My life story - Henry J Macey (best books for 20 year olds .TXT) 📗

the steering wheel.”  As we left the hospital, I asked if we could see my car.  A garage not far from the hospital had picked it up; I could not believe what I saw when we got to the garage.  The engine had been pushed back three feet into the car.  The piano-hinged bonnet had hit the windscreen frame; pushing it back it then had ridden up over it.  The steering column had broken away from the dashboard.  It had hit the seat I was sitting in, breaking the back off the seat and pushing it onto the back seat.

 

The chassis was bent so much that it touched the floor.  If I had let go of the steering wheel; and had not broken my wrist.  I would not have been turned and would have been speared by the steering column.  If I had been wearing a seatbelt, it would have trapped me in the seat. Instead of the wheel folding back, and going under my arm. The centre of the wheel would have hit me full in the chest, crushing my ribs and doing untold damage. As there were no seatbelts in those days, and I am here to tell you my tale of survival. I not saying that they are a bad idea, but I feel in some cases they can do more harm than good.

 

In 1965, SWEB closed down central construction, and I found myself on the dole.  In those days, fortunately, work was not hard to find.  It was not long before I was driving H G V's for a living.  That's when I met my best friend, Don Ellis.  One day, during a general conversation we started talking about Australia.  We started to wonder what it might be like to live there and decided to make enquiries at the immigration office at Australia House.  They sent us a large amount of information to look at, and a questionnaire to fill in and send back.  We sent it off more as a joke than anything else.  A few months later, we received more documents and a letter.

 

We had got through the first steps of being accepted for immigration.  The next step was to fill in a larger, more in-depth document.  It was more like your life history; schools attended and what grades we had achieved in exams.  Lists of jobs, time spent in H. M. forces, and information about our dependants.  Filling in these forms took us some time, and we were still not sure if we wanted to go, but we sent it off anyway.

 

A few weeks later, a letter arrived telling us we had a date for an interview.  Now everything seemed to go into overdrive.  We had to confirm that we would attend the interview, arrange and have a medical with our doctors. And get a medical report from him, then get signed letters from solicitors and passport photos, to prove we were who we said we were. Photostat copies of our berth certificates, for us and the boys. Affidavits that we had no outstanding debts, and therefore we were free to leave the country.

 

When the day of the interview came, we travelled up to London and found Australia House.  Meeting our first Australian ever, we had a laugh when he asked Jane where she would like to live in Australia.  Jane had only heard of one place in Australia, and that was Alice Springs.  “You won’t like it there,” he said, “It’s far too hot for you.”

 

He suggested Western Australia.  There was a logging firm at Jarradall, eighty miles south of Perth that was willing to sponsor workers to emigrate; they wanted plant machinery and truck drivers so we said yes.  All the necessary paperwork was completed and we went home to wait, but there was a hitch.  The logging firm stopped their sponsorship of new immigrants, so we were called back to London to see the immigration board again. They said if we still wanted to go we could go under the government-assisted passage scheme.

 

It would cost us ten pounds per person, but we had to stay for at least two years or pay back the full fare. There were to be no jobs waiting for us, but he assured us we would get work.  So that was it, we were going to Australia, and we had a departure date.  All we had to do now was to sell everything we could not take with us, which basically was a house full of furniture.  I contacted a firm that dealt with such things and they offered to buy the lot for two hundred and fifty pounds.  I arranged for them to come and take it all away in the week before we left.

 

The day arrived, but nobody came.  I phoned them and was told that the second-hand market for furniture had slumped.  All they could offer me now was twenty pounds for the lot. That was no good; it was definitely a ploy to rip me off.  So we went around to all the people that had shown an interest, in buying individual pieces.  Selling it bit by bit, we eventually got rid of it all and for a bit more than twenty pounds.

Off to a new life in Aus.

 

After a very tearful goodbye to friends and family, we boarded the train to London with Don and his family.  Jane was very quiet when we arrived at the airport.  When I asked her why she was so quiet, she confessed that she was terrified at the thought of flying.  Right up to the last minute, I was not sure if she would get on the plane or not.  So; there was I, boarding a plane for a strange country with a scared wife, three young boys and one hundred and seventy-five pounds in my pocket.  A very shaky start to a new life.  The flight took two days, and Jane hardly slept a wink and kept waking me up.

 

On the first night, she insisted that the plane was on fire.  She could see the reflection of the red navigation light on the top of the plane; it was shining on the spinning propeller.  Then, as we were landing at Istanbul she saw the flaps on the wing being lowered and thought they had broken off.  The most frightening thing for her was when we hit turbulence or air pockets, where we suddenly dropped several hundred feet.  And of course, there was taking off and landings. The last leg of our journey was from Singapore to Perth, and we took off just as it was getting light.  As we climbed through a layer of cloud, I will never forget the picture of that sky.  We were heading south, if you looked out of the right-hand side of the plane the sky was black and the stars shone brightly.

 

But, if you looked out of the left-hand side, you could see the rim of the earth getting clearer by the minute.  It felt like our plane was the dividing line between darkness and light.  We were cruising at thirty thousand feet, above the Indian Ocean.  Through the gaps in the cloud, you could see a very blue sea with white caps and several desert islands.  As the day drew on the clouds thinned until there were none to be seen, just sea and sky.  The pilot announced we were approaching our new home, and everyone was watching the distant red smudge through the windows.

 

The red smudge on the horizon grew larger and larger until all we could see was land.  I found out later, that we had crossed the coastline at Shark’s Bay near Exmouth.  We looked down on the lovely long sandy beaches for about two hours before we were told to fasten our seat belts for the landing at Perth.  It was 2-30 on a hot Wednesday afternoon, the twenty-eighth of February 1968.

 

We all gathered in the large arrival hall and names were called out, each being told which bus to go on until only two families were left.  We were told that there was no accommodation at Graylands transit hostel for us, and we would be going to a hotel at Cottesloe with the other family.  There were two taxis waiting outside to take us there.  The drive from the airport took us down the Great Eastern Highway and crossed the Swan River on the causeway across Heirisson Island.  The view we had of the city as we drove towards it was fantastic.  Everything looked so clean, and tall modern buildings towered above us.  We drove along Riverside Drive, which was lined with large palm trees, so different from England.

 

We passed Barrack Street Jetty and went along Mounts Bay Road, which runs along the edge of the Swan River under Kings Park.  Then on to the Stirling Highway, a few more miles and we turned off into Cottesloe.  The hotel was on Marine Parade, overlooking the sea with only the road separating it from the beach.  But, as we got out of the taxi, I asked if this was the right place.  It was not my idea of a hotel.  It was a shabby building with paint and plaster peeling from the walls and looked more like a bombed-out derelict than a hotel.

 

The other couple, Tom and Elsie agreed with me.  We would have to put up with it for now; we would sort it out in the morning. It was early evening now, and the beach of golden sand and the clear blue sea looked inviting. The boys were too tired to play, so we went to our rooms and slept.  At midnight, I awoke to find I was alone.  Jane was not in the boy's room either.  Stepping outside, I saw her sitting on a bench across the road, looking out to sea.

 

When I got to her, I found she had been crying. Looking back at the building I had just left, I did not blame her.  Sitting beside her, I put my arm around her shoulder and pulled her to me.  We sat there silently for some time, just looking at a beautiful starlit sky.

 

We were looking northwest, thirteen thousand miles away in that direction was our old home. Family and friend alike, we couldn’t just pop around the corner now if something went wrong. We would have to learn to stand on our own feet now, something I had not considered before. It was alright for me, I had left home at seventeen. Jane had never been more than two streets away from her mum before; perhaps that was why she was crying now.

 

Thursday morning we were still jet-lagged and tired, but managed to get out by midday for a short walk.  Apart from the drive to Cottesloe from the airport, our first impression of Australia was gained during that short walk.  We stepped out of the hotel into a very bright hot day, with not a cloud to be seen.  Turning left towards Freemantle, we strolled along Marine Parade.  It was our first close look at the houses, some of them plastered brick but most were of asbestos cladding.  All had corrugated iron roofs that overhung the walls to make verandas, supported