So
We Came
by Margit de
Groot
nom de plume
my
mother's account of her 1951 , post war migration, ship journey to Australia.
abstract:
ship voyage from
England to Australia, post war Australian migration, written
image of ship-board life in the late forties, one
woman's personal
account, emotions on finding a new life and homeland. Naturalization ceremony. Images of ships' company ticket, terms and conditions
keywords:
Australian post war migration and settlement, ship board
life, RMS ORION., ships' ticket, personal account, Orient Line
This
article was first type written by my mother in the early sixties, ( it
is undated but it would have been written about 1965), and
she tried to interest various womens' magazines in publishing it but
naturally
met with no positive response. These papers languished at the
bottom of a long forgotten drawer untill recently found. She has given
me permission to publish it on the marvellous internet for whoever
might be interested.
copyright declaration: copyright of this article
is owned by Ralph Klimek 2008
licence:
this article may be freely copied, quoted, referenced , in
full
and in part ; for all genuine journalistic, historical research,
academic or archival purposes.
note for archivists: this
article consists of 12 scanned high resolution images of the original
typewritten script. The plain text will be made available in
the
fullness of time.
These
images are the original typewritten script. You can see the fold lines
from where this had been posted to various publishers and politely and
firmly rejected, but at least returned to sender! Spelling mistakes
were corrected with a kind of white carbon paper. You backspaced over
the offending character, inserted Tippex pigment side down
and
struck again the offending character key, thus mostly obliterating the
mistake. Omissions had to be pencilled in.
Original Postcard Image
of the Orient Line ship RMS ORION
reverse side
Radio Hams might be interested to examine the ships rigging, there
appears to be a dipole for 500khzand 2182khz amongst others and the
four masts which appear to be carrying a radar. I wonder if this ship
had served duty as a troopship ? Radar would have been a very recent
innovation to a passenger vessel back then.
Image
of the passengers' ticket. Have a good try and read the
amazing
legalese. Can you image those immigrants whose command of English
language was slightly below that of an Oxford Don puzzling
over
just what their rights were ? Try to fathom what clause 21 meant.
Whatever its purpose, I am sure it would have stripped away
whatever residual shards of rights you might have had. Note the clauses
exempting the Company from acts of God, war, piracy and all known and
unknown forms of maritime misfortune !
I
think the clause of particular concern was the Companies commitment ,
after a disaster, to get you to the nearest land, and from there
you had to make your own way home!
I cannot stress enough how precious this little document was to its bearer.
Here is the ships calendar or itinerary. It called on ports that were within the last gasp of the old British Empire. The
information for passengers contains only sundry advice. However ,
considering modern times, it is extraordinary that the passenger
manifest was typeset and given on to all passengers. This ship
had no steerage class, only first class and "B" class. The directions
to "B" passengers clearly forbade fraternization with the first class
passengers.
 |
 |
 |
calendar and ships itinerary
(is that an iceberg in the background ?) | calendar and ships itinerary | |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| last dinner aboard ship | they made a special fuss for landfall | |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
modification record
page
created with images on
added postcard, fixed html errors
added ships ticket
Mon Jul 14 17:55:03 EST 2008 Mon Jul 21 18:14:41 EST 2008
Tue Aug 12 18:08:51 EST 2008 added information for passengers, manifest
