MrJoop

The A.B.C., here, in Australia has a website, called: The Making of Modern Australia where quite a few of us, have been telling our stories.
One of mine was about what it was like to live in the migrant hostels when my parents and I arrived from the Netherlands, in the mid-fifties.

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(My mother and I sitting outside our nissan hut, in Villawood Migrant Hostel.)
Migrant hostels (That I lived in) tended to be ex-army camps and were given the fancy name: Migrant Reception Centres.
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They were extremely basic.
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My parents and I moved through:
Bonegilla ( near Albury),
Scheyville (near Windsor),
Villawood (near Chester Hill)
and
Matraville (on Pozieres Ave.)
(Not the Bunnerong Rd Hostel. That was for British migrants).
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Some years ago, I saw a play, produced by my children’s drama teacher, when they attended Macdonald College, Strathfield.)
The play was set in Scheyville Migrant Hostel.
It gave my Australian-born son and daughter an insight into a small part of my life.

Since then, there was also a Reunion organised by the Parks and Wildlife Service, at the Scheyville Hostel site.
I saw many ex-residents there. A very successful event. Met no fellow Dutch immigrants there, that I might have known but wasn’t expecting that.
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Scheyville, in about June, 1956, was my first experience of being in 6th grade, in Australia (for a few weeks).

(Stopping off, in Port Said, while travelling to Australia, on the J.v.O.)
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There have been quite a few functions, e.g., at Bonegilla, and I know that there is a museum there. As, I’ve been informed, there is one, on the Scheyville site.
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When I attended the reunion, at Scheyville, it was a beautiful, sunny day and there really were many groups of people, enjoying picnics.
But none of the groups were ex-Dutch immigrants.
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Luckily one of these Dutch migrant “children” (We are now in our 60s.) has taken the initiative and some of us are getting together on the eighth of August, 2009. (8/8/09), at John van Klooster’s place.

Hostel life was definitely not all as wonderful as the information services (in the Netherlands, ans also here) had wanted us to believe but…....
....my parents developed an extensive network of friends in these hostels and they joined the Dutch clubs and for many, many years had a very busy social life, involving not only relatives invited from the Netherlands but the many friends, made in those bare, basic, hostels.
Naturally, we ‘kids’ were busy going to school, getting careers and ‘spreading out’.
It is actually due to the van Klooster family that my parents and our friends, the van Hoorns, decided not to return to the Netherlands, when the two years were up.
We camped on their block of land, in Leppington and for the first time were out of the hostel in Matraville and life outside was not so bad!
From the hostel we moved into an old house.

(Entertaining myself, in the backyard of the old house that we moved into, after Matraville Hostel.)

(Four schoolfriends, at my birthday party, in the old house. Hans & Jelle, were Dutch and we are still in contact. We still use Dutch when we meet.)
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I am still in contact with the two boys from the hostel in Matraville, with whom I attended South Sydney Boys Junior High/Maroubra Bay High School.
Our parents were friends.
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It was via the website schoolfriends.com.au which then became friendsreunited.com, that I have had contact with other ex-Dutch, ex-hostel residents, from my generation, who also lived there as children.
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(I was 12 when we arrived in the hostels. I turned 65, last October.)

(Entertaining the girl with whose family we migrated, when we lived in the hostel, in Matraville.)
Did you know us? The van Kloosters? The Jamas? The Muls? The van Hoorns? The Tillers? I could go on.
Please contact me via here
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Jo

(Entertaining my mother, on the migrant ship: J.v.O.)
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(Entertaining the residents of the Abel Tasman Retirement Village and St Nicholas.)
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(Hans and I still use Dutch, when we meet up. Just like in 1957, when we used to take the tram, from the hostel, in Pozieres Ave., Matraville, and then walk up Avoca Street, to our high school, in Randwick.)
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(We remain Tulips under the Gum Tree, as Eef ten Brummelaar proved, in this booklet.)
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(Not long ago, this fellow ex-Matraville Hostel resident and I shared memories of life in the hostel. For a young girl, then, not all as pleasant as it should have been.)
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(My migration experience, represented in this program booklet, celebrating the bond between Australia and the Netherlands.)
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(The Netherlands Society in Bankstown, enjoying a picnic, in about 1980.)
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(Early days, in Australia.)
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(First day. Off to high school, in Randwick, Jan. ‘57.)
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(What’s left of the hall, in Scheyville.)
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(Quoting my mother, crying, in May, 1956: ” Did I leave my neat, cosy apartment, for this? ” )
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(But, after four hostels, the two families bought an old house, together, and had the best times, in their lives, for the next decade.)
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(We migrated, together on the Johan van Oldenbarnevelt -J.v.O.)
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(This way, I gained a kind-of sister.)
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So, once again…........

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Let’s think about a reunion, for those of us who came, on the migrant ships and via, the migrant hostels, ........while we still remember those memories ….to share!!!

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