Migrantweb.com Hostels Forum

[JoopMul]

Hello all.

At yesterdays D.A.C.C. Board meeting, I suggested that the Dutch Australian Cultural Centre should support a reunion or similar event for all of us, who came through the various hostels.
Naturally, once I was home (and couldn't sleep because of the humidity) I searched and found this forum.
Good one!!
I wrote about it here.
My parents and I, along with our friends, Mr and Mrs van Hoorn and their daughter. Boarded the migrant ship, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, in Amsterdam, on the strength of an information evening and my uncle, who'd returned from Melbourne, saying the sun always shines here.
We did not disembark at Fremantle as planned, in May, 1956, because there was no work, our contacts there, told us.
So we travelled on to Melbourne; were put on the steam-train into the night. (I saw fires near the track and imagined they were Indians. Turned out to be Empire Night.)

At midnight the train stopped in an open field and we climbed down from the train and were guided into Bonegilla Migrant Reception Centre, along with a one or two hundred others, by a teenager, with a torch-light.
A month or two later, my mother and I were sent to Scheyville. My father to Villawood. Our friends to Matraville.
Another month or two and my mother and I joined my father in the nissan hut, in Villawood.
A few months later we joined our friends in the hostel, in Pozieres Ave, Matraville.

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http://ozcloggie.com

[Mick Atkin]

Interesting that you mentioned your arrival walking through a paddock to get to Bonnagilla Hostel. Three years ago ago there was a weekend of celebrations at the opening of the Bonnagilla Interpretive centre and block 19 heritage site at the original place. The Victorian Government together with Albury Council have maintained a small portion of the original buildings as a tribute to the post war pioneers. Well worth a visit should you ever pass near Albury.

One of the re-enactments for those present was to walk from the old railway siding carrying suitcases through the long grass to the hostel following exactly the same path as the original migrants.
As I was doing the walk I wondered what the new arrivals would have thought, travelling to the other side of the earth only to finish up in a darkened field dragging everything they owned through the long grass!

By the way, the Albury library have managed to collect a lot of stories from those early migrants. I spent several hours reading the heart rendering recollections - what a facinating afternoon that was.

[Len]

Hi joop, welcome to our forums and thankyou for joining us.
What supper/ interesting posts you�ve made; I�ve never seen anything like it. The images you�ve inserted/ linked too are brill and thankyou for doing so. It would be a great shame and a sad lose for us if you were to remove those images from photobucket.

I visited your �(Dutch-born-) Hostel kids (and parents) , let's get-together� and �REUNION- The HOSTEL years!� sites via the link you provided and noticed the link that you have linking back to us, which is great, thankyou.
Good luck with the reunion, I really hope it works out for you, and everyone else.

[JoopMul]

Thanks for that, Mick.
I already do spend so much time reminiscing and retelling some of these things. But this is the very first time that anyone has ever made it clear to me that this was the way EVERYONE arrived then.
Like so many moments, in our lives, the train-ride and the walk through the grass, are very clear memories.
Particularly since my mother was so annoyed with my father for helping to carry suitcases for a woman, with a large number of children.
(My father, now 91, has always wanted to help and I reckon, manage, other people.)
My, down-to-earth mother, who would have loved to have had more children, grumbling that it was the woman's fault that she had so many kids.
..
During the 2006, 400 years Dutch-Australian relations celebrations, I was aware of the Bonegilla events. The authors of the book: Where Waters Meet, got quite a bit of publicity.