port Melbourne, they had lost their way.

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Fisherman’s Bend Migrant Hostel was located in the middle of a large number of factories, an abattoir, an airfield where the newly made planes took off and the docks on the River Yarra.  The Hostel was surrounded by a chain mesh fence with three strands of barbed wire on top pointing inwards.  If the barbed wire was supposed to keep us Hostel kids out of the swamps, it was a failure.  Shortly after arriving at the Hostel before Christmas 1952, I scaled the fence and joined the other kids playing in the swamps.  I was 3 years and 7 months but the Hostel fence was barely a minor obstacle.

The raft shown in the photo above is more unstable than the rafts we made to navigate the swamp.  The hostel in this photo was not Fisherman’s Bend, but a different one in New South Wales.  Our rafts were made of wooden planks nailed across 40 gallon petrol drums left lying around in the swamp from the local airfield.  The swamps were a great place to play – although I doubt any of us could swim.

Fisherman’s Bend was one of a host of hostels operated by Commonwealth Hostels Limited, a company owned by the Australian Government.  CHL shamelessly overcharged for its subsistence level services.  The hostels made money for the government.

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No trace of Fisherman’s Bend Migrant Hostel has survived but I remember where it was; it was a very close to the Melbourne Central Business District.

Access to Fisherman’s Bend Hostel was via Lorimer Street, which still exists.

Lorimer Street runs east/ west along the south side of the Yarra.  Going west, Graham Street formed a T junction on the left side of Lorimer Street and led directly to Bay Street, Port Melbourne.  Bay Street was the main Port Melbourne street.

Continuing along Lorimer Street after Graham Street, in 1952, the next “street” was a nameless dirt track.  The dirt track formed a T junction on the left side of Lorimer Street.  Turning left into the track, the track ended next to the Hostel fence facing Melbourne.  Before getting to the Hostel, the track passed factories on both sides.  The track is now called Hall Street and it is no longer a dirt track.  Nowadays, Hall Street forms a T junction with Turner Street, which runs east/ west across the southern end of Hall Street.  Turner Street did not exist in 1952.  Turner Street now runs along what was in 1952, the southern boundary of the Hostel.

The West Gate Freeway is now south of Turner Street and it carries many thousands of vehicles daily.  The Freeway didn’t exist in 1952.

West of the Hostel and next to it, was a disused Army Camp.  The Hostel huts were significantly poorer quality than the Army Camp ones.  We Hostel children used to play in the Army Camp.

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Most migrants at Fisherman’s Bend were housed in “Nissen Huts”.  Every Nissen Hut was divided lengthwise, and the two halves were then also divided into 2 separate “apartments”.  Each “apartment” had a central “living” room and the only door to the outside.  There were “bedrooms” to the left and right of the living room.  Our “apartments” had no running water, no toilets and no cooking facilities, but there was electricity.

We moved into Hut J 3, just before Christmas 1952.  Hut J 3 was on the extreme south easterly Hostel boundary and our front door faced the swamp.

The Hostel provided cooked food in a separate Canteen.  The food was vile and almost inedible.

Sometimes we made toast in our hut by putting slices of bread onto the bars of a kerosene heater.  The toast tasted of burnt kerosene, but at least it was edible.  The kerosene heater was our only heating.  The kerosene heater was definitely NOT provided by CHL.  The kerosene heater had an almost overpowering stench and was ineffective unless you huddled very close to it.  Insulation had not been invented in 1952 so the huts were putridly hot in summer and frigidly cold in the winter.

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The weather was good for the insects.  Flies and mosquitoes bred gleefully in the swamps.  They were always trying to get our attention by swarming over any uncovered food and by biting any uncovered body parts.

Washing for people and clothes took place in dedicated ablutions blocks. 

There were 2 separate ablution blocks and one was located in the row next to our row of huts.  The separate ablution male and female ablution blocks contained toilets, “bathroom” sinks and showers, but the male block did not have any baths.  Officially, male children could use the women’s ablution block only if they were under 5 years of age.  Although my brother Bill was already 5 when we arrived at Fisherman’s Bend, Josey used to take us both into the women’s block so we could have baths.  We used the bath together.  At some point, Josey stopped taking us into the women’s ablution block for our baths.  Some of the other women must have complained that we were too old to be there.

None of the ablutions had any privacy.  They had concrete slab floors upon which the blocks were erected with galvanised iron walls and roofs, but the walls started not at ground level but about 2 feet above the concrete slab.  I remember one occasion when I peeked through the gap between the floor and the walls of the women’s block.  By then I had been banned from the bath.