Migration Story - Martinus Antonius van Run and family
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My family arrived in Australia by air on The Flying Dutchman (PH-LDS), a Lockheed Constellation Starliner, landing in Sydney on 4 August 1958 – 2 days before my fourth birthday. There were four and a half of us, my father, four months pregnant mother, brother and me.
We came from Rotterdam and my parents were looking for a better place to raise a family and have a better lifestyle than in post-war Rotterdam, where we lived in a small two bedroom upstairs flat in a divided house. |
My mother’s family, mixed Jewish and Catholic had been torn apart during the war, with her father and three siblings having perished in extermination camps in Poland. My father grew up in a Catholic family in Gorinchem.
My father had worked in a milk factory as a lab technician, which is where he met my mother and they were married in 1952, firstly in a civil wedding and months later in a church ceremony. They wasted no time in starting a family of their own. So, Mum needed to stay home to look after my brother and me, with less than one year’s age difference between us.
A story that may or may not be true is that in the early 1950s, one of my mother’s brothers announced that he intended to come to Australia to get make his fortune. Over the next several years, several the siblings thought that was a good idea and began to make their way to Australia.
We came as assisted migrants although my father did not have a job lined up. The milk factory in Rotterdam was a subsidiary of Nestle, so he came with a letter of recommendation but virtually no English. He had been told that Nestle in Australia could not offer him a job beforehand, but if he could make his way to Warrnambool for an interview, they would consider him favourably.
On arrival in Sydney, we first went to the Scheyville migrant hostel in New South Wales. After a few days, my father made the trip by train down to Victoria for an interview. Job secured; Dad set about preparing for our new life in Warrnambool. First off, a place to live. Warrnambool, then a coastal ‘city’ of about 11,000 people, was a place that came to life in summer with the arrival of campers and domestic tourists. But winters were far quieter and colder, wetter and windier. The only accommodation within the meagre budget was a one-bedroom hut in the foreshore camping and caravan park. Secondly, Dad made arrangements to bring the family down from Scheyville. Thirdly, he bought a new bicycle – on hire purchase agreement - to make the twice daily 8km (or 5 miles as it was in pre-decimal days, ie before 14 February 1966) trip to work and back. There was to be a steep learning curve, dealing with pounds, shillings and pence, gallons, quarts and pints, and stones, pounds (the other one) and ounces.
When we arrived at our beach hut, Mum was dismayed. She was already feeling the affects of her pregnancy. The hut was small, smelly, musty and infested with cockroaches – nothing like the nice house she had come to Australia to live in. So, she set about cleaning and making the place as liveable as possible. After all, she was as houseproud as any Dutch huisvrouw; and cleanliness and tidiness were next to godliness. Where elsewhere but the Netherlands could you walk through any neighbourhood, day or night, and look directly through the windows to see exactly how houseproud the residents were.
From the mild Dutch summer into an unfriendly Warrnambool, the summer of 1958-59 produced a severe heatwave to test the newcomers and especially Mum with her pregnancy reaching its final stages. Of course, with the arrival of summer, we could no longer stay in the beach hut and moved into an old, rented house in town. Finding it difficult to cope with the heat, the pregnancy and the fact that Dad did shift work for the extra money that the penalty rates added, so was often not around or in bed asleep, Mum sent my brother and me outside, always spic and span – initially in our cute little sailor suits that we brought from the Netherlands – to play with the local children. They were all a bit older than us, but this is probably the best thing that could have happened to for to learn English quickly. Our sister was delivered in early January in a local hospital, which was also strange for Mum and Dad, given that my brother and I were both born at home with the assistance of a midwife.
Over the years, life was never easy, but things got better for them and the children. I am forever grateful to them for the sacrifices they made for our sake. It took 17 years before they found the time and money for a visit back to the old country. I think this visit either made them feel better about their personal and national advances in Australia, or resigned them to their fates.
The story was like that of my mother’s siblings and families who came to Australia. Not quite the land of milk and honey, but a good place to be, nevertheless. The only exception, of course, was the brother whose idea it reportedly was to come to Australia in the first place. He never moved to Australia. He stayed in Rotterdam, opened a business and did quite well for himself.
My father had worked in a milk factory as a lab technician, which is where he met my mother and they were married in 1952, firstly in a civil wedding and months later in a church ceremony. They wasted no time in starting a family of their own. So, Mum needed to stay home to look after my brother and me, with less than one year’s age difference between us.
A story that may or may not be true is that in the early 1950s, one of my mother’s brothers announced that he intended to come to Australia to get make his fortune. Over the next several years, several the siblings thought that was a good idea and began to make their way to Australia.
We came as assisted migrants although my father did not have a job lined up. The milk factory in Rotterdam was a subsidiary of Nestle, so he came with a letter of recommendation but virtually no English. He had been told that Nestle in Australia could not offer him a job beforehand, but if he could make his way to Warrnambool for an interview, they would consider him favourably.
On arrival in Sydney, we first went to the Scheyville migrant hostel in New South Wales. After a few days, my father made the trip by train down to Victoria for an interview. Job secured; Dad set about preparing for our new life in Warrnambool. First off, a place to live. Warrnambool, then a coastal ‘city’ of about 11,000 people, was a place that came to life in summer with the arrival of campers and domestic tourists. But winters were far quieter and colder, wetter and windier. The only accommodation within the meagre budget was a one-bedroom hut in the foreshore camping and caravan park. Secondly, Dad made arrangements to bring the family down from Scheyville. Thirdly, he bought a new bicycle – on hire purchase agreement - to make the twice daily 8km (or 5 miles as it was in pre-decimal days, ie before 14 February 1966) trip to work and back. There was to be a steep learning curve, dealing with pounds, shillings and pence, gallons, quarts and pints, and stones, pounds (the other one) and ounces.
When we arrived at our beach hut, Mum was dismayed. She was already feeling the affects of her pregnancy. The hut was small, smelly, musty and infested with cockroaches – nothing like the nice house she had come to Australia to live in. So, she set about cleaning and making the place as liveable as possible. After all, she was as houseproud as any Dutch huisvrouw; and cleanliness and tidiness were next to godliness. Where elsewhere but the Netherlands could you walk through any neighbourhood, day or night, and look directly through the windows to see exactly how houseproud the residents were.
From the mild Dutch summer into an unfriendly Warrnambool, the summer of 1958-59 produced a severe heatwave to test the newcomers and especially Mum with her pregnancy reaching its final stages. Of course, with the arrival of summer, we could no longer stay in the beach hut and moved into an old, rented house in town. Finding it difficult to cope with the heat, the pregnancy and the fact that Dad did shift work for the extra money that the penalty rates added, so was often not around or in bed asleep, Mum sent my brother and me outside, always spic and span – initially in our cute little sailor suits that we brought from the Netherlands – to play with the local children. They were all a bit older than us, but this is probably the best thing that could have happened to for to learn English quickly. Our sister was delivered in early January in a local hospital, which was also strange for Mum and Dad, given that my brother and I were both born at home with the assistance of a midwife.
Over the years, life was never easy, but things got better for them and the children. I am forever grateful to them for the sacrifices they made for our sake. It took 17 years before they found the time and money for a visit back to the old country. I think this visit either made them feel better about their personal and national advances in Australia, or resigned them to their fates.
The story was like that of my mother’s siblings and families who came to Australia. Not quite the land of milk and honey, but a good place to be, nevertheless. The only exception, of course, was the brother whose idea it reportedly was to come to Australia in the first place. He never moved to Australia. He stayed in Rotterdam, opened a business and did quite well for himself.
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The story was like that of my mother’s siblings and families who came to Australia. Not quite the land of milk and honey, but a good place to be, nevertheless. The only exception, of course, was the brother whose idea it reportedly was to come to Australia in the first place. He never moved to Australia. He stayed in Rotterdam, opened a business and did quite well for himself.
Sadly, Dad died in 2014 and Mum followed in 2019. They loved us and each other, and did the best for all of us with what they had. Respect and love for them forever. - Martin van Run |
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** MORE TO FOLLOW SOON**
