FATHER'S DAY IN OZ.

 The first Sunday in September is Father's Day in Australia. My wonderful father passed away 42 years ago at the young age of 69 with bone cancer. He grew up in the East End of London. He was clever at school but he had to leave when he was 14 to go to work and help with the household budget. One of his jobs was pulling a heavy concrete roller over the local cricket pitch for sixpence a week.

During WW11 he was rejected by the army because he had a bad back he also had an important job in keeping the population fed. He was a truck driver for a meatworks. He had to drive to the ports and pick up the meat that was being imported and get it to the meatworks to be distributed to the butchers. The Germans tried to starve the English by continually bombing the ports to prevent the ships unloading. So it was a dangerous job but he survived. I was born during this time and when the war was over times were tough in England. Food and clothing was rationed. Mum had to queue for ages for everything. It was then that Australia and Canada were advertising for migrants to go to their countries. Dad suggested they migrate. The wait time for Canada was longer than the wait time for Australia. In 1949 they were on their way. They left their parents and friends to start a new life in a strange country. (You can read the story by clicking on "My Story" on my sidebar.)

Dad and me on the "Georgic" ex troop ship on the way to Australia in 1949. He was 35. I was six.

He had a hard start in Australia. We lived in a tent for 6 months and then a garage for 5 years. He built our house in Sydney. Later he went to night school to improve his qualifications. He studied for his Leaving Certificate at the same time as me.

Dad and I studying in the sun in our back yard. He started by driving trucks for the PMG but he finally became a public servant as a clerk in the local council.

They were happy for my brother and I to leave home and work in PNG.

When I got married in Papua New Guinea, Mum and Dad came to Pt Moresby for the wedding then they flew to Kavieng to visit my brother.