Migrantweb.com Hostels Forum

[Robert (Bob) Taylor]

If you are interested ....punch in Speedie Jug to Google you will see an array of the wee beasties....listed with EBay, they are commanding not bad money.As they often say never throw anything away.
Interestingly enough they were later deemed a danger to life and soul as the flimsey elements were uncovered and you courted a shock when in use.
Bob.

[Katherine]

Thanks Bob I had a look on Ebay, sadly we have no Speedie Jugs to sell wish we had have kept at least one.

[Katherine]

Dear Phyl, I can not imagine what life would have been for you in the 50's at Heathcote very basic at the least. I met my husband at Heathcote Hostel 1964 and it was in the middle of no mans land.. Used to get off the Train at East Hills and walk across "the desert" as it was known in those days, freezing cold in the winter how ever we were all having a great time at Beatle Village and other venues in the City.

[Robert (Bob) Taylor]

Katherine I went via google not direct to yahoo. It then gives you many web sites re the jugs... Hope this helps,cheers.Bob.

[Phyl]

Bob,
Interesting post. We also in NZ had ration coupons during the war years and I guess Australia did too. We used to send food parcels to relations in England at that time.
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Kind regards,
Phyl

[Phyl]

Bob ,
"We" meant my parents .
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Kind regards,
Phyl

[Robert (Bob) Taylor]

Phyll, I'm not sure that I knew NZ had rationing....interesting.....different today so much food etc and wastage. I heard that during war times heart disease problems receded statistically due to lower meat and fatty food options being scarce,
Cheers,

[kate fletcher]

The Nissen huts at Holmesglen Hostel in 1958 were a shock for my parents, but we'd come from a dark and cold backstreet English house that was damp and sooty all year round. I was a child and had no problem adapting, and after a while my parents were much happier, making a lot of good friends on the hostel, where we stayed 4 years because my mother became too ill to work.

I was a real little Australian, knowing all about the history and geography of the country, and imagined that I would always live there, but my mother was getting progressively weaker and she worried about what would happen to me if she died and something then happened to my father, leaving me alone in Australia with family on the other side of the world so the decision was eventually made to return to England.

I was really upset at leaving all my friends and the country I regarded as mine, but I was only 12 and had no say in the matter.

Sadly, my mother's fears became fact. My father died before she did, shortly after we arrived back in England, and then my mother died too, leaving me with grandparents who were absolutely wonderful to me, as she'd known they would be.

England seemed very cramped and dirty, with narrow dark streets and bad-tempered people. I was very homesick for Australia and found it difficult to adapt to English life, especially the strict discipline at the school I was sent to, although I hadn't had any problems becoming an Australian. I still feel alien in England, but I'm no longer an Australian either now, but those 4 years in Victoria are the ones that I remember with most affection from my childhood, and I feel very fortunate to have experienced them.

[GinaKate]

That's really sad Kate, what a pity that you didn't have other relatives following your little family out here.
Most of us who stayed here as well as those who returned feel torn between the two countries though. I've been here since 1965 and lived in America as well as UK and have enjoyed all three countries, however I still don't have that sense of belonging to any of them.
Totally agree with you on the harsh nightmare school life in England.

[Robert (Bob) Taylor]

Hi Kate Fletcher, I too was moved by your account of early life in Australia.
My sincere thoughts go out to you with the loss of both your parents.Wonderful that your Grands were there for you.
I have a nagging overriding thought and I know there will reasons and issues why! But did you consider coming back out here when you of an age to do so?
Kind regards, Bob.

[Phyl]

Dear Kate,
My love and caring go out to you for the sadness you have suffered . Guess your mother was a very wise lady and looked forward to you being cared for . How lovely your grandparents must have been ,do you still have them?
I am pleased you have written so positively about your years in Australia
and I understand how you can be pulled two, or in Bob's case ,three ways .I felt the same between New Zealand and Australia and still do , though NZ is my country.
Just feel sad for you. (((((hugs))))
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Kind regards,
Phyl

[Robert (Bob) Taylor]

Phyl......so succinct as always! Takes a lot to make this macho acting, all male Tomcat, well up, but Kates personal early life had a lump forming in my throat!!Thanks for the comparison of our mixed personal earlier pullings from various quarters....I had never considered it that way....probably because I love this end of the world so much, having spent my formative years here, that it would be a great imposition to go back to the UK. The only reservation to that statement is that its sort of hard yards and expensive to visit Europe from this end of the world, compared to UK where they can easily and cheaply flip across the channel or drive the chunnel.
Cheers,Bob.

[kate fletcher]

Dear GinaKate, Phyl and Bob,

It's so nice of you all to send such kind and generous thoughts, and I greatly appreciate them. I didn't realize how sad you'd find the reason why my parents chose to return to England. To me, it's just what happened in my life a long time ago.

Getting back to Victoria and my friends was the one ambition of my teenage years, and my grandparents cleverly kept me working hard in the hated school by saying that Australia needed qualified migrants. I planned to return as soon as I finished university but, by then, my wonderful grandparents began to have health problems, and of course I couldn't leave them to move to the other side of the globe. Then I met my husband, whose whole world is London, and so there were new plans and a new life.

My grandparents lived to see their great-granddaughter (named Elizabeth Jane for my mother and grandmother) and I was with both of my grandparents at the end. Without such understanding and marvellous people, my later childhood would have been a desert.

I've been back to visit Victoria with my husband Paul and Elizabeth, perhaps secretly hoping they'd fall in love with the country and want to live there, but they're both totally and happily English. Perhaps it's as well that I'll only ever be a visitor in Australia, because I think I'd probably expect nothing to have changed since those hostel years.

[Robert (Bob) Taylor]

Thanks Kate for the further detail....one point of clarity... I felt great sorrow that your parents had the premonition so to speak that they werent for the long road.It duly came to pass and you as a child were left in the lurch- though thankfully you had a good outcome with the Grandparents. Quite a story!
Regards, BOB.

[Phyl]

Thankyou Kate. I feel great respect for your grandparents . Thanks for your posts.
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Kind regards,
Phyl