Migrantweb.com Hostels Forum

[Brenda]

It�s funny how so many of us cannot forget our times in a migrant hostel. I often think of those days with a mixture of emotions.

I was 14 when my parents left England and sailed across the world to start a life in a new country. We left Southampton in January 1962 on the Castel Felice. We had no idea until we neared Australia what state we were going to be disembarking. In February 1962 we arrived in NSW. I remember being herded off the ship into hot stuffy buses, eventually arriving at East Hills Migrant Hostel. It was so hot and dry and in the middle of nowhere. I felt my life would never be the same again.

Our new home like so many stories I have read in this forum was half a tin Nissan hut. Communal toilets and showers were some distance away. We were handed tin plates and cups, which we had to take with us when we went for meals.

I attended East Hills High School but never felt I belonged, as the students from the hostel were known as the �Hostel Kids�, discrimination was not frowned on in 1962. We had a long walk to school, mostly through the bush.

The highlight of the week was fish and chips on Friday night. We did have a playground and I did make some friends. After just 4 months mum and dad rented a house in Manly and we left one of the most unpleasant periods of my life.

Having said all that I know that it was the best decision my parents ever had and I would not change my life for the world. We moved to Melbourne in 1965, I married and Englishman in 1967. We have been back to UK many times and I although I still call myself English, Melbourne is my home.

[GinaKate]

You were given tin plates? We were given our own utensils and a mug, there is a photo of one of the mugs on here somewhere, I suppose you will come across it. Two sheets, one pillow case and one towel. And an underlay for the bed. The plates and bowls were all crockery and kept in the canteen.
Everyone has a similar story, amazingly enough as children and teens we left comfortable homes to live in tin sheds and yet not only did we get used to it rapidly, but it became so normal. Not sure if our parents felt the same.

[Phyl]

I was in hostels from 1954 and I don't remember tin plates Only crockery plates have ever been used .Think the tin plates may have been a dream
or a dramatization.
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Kind regards,
Phyl

[ninette]

We were on the same journey as you Castel Felice January 1962!...I'd forgotten travelling on the stuffy bus till you wrote about it and getting the utensils for the canteen. I was only 9 years old so it was a bit of an adventure though I hated leaving England. We didn't leave a comfortable home, it was very basic and was knocked down a year or 2 later in the slum clearances in Stockport. I was school Captain of Hammondville primary in 1963.