a 1935 Chevolet lorry! I was 10 years old. I shared this with my brother who was around 8 years old. Somebody owed my Dad £2.10.0d and he paid Dad with this lorry. Dad gave it to us. Our very own car - (lorry)!
We had already learnt to drive properly. My lesson was in a large Chevolet car where I could barely touch the pedals and just about saw where I was going above the dashboard (through the steering wheel).
We lived on a large sheep station of several thousand acres which was privately owned and had plenty of roads (gravel). We weren't the only kids that owned a vehicle, I remember one other family of young lads had one too., and some of the older guys did too.
Every week (well I think it was every week, it could have been every month), the boss made us drive our vehicles into the garage (on the sheep station), and he would inspect each vehicle and tell us what needed to be fixed.
I remember this lorry had rotting wood panels at the sides, and the boss made us replace these and other things that needed to be done before we could even drive it.
We kept the lorry for many years, driving every weekend we could. When I was around 13 years old, I did cause some extensive damage by hitting a water gully in the middle of a road and knocked the radiator clean out of its fixings. My brother and I were some miles from home in the middle of nowhere, and I can't remember how we managed to get our lorry home. I know my brother was real mad with me, because it meant our lorry was off the road until we fixed that radiator securely.
We sold our lorry to someone else on the sheep station when we moved in the mid 1960s. We could not take it with us to town. With the money we bought ourselves a bicycle each.
My second car was a fiat estate - which I bought soon after moving into the town. Unfortunately I had not a driving licence then, and so the car was permanently parked on the front lawn of our family home. I sold it before I had the chance to drive it.
my parents left Liverpool, England on the MV Dorsetshire as ten pound POMs for a better life in Australia, taking with them myself and my brother. I was just four years old.
I don't remember much of the journey as I was so young, but I do remember that women and children had separate sleeping accommodation to the men. Dad was sharing with seven males and Mum (with us) shared a berth with five other females.
The ship was forever breaking down and the passengers would take bets to see how far the ship had travelled. The best was 280 miles in a day.
My parents spent all their money on the ship buying drinks as the water was not very good to drink and it was so hot.
I also remember the Fancy Dress. Mum had made us both crepe paper (I think crepe paper was in abundance on the ship) hula skirts and she put vaseline all over our bodies and sprinkled cocoa onto the vaseline to make us brown. It was a bitterly cold day, and we were both freezing.
The most frightening part of the journey as I remember is cross the Equator. I was absolutely terrified that they were drowning my Dad, but it was all part of the ceremony, that I did not really understand.
We had a Ships Nanny on board. I would imagine there was more than one - but this one looked after us some times during the day.
It took seven weeks to reach Sydney and for the cost of ten pounds each our parents had to stay for a minimum of two years in Australia or pay the full cost of a return fare.
When they reached Sydney on the 17th July 1952 they went to the bank, only to find that the money had not been sent from England. The bank advanced them five pounds for tram fares and travelling expenses.
Dad's first visit to Australia was during the war in June 1945 when his ship docked in Sydney and whilst he was on leave he visited the British Centre (who organise activities for servicemen on leave) and asked if he could visit a Sheep Station.
In 1951, Dad thought he would be better off in Australia and wrote to the owners of the Sheep Station he visited in 1945. He was offered a job as a Builder - he stayed there for twelve years. Sixty years on he still lives in Australia, had six children in total, ten grandchildren and ten great grandchildren. Sadly Mum died eight years ago this August.
