Many of these stories were submitted to the D.A.C.C., in the DIMEX project.
Please go HERE to read more. Please do REACT, down below. ————————-
“We arrived in Sydney in February 1958 with KLM, the first few migrants to travel by air. Even then, it took 3 days to get here. The Super Constellation had pantries to serve coffee, tea and sandwiches, but for proper meals the plane had to land so the passenger could eat in the bistros or restaurants on the airport, while the plane was refueled. Our friends collected us from Sydney airport and took us to their home in Sans Souci where we stayed a day or so to acclimatize.
After checking with Immigration Department we boarded the train to Windsor. Because it was such a hot day the windows were open. In no time our one year old was covered in soot from hanging outside. By the time we arrived at the migrants hostel in Scheyville it was dark. We were tired, not used to heatwave conditions, and that after leaving a wintery Holland only days ago. Because the hostel management had not expected us anymore, it took them some time to come up with a baby cot.
After some further delay they did find us quarters, one of many single rooms build from masonite in a corrugated metal Nissan hut. This room was even smaller than our ‘cosy’ little attic room. We opened the louver window and slept without covers. Fresh in the tropics, we did not know better yet. Next morning the baby was absolutely covered in red spots, just about devoured by mosquitos.
Together with other men I was taken for the half hour ride on an open flat top truck to the Employment Office in Windsor. Most men from the hostel worked in the steelworks at Port Kembla, only coming home to Scheyville at the weekends. Being trained in office work I was hoping for a job in the city, but that was not immediately available. We stayed in the camp for a couple of weeks. Toilets and shower facilities were in separate buildings, situated well away from our room. Another building housed the kitchen and canteen.
We could not get used to the strange food being served, mutton with veggies, ladled out from a big cauldron. My wife was absolutely delighted with the laundry facilities. With her European experiences of operating a little Hoover washing machine in a confined space that also served as a toilet, and often having to deal with nappies frozen solid on the washing lines, here she found a large hall with a number of coopers and large laundry tubs, and when the washing was on the line it dried just about instantly. It took her little time to work out those strange contraptions where the washing lines were lifted and held high up in the air on the end pf a long forked tree branch.
The good thing was board and lodgings were free, but when employment was found a rent of 5 pounds per week applied. It was comforting there was no urgency to vacate the Nissan hutpartitions. Some families stayed for months, maybeyears. Some had a refrigerator installed outside under the eaves, next to the front door.
There was even the odd little motorcar in the parking lot. To us that was such luxury, although their living quarters did not inspire us. At first opportunity my friend from Sans Souci rode his little motorbike over to see how we were. He was not impressed and invited us to stay in his house so we could start looking for rented accommodation in his neighbourhood.
We needed no convincing, especially with the baby. In no time we had found a house to rent, and went back to Scheyville to collect our belongings. When we turned up at the house to be, the landlord had changed his mind. He had had second thoughts about ‘dagoes’.
Now we were caught. Once you book yourself out of Scheyville, you’re on your own, can’t go back in. Everything so far had been an exciting adventure, but this was a definite low point.
We spend a week or so in my friend’s house, sleeping in the hallway. That was the three of us, sister-and brother-in-law, and their bachelor friend who had migrated with us. He, being by himself, soon found somewhere to rent. The sister and husband moved to a flat in Bringhton le Sands, and we found a garage fitted out as a temporary dwelling in the backyard of a house in Sylvania. We did everything together as a family group, and that included the friend.
Looking back at it now, being depended and supportive of each other did provide us with a lot of comfort. And us trying in a way to outdo each other, that had a stimulating influence. For my daughter that environment of travelling, and being exposed to this stimulating energy and adventurous spirit of her elders seemed to have done her no harm. She developed onto a charismatic person. I was 23 when I came to Australia. My wife was 22 and our baby daughter 14 months. Sister-in-law was 20, her husband 26. The friend was about 26. We were naturalized in October 1968.
From time to time we had thought about it, and after ten years in felt the right thing to do. We felt at home here. We liked the people, we liked the standard of living we enjoyed. By then we had three daughters and we realised that they had become our anchor to Australia.
We both learned to speak English at high school. We thought we knew English well enough, but soon found we had trouble understanding the Australian slang. It also became apparent we had a distinct Dutch accent, mainly due to the fact we had been taught English by a Dutch schoolteacher. Within months after arriving in Australia we spoke English at home. Our main reason for that was we did not want to confuse our daughter who started to understand and speak her fires words. Now, when we have Dutch visitors we speak a mixture of English and Dutch with them, depending on the circumstances.
I remember taxi drivers indicating a right hand turn with their arm out of the car. And what about those mechanical hands on the trucks and busses. How absolutely primitive, I thought. But the clear crisp air, the brightness of daylight, the sunshine that casts hardly any shadows, the clouds, the stars: all so much better than in Europe.
I liked the cityscapes, the Victorian type buildings made of sandstone, the charms of the country towns. I started philosophizing seeing Australia as a teenager in the league of nations: young, vibrant, but sometimes simple and lacking experience. In my way of thinking I saw Australia as being immature and often far too eager to please motherland Britain, especially in the past when it came to fighting for the Empire. I thought the many memorial plagues in parks and churches an awkward way of begging for recognition. At times I found that embarrassing.
To me it came across as a misplaced sense of loyalty, and also as an inappropriate glorification of war. And at other times I thought I recognized a desire to drive home the point that Australia is no longer inhabited by good-for-nothing convicts. After short stints of odd jobs, I found a permanent job in a plastic injection-moulding factory. The plastics industry in Australia was still in its infancy; as such it presented an opportunity for me to start a new career from the ground up.
I started as machine operator, then went on to die setter. That was still in the timeit involved a lot of physical labour. There was no lifting gear, no fork trucks, no pallets. Brawn not brains was what’s required. We started with British-made machines, still partly operated manually, with levers and cams.
Then came the fully hydraulic machines, made in Melbourne, activated by solenoids. Later came the very fast, solid-state controlled, European machines. I left before robots and computers were introduced to control and operate moulding machines. I had attended training classes conducted by the Plastics Institute of Australia and kept abreast of the continuous stream of newly introduced plastics and the latest applications for utilizing the new wonder materials.
It was an exciting time for learning new skills and work practices. However, it was also a very bad time with all the mistakes that occurred with regards to occupational health and safety issues. Originally I was very much aware of a certain stigma as being a ‘new-Australian’, but if there was a stigma it seemed to shift as more and more migrants arrived from non-English speaking countries, and in place of the stigma I became aware of a certain appreciation of the German and Dutch personality traits
The first time I went back to Holland was after 15 years. It was expensive, considering time away was only possible if it could be fitted within the annual leave periods, but since retiring in 1991 we travel to family in Holland just about every second year. I know of some acquaintance who were not happy here, but they also could not settle in Holland again and they became a bit like a ship without rudder.
Other people I knew acquired a skill in Australia and used that experience to become very successful professionals in Holland. Other than contact with family, I have the usual dealing with Rijksverzekeringsbank/AOW Working in the plastics factory I worked 12 hours a day 6 days a week. I earned about 30 or 32 pounds per week and we could save from that. In May of 1959, barely a year after arriving in Australia, we bought a block of land in Kurnell. Kurnell was chosen because the in-laws had bought there, and with Kurnell being a bit out of the way, prices there were affordable. We had to borrow some money from the solicitors and the loan was repaid with 4 quarterly payments.
Not long after buying the land, we were approached by the managing director of a firm of building contractors of Dutch origin. This man introduced us to the Dutch Australian Building Society, where we applied for a mortgage. We were granted a loan at an interest rate of 3.5% pa. However, we could not borrow all of the 2900 pounds building costs, but we were able to cover the shortfall with a 2nd mortgage, from the solicitors again. In December 1959 we moved in our brand new house.
This was extremely important to us, because this was the culmination of 2 years of hard work and planning. We had risen to the challenge of upgrading from our ‘cosy’ little attic room.
But even more important, we could tell her parents to come over and be re-united with their one and only granddaughter, as well as with their daughters. There were quite a number of Dutch people living in Kurnell.
Most of them had stayed behind after working for the Dutch dredging company dredging the deep-sea tanker port in Botany Bay for the Caltex Oil refinery. These Dutchies then introduced us to the Nederlanese Vereeniging Sutherland Shire.
We joined the Dutch Club early sixties, but by 1975 we stopped going because membership had gone down quite substantially and by then it became more of a klaverjas club. We were not active members in the sense of being committee members. But we did enjoy the meeting in the Community Hall in Jannali. There was singing, dancing, drinking, talking,’gezellig avondjes’. And there were the Sinterklaas feestjes, oliebollen eten etc. We went on picnics, barracking for our soccer players.
Later we visited fairs which raised money for a retirement home with games, attractions, while elephant stalls, selling food and drinks, etc. I was one of the founding members of the Juliana Village in Miranda. I attended a few meetings. Not that I did any work of significance.
I remember at committee meetings I felt out of my depth, overwhelmed by the expertise of some of the committee member, the high profile people, all very hard working, experienced business men, with the knowledge and skills to turn a dream into an achievable goal.
I remember going to the Dutch Church in Ultimo. Dominee Uidam baptized our second daughter. Our daughters responded to a newspaper ad calling for people of Dutch background to come together for a social gathering.
That was the beginning of the ‘New Hollanders’.
Now my grandchildren enjoy Sinterklass, go on bike rides in Centennial Park, do ‘zakkelopen’ in Gunamatta Park for koninginedag.
One of the daughters is also involved in the Juliana Village Association.”
Welkom. Via this web-log I hope to tell you about the DIMEX(Dutch Immigration Experience) project. 
Yesterday, Sunday, 9 April, I attended a talk about the early Dutch explorers of Australia, given in the National Maritime Museum, at Darling Harbour, Sydney.
Paul Brunton, Senior Curator, Mitchell Library, (seen here, on the right, speaking with Mr Klaas Woldring, Chairperson of the DACC Board) on Tuesday, 17 January, 2006, traced the history of Dutch charting of “The Great South Land”, or “New Holland”, from Willem Janszoon’s voyage along the west coast of Cape York in 1606, through the major voyages of Abel Tasman in 1642-3 and 1644 to Tasmania and the north and north-west coasts of the continent, finishing with the voyage of Willem de Vlamingh in 1696-7 along the west coast, in a talk, organised by the Sydney Mechanics School of Art, in the Mitchell Theatre, filled to capacity, in Sydney.
With a great sense of humor, in-depth knowledge, and relating the talk to present-day terms, ( like ‘multi-nationals’, when speaking of the VOC and ‘boat people’, when mentioning the two Dutchmen, dropped off on the Western Australian coast, as the first Dutch migrants to be left on Australian shores ) entertained and informed the very responsive audience for exactly an hour. 
The Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts also makes grants to other cultural and education organizations such as the State Library of NSW, the Australian Museum and radio station 2RPH.
The lecture given by Mr Paul Brunton was certainly much appreciated. It was established at the conclusion of the talk that more than half the audience had been alerted to this event through WEA. While there were, as expected, a reasonable number of Dutch-born people in the audience. It was certainly pleasing to see that not only those of us who believed we knew a little about the Australian connection with the Netherlands but everyone else as well, was being given such a detailed account of the people who came to, what was later to be called Australia, before Captain James Cook. 
