Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.
He didn’t live the life he wanted. He was only twenty-five years old when he boarded the “Patris” in Piraeus, Greece to begin a forty day journey which would take him through the Suez canal, into the Indian ocean where no land was to be seen for days on end. Finally, the ship docked in Fremantle. It was late November, spring, quite a warm day and he likened it back to his homeland, the one he had left behind, which in late spring was warm and dry. This made him happy, Australia’s spring felt like Greece’s sunny, spring days. However, Fremantle was not the final destination; Melbourne was and a few days later the “Patris” docked in a dreary and chilly Melbourne.
Port Melbourne, Melbourne’s busiest port in the 1960s had seen thousands of young newly arrived migrants arrive with stars in their eyes and a hint of trepidation in their faces. The chilly weather startled him, Fremantle was so different a few days ago, Melbourne was in Australia he thought, and this contrast in the weather was inexplicable.
The busyness of disembarking and meeting up with a distant aunt distracted his thoughts in relation to the weather as there was a new life to forge, people who had migrated from his town in northern Greece prior to him were keen to catch up with the latest arrivals so as to hear news of loved ones back home. He was excited to see his new home, a room he would be renting at his distant aunt’s house.
The quietness on the streets was disturbing. It was a Sunday, where were all the locals? Why were the streets empty? What did people do in Australia on a Sunday afternoon? Back in the town, rain, sun, or snow, the streets were full as were the coffee-houses, children ran in the streets, the elderly gathered together after church.
It was November 1966. After a few days rest it was time to start work. There were jobs aplenty and a job had already been lined up for him by fellow townsfolk in a factory in Port Melbourne. He would say, “if you did not like your job, you would simply walk out, go next door and more often than not, get a new job on the same day”. Things were different back then. Australia was growing rapidly, labour was needed and he, a part of the massive migration boom after World War Two became a part of this extraordinary period in Australia’s migration history.
The work was fine, but the language barrier a tough obstacle. Working with a lot of fellow country men & women did not help with trying to learn English when all day Greek was spoken at work amongst Greek migrants. Why didn’t he learn English after work? Go to English classes? No time for that either as he used his musical training prior to migrating to start an after-hours music school and a band which catered to the ever-growing Greek social events which were held on Saturday nights. You see, the plan was to spend five years working hard and to then return back to Greece.
Twitter: @LianaPapoutsis
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