Migrantweb.com Hostels Forum

[Spike]

Wynn7755 asked if I might start off a thread relating to the Smithfield hostel where she and her Family lived for two and a half years from 1957.

It was one of the relatively small hostels and was quite isolated in those days being in the country nearly 20 miles from Adelaide. Now there is no sign of it, having been almost totally absorbed by the growth of the Northern Suburbs.
Below is a tracing of the plan of the hostel as it was in 1956

[wynn7755]

Love the plan Spike that( lovely lagoon) is or was the sewer pit I forget how many teenagers got chucked in that mess.
No wonder the first thing we went out to buy from Hazels was the mortine pump sprays as we were eaten alive with mossies.
I might add once we got to know what was what' everytime a new lot of poms came in ( yes we even called them poms )we raced off for breakfast to see them with eyes so swollen and massive bites all over terrible how we got our fun but that was it really it just went round and round.
Well i had a good laugh at Smithfield lagoon so one person has a smile on her face .I am about to tell the rest of the crew.Wynn
_________________
Jdav thanks you for your time

[Spike]

Yes, it is a very pleasant way of describing the Sewage Pond, but that is the label on the official drawing, which I must add looked like it was drawn on the page of a child's school exercise book in a great hurry. That, and the fact that the original is quite blurry, is the reason why I tried to clean it up a bit.

I was nearly going to label the kiosk as "Wynn's Snogging Spot",... but you know me, I wouldn't spill the beans on you, would I?

Mozzies were a curse. I dont know if I've become immune, or there are less of them, or just that better sprays and repellants are making then less noticeable. Here we seem to have more "Midges" these days, little "no see ums" that love anywhere there is moisture on summer evenings. It's just about impossible to stand and water the garden around sunset here without being drowned in repellent, there are that many some nights you can see the swarms approaching like a small dak cloud.

The Government departments of the time must have been really stretched for money, because in one of the folders relating to the sale of the hostel one note seemsto be on a roughly torn folder cover, there are also several memoranda hand written on pieces of paper where the unused potion has been torn off very untidily. It's a bit of an eye opener into the workings of the departments concerned, if you have the time and patience to sort through all the guff.

If something like that was done to kids today, they'd be put in hospital for 24 hours obsevation, and stuck full of needles. No one seemed to care much in our day ecept those who had to wash the clothes, and the kid became a part of the local folklore.

[wynn7755]

I think you are doing a great job Spike but if you spill my beans you wont be doing any job for some time to come/Still its fun I am still laughing at that lagoon;
You if it had been a lagoon I might still live in Smithfield/God forbid, I look at where we are and wouldn't ,change a thing.
But memories are the only thing ( at the moment ) we don't pay tax on so keep them coming.Wynn
_________________
Jdav thanks you for your time

[Spike]

Ahhh,.. I was caught in the act,... haha.

I suppose I could have placed a few nice palm trees and sun beds around the "lagoon" to improve it's appeal?

It doesn't take much imagination to visualise what you kids got up to. It seems that kids are the same pretty much wherever you go. Like you, I get great pleasure out of looking back at my past, warts 'n' all.

There are probably a few things I might change, but only with the benefit of hindsight. Faced with all the same conditions and problems, I'd probably end up doing exactly the same.

I've always said that "Having everything you want won't necessarily make you happy, the secret is, to be happy with what you have".

[wynn7755]

I think we are forgetting the facs Spike I could not grow a tree on Smithfield you have a pic of Marl and myself trying, and trying is was/ We though we had arrived in the Sahara we only had tank water and that left a lot to be desired mind you we were 10 pound poms so missing a wash now and again never botherd us bathing in a block altogether was no fun no hot water or no water you just got lucky now and again. i hated the fact that there was holes all over the dam place took ages for us to find out the maintainance man Johny was spying on us,he would get a right hook now but we were kids then oh well thats life I think I will try to forget now gees we had somtimes you might be right I could write a book and I just might have ago.
_________________
Jdav thanks you for your time

[Spike]

I can well imagine the hot water shortages with the hostel being an old military establishment, we had the same problems at Cerberus. The plumbing was so old and rusted up that if there were more than one or two others trying to shower, you just got a trickle of luke warm water. It was just what you needed after a long cross country rune through the Victorian winter mud and rain.

No wonder Harry never complained, he would have been used to it.

You definitely should start jut noting down these things as you think of them, it will give your kids and grandkids a laugh in years to come. Hopefully it will also teach them how desperate things were at this time and how much they put up with to get a better life.

[wynn7755]

I should Spike It would be a best seller but can I be botherd and would they even read it the money would be good though.
Have you seen the photos they have come up great I wish I had been more pasific with names but maybe I can fix that later.
_________________
Jdav thanks you for your time

[Spike]

Don't worry, they'll read it once they realise that their parents and Grandparents went through a lot for them. It takes time, but as we all get older it gradually dawns on us how much we owe to our ancestors. (Ancestors - It makes you feel old doesn't it?)

I just went and had a look. Len has done a great job.

Perhaps if you want to add some names to them, you can add a list in the next post with the Photo Number and your names.

#1. Taken in 1969 just before the Hostel was closed, looking back towards the Entrance from in front of the Dining Room.

#2. The after hours "Snoggin' Spot", otherwise used as the Hostel Kiosk
(Nah, I'm not teasing, I wouldn't dare do that to you,... perhaps more like envious)

[CatherineManning]

Hi all,
Wonderful to see a plan of what Smithfield looked like. I'm trying to find people who were residents for a project I'm working on that the Migration Museum. We're partnering with the university of Adelaide to research migrant hostels in South Australia, and are planning an exhibition for December 2013.

http://migration.historysa.com.au/research/callouts/hostel-stories

So far we haven't heard from many people who went through Smithfield, so it's great to read about it here! We did get some wonderful photos from Alan McInnes who stayed there: http://www.flickr.com/photos/migrationmuseum/5424370052/in/pool-migranthostels

If you know anyone who'd be willing to talk to us we'd love to hear from you.

Catherine
_________________
Catherine Manning
Senior Curator
Migration Museum, Adelaide

[tracy]

My parents were 10 pound poms( Don & Vi Pullen} in the mid to late 1950s who stayed at the smithfield hostel, we lived in Angle vale later on in life and my farther actually bought the hostel they lived in and built a work shop out of it ,it still stand to this day next to the shops corner of ange vale and healslip rd

[Spike]

Hello Tracy,

Thank you for getting in touch and passing on that information.

Your Dad's workshop is now a piece of SA history seeing that there is now no sign of the hostel on it's original site.

I was never a migrant, but being an old codger who used to go past in the train as a kid, the hostels bring back many memories of a time when life was a little slower and migrants were playing a large part in our State's development.
I would really hate to see this period of our history be forgotten.

[Deidre]

Hi Tracy
I remember you and your family you had the shop at
Angle Vale and you had a sister Joy??
I lived on Angle Vale Rd (near Broster Rd)
From 1969 till 1972. You and your sister used to come
To my house and you had a dragster bike from memory??
Regards
Deidre Evans