Remember those "Incoming Passenger Card" we used to fill in every time we entered Australia? Well, the National Archives of Australia has kept them all, or at least the ones from 1898 to 1972, to spin a good yarn for us old-time travellers.
My story begins in 1965 when, leaving Germany as an assisted migrant aboard the FLAVIA, I ticked the box "Settling in Australia" in answer to the question "Purpose of Journey to Australia" after arriving in Sydney.
Also on board the FLAVIA had been another German, Hans Dahl ...
... his wife Vlasta ...
... Vlasta's mother (whose card I could not find as I've forgotten her last name) and Hans and Vlasta's two-year-old daughter Sandra.
The Dahls got off the ship in Sydney from where they returned to their home in Canberra while I continued to Melbourne from where all assisted migrants were transported to the migrant camp at Bonegilla.
After two days at Bonegilla I got a job as "Trainee Manager" with Coles in Heidelberg in Melbourne but when Hans phoned me from Canberra suggesting there would be better job prospects in Canberra, I prompted left and eventually joined the ANZ Bank in Canberra as a bank clerk.
Two years later, I was on board the PATRIS, heading back to the (c)old country. Also on board was Noel Butler who had come down from New Guinea to join the ship in Sydney. Our meeting turned into a lifelong friendship with resulted in my eventually also going to New Guinea.
13 November 1967
(The National Archives keep a string of cards in Noel's name as he was a 'frequent flyer' long before the marketing people had even coined that term. More of those cards later)
Noel and I parted company in Greece as he was heading to Istanbul and I was to take up a new job in Hamburg. The following year Noel returned to Sydney on board the AUSTRALIS and flew back to New Guinea ...
... while I worked in Germany just long enough to earn the money for my return fare back to Australia which I did via South Africa where I worked for another six months before boarding the ELLINIS at Cape Town bound for Sydney. I was back in the old boarding-house, Barton House, and had rejoined the ANZ Bank in Canberra in early 1969.
Did you notice that I had written the word PERMANENT in answer to the question "Intended Length of Stay in Australia"? Well, I did lie because by that year's end I was on my way to New Guinea but that's an entirely different story and an entirely different set of cards - click here.
