So I decided on Australia. When I told my colleagues about my decision, they said WHAT??? …. AUSTRALIA??? THERE ARE HARDLY ANY PEOPLE THERE!! Kangaroos race around on the streets and snakes get into the houses. I replied it can’t be too bad if kangaroos can hop around on the streets and I’ll just keep clear of the snakes. As far as the population is concerned, THE LESS PEOPLE, THE BETTER! After spending years in crowded conditions, the idea of wide open spaces and freedom really appealed to me.

I wrote a letter to my father Henryk, to let him know that I had decided to migrate to Australia. I didn’t mention that I was working for the US Army nor the reason why I would not be returning to Poland. If I did, it would be too risky and have serious repercussions for my family.Sadly, I did not receive a reply and wondered if he even got the letter.

So I put in a request to the Captain asking to be issued a Certificate of Discharge for the purpose of immigration to Australia. I was discharged from the US Army on 3 April 1950 and transported to a migration centre in Ludwigsburg.

I sent another letter to my father confirming that I was leaving Europe for Australia, but again, there was no reply. At that point, I strongly suspected that my letters never reached their destination.

Two weeks later, buses arrived at Ludwigsburg migration centre to take us to the local railway station. We were told that up until recently the transportation route to Australia was from Italy but now it would be from Bremenhaven.

So the train pulled into Bremenhaven wharf late that afternoon and we boarded the ship “Anna Salen” which was a converted aircraft carrier. The crew showed us our accommodation quarters and late that night I heard someone call out “We’re moving!“. So we ran to the deck and I saw the bow of the ship clearing the wharf. The lights of Bremenhaven became smaller and smaller as we sailed away into darkness…………destination Australia.

On the ship there were hundreds of displaced people of all nationalities - families, single people, young and old. Some of the crew told us that it would take about thirty days to reach Australia. They told us that sailing through the Baltic Sea would be relatively calm but when we reached the Bay of Biscay it was likely to be very turbulent with rough seas.

That wasn’t the case. We had smooth sailing all the way through to the Straits of Gibraltar. We passed Gibraltar during the night and didn’t get the chance to see anything as it was pitch black. As we entered the Mediterranean Sea the water was as flat and smooth as a table top. We proceeded with ease to Port Said where we had to wait for a shipping pilot to escort us through the Suez Canal (...)

Migration Centre - Ludwigsburg Castle

By the way, throughout our trip there was music playing day and night - records of the Glenn Miller Band. After a while, I came to know the songs so well that I knew which one was coming up next.

We restocked our supplies and passed Ceylon (Sri Lanka), headed for the Equator. We were asked if anyone had crossed the equator before and most of us said that we hadn‘t. That meant we were to go through an initiation ceremony to get the seal of approval from Neptune as we crossed the Equator. Some of the crew and passengers doused us with buckets of water and we were stamped on the arm with Neptune‘s seal of approval.

So we successfully crossed the equator only to be confronted by Indian Ocean monsoons. The monsoons generated waves up to 40 metres high and as a result, one minute I was looking out at nothing but sky and the next minute, all I could see was a wall of water. The ship started making cracking and creaking noises and the crew were running around closing windows, porches and doors. Passengers were becoming violently seasick and the first aid officer had his hands full dispensing seasickness tablets. There were people lying on the deck, vomiting and moaning. They looked as white as ghosts.

Word got around the ship that volunteers were needed to help in the kitchen. I figured out that the kitchen would be the best place to be. It was situated in the centre of the ship and there was less movement compared to the decks. So I volunteered to wash dishes in the scullery and continued to do so until we reached Australia. I washed thousands of plates, cups etc. and would have been an ideal candidate for a dishwashing competition.

We sailed through the Southern Ocean and early in the morning about six o’clock passed the entrance of Port Phillip Bay. We stopped in the middle of the bay and waited for the shipping pilot to come aboard to guide us to the port at Melbourne.

Finally we were nearing our destination and everyone wanted to see what the continent “downunder” looked like.

There was an air of anticipation on the ship that morning as we sailed towards our adopted country (...)

Okrêt "Anna Salen" na morzu

Buses arrived at Wodonga station and took us to Bonegilla camp. The camp was a former Australian army training camp comprised of rows of barracks with a big recreation hall in the middle. A supervisor informed us about our quarters - there were “married quarters" and “single quarters”. The kitchen was located in the recreation hall where we received our first meal.

We went to our quarters to get a decent night’s sleep and it felt strange because we didn’t experience the rocking motion of the ship anymore.

Seven-thirty in the morning, the bell rang in the recreation hall announcing that it was breakfast time. So we sat down and had porridge and a cup of tea. While we had breakfast we were encouraged to sign up for free classes in English language, and if we were to take up a job, we would be under a two-year contract. After we completed the two year contract, we could do whatever we liked.

I spent two weeks at Bonegilla Camp and learnt some basic English. Then came an announcement advising us that there were jobs available for forty single men at Burrinjuck Dam. So I put me hand up and was accepted.

Burrinjuck Dam is located in the state of New South Wales, near a rural township called Yass. Since there wasn’t a good connection between trains on the New South Wales and Victoria border, the Dam authorities organised trucks to pick us up from Bonegilla and take us to Burrinjuck Dam.

It was a rough trip to Burrinjuck Dam because we were transported about two hundred kilometres in the back of uncovered dump trucks. We arrived at our new worksite late in the afternoon and taken to our accommodation. Our quarters were tin sheds made from corrugated iron, two men to a room. Each barrack consisted of six rooms plus a common room with basic facilities for making drinks and snacks.

Burrunjuck Dam.Przerwa w pracy. Tadeusz gra na akordeonie

The next morning, we had our orientation and were shown around the camp. There was a general store, a pub (place to eat and drink, mainly serving alcoholic beverages), an entertainment hall and lastly, the dam itself. We were shown fifty pound hammers and large boulders on the side of the dam. The hammers were used to break up the boulders so the material could be loaded onto a skip (heavy metal container with four hooks) and picked up by a flying fox (mechanical winch that ran along a five inch steel cable between two mountains).

There were two groups of labourers. One group broke up the boulders with hammers. The other group drilled twelve foot holes into rocks, so they could be charged with dynamite and blown up.

On the same day, following orientation, I was already swinging a hammer. After a short time, I became so good at it that I knew exactly where to hit the rock so that the granite would fall apart, and the skip was loaded in no time.. To my surprise, when I broke some of the rocks I found tiny flecks of gold but it was just too small an amount to collect.

The construction manager came to me a week later and asked if I would be interested in drilling holes into boulders using a small jackhammer (pneumatic drill). I jumped at the opportunity and started the next day. After a while, the manager called me to his office and asked me if I would like to work on the railway. I asked him “where is the railway?” He explained to me what he meant by “the railway“. He meant the tracks that the flying fox ran on, and it was a quarter kilometre long. The line had to be serviced periodically because sometimes it would run out of alignment.

He told me that I would be working with an old Irishman called Pat (Patrick). The manager told me that Pat was a very skilful and experienced fettler (worker who straightens railway lines and packs logs underneath the lines), but he had a downfall …….he liked to drink a lot of grog (alcohol).

He said to me “learn as much as you can from Pat”. A few minutes later Pat walked into the office and I was introduced to him. He had a very distinct Irish accent and looked like he was in his fifties. He was tall and slim. He asked me what my name was and I said “Ted”. He smiled and said “I’ll call you Eddy”. And that was the beginning of a great friendship.

Everyone in the camp called him “OLD PAT”. He taught me a lot of things about Australian people and their way of life. He was an old bushie (a person who lives in the country) and knew a great deal about the Australian outback (remote areas of Australia). He also taught me Aussie slang and other phrases.

The first lesson I learnt from Pat was never to lay any tools on the ground. He told me to stand them up against a wall and I asked him why. His answer was “you lay them in the sun and you’ll never pick them up until the sun goes down”. And one day I found out for myself that Pat was right ………

During a hot summer day, I walked over to pick up a tool lying on the ground. I picked it up and immediately dropped it. The tool was so hot I almost burnt my hand!

One day, after work, there were a group of Aussie labourers sitting on a porch and every second word they used was “Bloody” (a swear word). Bloody this, and Bloody that! They were swearing a lot and talking about “new Australians”. I forgot to mention in the beginning that we were told after disembarking from the ship in Melbourne we would be called “new Australians”.

So I asked Old Pat “why are they swearing about “new Australians?”. And he asked me “did they grin (smile) and laugh when they were swearing?”. And I said “as a matter of fact, they were”. Then Old Pat said “so you’ve got nothing to worry about …..THAT’S THE AUSTRALIAN WAY!”

After a couple of hours work, Old Pat announced that we were “going to have a smoko” (take a rest break). He pulled out a can of Coca Cola and unwrapped his sandwiches. To my horror, he ripped the bread crust from his sandwich and threw it away. I said “Pat! I know it’s none of my business but how can you waste bread?”. Casually he said “Ahh, don’t worry. It’s a big country - a rich country. And besides, the wallabies (animals similar to kangaroos) will pick them up and eat them”. A couple of minutes later a little, timid wallaby appeared, picked up the bread crust and took it away to eat.

After he finished eating his sandwiches, he pulled out a tin of tobacco from his pocket. He cupped his left hand and put some tobacco into it, then pulled out a cigarette paper. He stuck the corner of the cigarette paper to his bottom lip and with his right hand started rubbing the tobacco in his hand. When the tobacco formed the shape of a cocoon, he put the cigarette paper on top, and turned it over into his right hand so that the cigarette paper was lying underneath the tobacco. He then began rolling his cigarette by hand, licked the edge of the cigarette paper and sealed it. He finally lit up his cigarette and inhaled. In Australia, we call a handmade cigarette a “rollie”.

Old Pat started work again and had his “rollie” hanging off his bottom lip and he would occasionally suck on it. It was very foreign to me as I had never seen this before!

One day, I asked him why is it that when Aussies pass each other, one would twist his head from right to left and wink at the other person. (I found this very intriguing.) He told me that it was a very old Australian custom dating back to convict times. In the early days of the colony, the convicts were forbidden to talk to each other and so they devised a non-verbal way of acknowledging each other.

Today, this custom is slowly disappearing but it is still quite common in bush towns and amongst older people.

So the days passed and we had almost finished all outstanding jobs and I wondered what work they would give us next. Pat said “don’t worry, there will be work for you”. The next day, I started work and Pat was nowhere to be seen. The construction manager came to me and asked if I had seen Pat. I said I hadn’t and he told me that some men had seen Pat in the pub last night but they don‘t know anything more. The manager and I drove over to the barracks to look for him. He wasn’t in his room so we walked over to the recreation room and there he was ……..

There was a fire burning in the open fireplace and a six foot long log with one end stuck in the fire and the rest of it lying on the floor, facing the doorway. And there’s Old Pat in the middle, lying next to the log and hugging it. He was sound asleep and as drunk as a skunk! So the construction manager said to leave him where he was and let him sober up. He said he would come back later to check on him.

That afternoon, when I went to the pub for my evening meal, everyone had heard about Old Pat hugging the log and they were all killing themselves laughing.

A day or so later, I saw Old Pat and he told me that he was leaving. I asked him where he was going and he said in his casual style “there are plenty of jobs around and I’m a free spirit!”.

Although I never saw him again I missed him because he was a good bloke (man) and I learnt a lot from him about life in Australia.

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