Chapter One Continued

Chapter One Continued................

Factors were not going to make easy his yen to travel and as life persists in dishing out ‘hard knocks’ the approval to immigrate was not easy to achieve. It took Ted years of arguing to convince Rene to sign the relevant application papers, he had to convince her to leave her mother and pacify her intellect regarding the downbeat information she had been fed. When he finally won and gained her signature of approval on the essential documents he submitted application after application to the relevant authorities, but was refused each time.

It was not until 1958 his decision to leave the mother country became a reality. Rene never thought it would happen, she did not think she would have to deal with moving to a far away land, but Ted was adamant and the deal had been finalised. He gave her an ultimatum; she could choose to stay with her mother in London or go with him to Australia. Whilst disgruntled, undecided and apprehensive to the thought of such a daunting task, she knew deep down the honourable thing for herself and her children lay with resolute attempts to consummate a happy marriage, so she chose to go with him. The choice was not without malice from her mother who refused to give her blessing, adding much demeaning and derogatory comment, but Rene agreed to stand by her husband; albeit with great trepidation.

They were privileged to be put at sea under the ‘Assisted Passage Scheme’. The cost was ten pounds for each adult, five pounds for each child aged between fourteen and eighteen and those fourteen and under travelled for free. Don was five, Tim was twelve and Zoe was fifteen, thus the trip cost a total of twenty five pounds. They were booked to depart Southampton on route to Sydney Harbour via Singapore, Bombay, Aden, Suez and Naples on ‘Black Friday’ but due to a union held strike the date of departure was postponed until the next day; Saturday the fourteenth. It was many years later Ted explained how he was lucky enough to be accepted to take part in the ‘Assisted Passage Scheme’ to Australia.

He told how he became tired of making application after application and of the constant rejections until he had the gumption to use bribery. He defended his story of graft by telling how he knew for many years, during and in the post war period, one of his former high ranking officers was having a long standing affair with his (Ted’s) neighbour’s wife. After the war this certain officer became a public servant at ‘Australia House’ and was entrusted with the position of scrutinizing and processing the immigration applications and stamping the required papers for those requesting approval. 

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