Migration
541 creative works found
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Deadwood
by arctoaWelcome to the Fall; / of Autumnal reverie-overloads / like power spikes / and psychotropic nightmares (...)
New piece written this month, to accompany the photograph of the same name. This is open to differing interpretations, and this is wholly intentional.
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She comes (back) to Australia every so often. Loves surprising us. She was so successful again, this time! She carried in her luggage a beard and a paper miter and surprised my father, who is (90 and) in high care, in the retirement village, knocking on his door disguised as Sinterklaas (St Nicholas- the inspiration for Santa Claus). / Those 51 years have shot past, since she, and her husband and then 6 year-old-daughter, and he (my father) and my mother and I migrated to the other side of the world and explored the local beaches, near the migrants’ camp. / Her husband has passed away. His wife, my mother, has passed away. / Yesterday, we had such good fun!! We joked so much and reminded each other of all those things we did, when we first arrived in Sydney, in 1956. Coped with so many horrible situations and had so much fun! / ... / You remember so much detail, she told me!
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They say that we're feeble with age, Maggie,.....
by MrJoopWhat will happen to the heritage that those people, now into their declining years, brought to Australia? / Will it be valued? Appreciated?
During general business tonight, the question came up: What will happen to our heritage? I.e., what will happen to what my parents and I brought to Australia, when we left everything behind, in Gouda and ended up in Sydney?
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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again….... / I really love that title of a little booklet, / on the Dutch in Australia, by the late Eve ten Brummelaar: / Tulips Under the Gum Trees / / These children may be the children of Dutch ex-pats or… / / ...of Dutch-born immigrants getting a taste of the Aussie lifestyle…. / / ...or of parents who are here for the long-run. / They’re lucky to know both cultures.
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This bit of nostalgia was triggered by an ad in Education, the publication, produced by the Teachers Federation of NSW. / Chester Hill North Public School, celebrating 50 years of excellence in education. / / I emailed to little photos, taken in 1956, when, I like to think that we were the first pupils, moved across there, from nissan huts, in the migrant hostel, now a detention centre, in Villawood. / / Later that year my parents and I moved to the hostel, in Pozieres Ave, Matraville and from there we loved going to the beach. / A reasonably long walk, carrying our sandwiches, bags, towels, and me, my rubber surf board. In the album which contains the Chester Hill North photos, I came across this one again. Earlier today, this morning, in Sydney, well after midnight, in The Hague, the woman in white (hands on her hips) and I spoke a few hours via the internet and skype and our computers, about those great times, exploring our new country. / / To get to Maroubra we walked through the streets of Matraville, near the hostel and scoffed at the lack of gold, found in the streets (as we’d been promised, back in the Netherlands); crossed the tram tracks, on Anzac Parade and rested on the edge of the cavity of sand, that had, apparently once been a track where racing took place. / / Only the next year each family bought very old second-hand cars and, feeling like millionaires, started going much further afield to explore our new country. / There is a History group, on Redbubble. I’m hoping this is suitable for being viewed there.
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Schooldays. That old gang of mine. Back to Chester Hill. What goes around...
by MrJoopWilly, who was a cute little class-mate, in Mr Berretty’s class, tells me that I was already such a typical teacher, when I was 12 and b…
Saturday 25th October: Chester Hill Public School celebrates 50 years of quality education. I was there, briefly, right at the beginning.
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Today I played some Sinterklaas (St Nicholas) songs, in the retirement village, where my father (91) now resides, looking old (But what can you expect?) and very well-looked-after. He has been there for just over a year. / The picture on the wall is of the late Mr Anton Kool, who was re-elected every time to be the chair person (He did not want to be called: President) of the NSW Federation of Netherlands Societies. / / For twelve years, my father was president of one of those Dutch-Australian societies. Until, after prolonging its life a little bit beyond the 25 years that the original committee had intended, the candles were blown out, with my father, then ex-president, present. / / He had a habit of rubbing his hands, when he was extra pleased, e.g., when he was welcoming visitors to his adopted country; or something that he’d organised was appreciated; or his grandkids did something special! / / As far as I know, there was one other person, beside me, present today, who had known my father in full flight; organising things and people, left, right and centre. / There’s nothing wrong with that. Things change. And the more things change, you know what! / At least, today, he saw me play and he had a chance to boast.
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My first appointment as a primary teacher, was to Riverstone, in the north-western suburbs of Sydney (1964). / I lived in Matraville (Hillsdale) in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. / I only went by public transport, one day. (Three different types of trains.) Drove my father’s vw, for a while and then bought my own. / 75 minute drive in the mornings. 105 minutes in the afternoons. The girl sitting in my car, in Flint Street, Hillsdale (then still Matraville), I migrated with, to Australia, when she was six and I was twelve, in 1956. / / We brought along our parents too and shared this old house, in Flint Street, for a number of years. That’s when you could have called us latch-key kids. / / All four parents worked in factories. (At one stage both our mothers worked in a factory then called EMCO, which produced whitegoods and my mother, not very tall in stature, now turned forty, was again doing particularly physical, hard work, as she’d done in the candle factory, in the very early 1930s.) (I could tell because, very uncharacteristically, the english she was learning there, included vocab which just did not suit her. ) / / Before and after school we two young ones were on our own, watching Crusader Rabbit and the Mickey Mouse Club, as well as Popeye and Crusader Rabbit. By the time we’d left the migrant hostel(s) and moved into this old house, I was attending South Sydney Boys Junior High School (later Maroubra Bay H.S.) and she still attended Matraville Primary (where I’d spent the last few weeks of 1956). Her parents thought they preferred to be back in the Netherlands and they went. But, like so many others, couldn’t settle there either and returned. / / Which was good because the two families got on like a house on fire. (Touch wood – because that old house, already partially chewed up by white ants, was not particularly fire-proof.) / / Developers came round. This very peaceful, typically 1950s street was to be filled with home units (apartment buildings) but Keith, the service station owner, next door, wanted the property for his mother. / He bought it and had a nice little house built on it. / / Our parents bought a home-unit (apartment) each – next to each other of course – in Eastlakes, in what was called Parkes Development. These had been the apartments used to show prospective buyers through and we were the first to move into this development, which many years earlier, had been a race course. / / 1967 she wanted to see her homeland, with another Dutch-born girl. Stayed a little too long and her parents followed. / She’s not one to write letters or even telephone. We met up when I was I the Netherlands, in 1997 and for an hour or two reverted to our previous roles when the four of us went into the city (The Hague) and had lunch in a big department store. / Loading lunch on to trays and then sitting and laughing hysterically at an anecdote told by her mother about the way a certain dysfunctional problem had been overcome, reminded me a bit of being back in the migrant hostels, in the 50s. / / The two families not only visited lots of friends and acquaintances. Not only explored our new environment in the the two (very) old cars but also liked going to The Domain, on Sundays to hear the various speakers, standing on their soapboxes. / / Below, her mother (with the basket on her head) hamming it up for the camera, in Matraville Hostel, pretending to play with her toy tea-set. / / Below, our mothers, working in the kitchen of the hostel, in Pozieres Ave, Matraville. / / Migrating together and having, apparently, a similar age difference to Vivian Vance and Lucille Ball, my mother and her friend, reminded me so much of Lucy and Ethel. / Gerda enjoyed having fun and getting a bit of attention and my mother, Co, happy to go along with it. / / Their belongings took two trips to Australia and back to the Netherlands again. / This was the crate that came back with them after a brief return to the Netherlands, in the early sixties. / / A stage was reached (upon their return) that it seemed a good idea for me to have my own bedroom, behind the house. / / Saturday mornings, the house was vacuumed. All the washing was done. All four adults working away. (She was probably playing outside, with Anna, from across the street. I was a Potters’ Dance Studio. / / . / / . / / . / From my album…. / / . /
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Ultra Fractal image. / A larger image can be seen on my website. / www.fractalartnest.com
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Just giving you a better look! / Thank goodness they were clean!! / PLEASE CHECK OUT THE MAIN STORY / . / Or….remove her mum / / She really was a lot more game than I am. / (The most recent photo I received of her, from the Netherlands, is her, in black leather gear, to ride on the back of the motorbike.)
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Not far from the parking area, under the Domain and a few hundred metres away from the Sydney Art Gallery, is this playground. / When we first migrated, from Gouda, in the Netherlands, to Sydney, in Australia, on Sundays, the two families liked exploring our new city and country. / The various speakers, on their soapboxes, in the Domain, were great entertainment. / Particularly this girl’s mother liked a friendly challenge and wasn’t shy about speaking up. / . / I have removed her from this picture, to conform with the rules of the Two Beings Group. / To get her back please click HERE
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To start at the end of this story, click here / .. / For those who came in late…...... / This girl and her parents, and my parents and I swapped residences, in Gouda, the Netherlands, in the early 50s and about two years later, in April, 1956, migrated, together to Australia ....and, via different (and the same) hostels, ended up sharing an old house, in the late fifties, in Flint Street, Matraville (now Hillsdale.) / .. / She and her parents decided to return to the Netherlands, to see if being back with all the relatives wasn’t a better way of life. / .. / But they came back again (to eventually leave permanently, in 1968.) / .. / Living in a house being eaten up by white ants, with an outdoor toilet, where you had to be careful that the “dunny-man” did not come and change containers while you were in-situ and where the redback on the toilet seat was a real possibility. (Harder to pick in the dark.), the mother of this girl and I talk to each other, via Skype every so often (She’s back in the Netherlands) and reminisce about this, that we always refer to as, our best time in Australia. / / The girl, from across, the street, was pleased to have her friend back. (There were four houses altogether, when we lived there. Her parents were Greek. There was a Russian family and an Australian couple and us (from Holland). She was the quiet one, happy to go along with all the fun. (But obviously not game to smoke!) / / There was the Dutch-born friend, with whom she’d go to he Netherlands again, in 1967. / / And there was Rosemary, the daughter of the Australian family (Oh well. Her father was of British background.), who, like the rest of her family liked being part of all our fun too. / / When they left she’d been finishing sixth grade. / When they returned, she was smoking!! / I like to believe that she got into trouble at the girls’ high school, for smoking under the desk. / The story goes that her teachers there clashed with her because they said unkind things about the Dutch royal princesses. / (These anecdotes and memories get a bit vague with time.) / .. / A few years later the two girls, at the sink, took off, for a trip to the Netherlands and stayed there. / In spite of ups and downs, they’re still friends. In 2004 they back-packed reversing the 1967 experience, and mixing with the younger back-packing crowd, took the long way back to Sydney. / ( Her mother has been for a visit a few times too. )
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1967-1969. Been there. Done that. / . / 1967: Appointed to a one-teacher school, in Maude – via- Hay. / . / 1967: Transferred to Bourke Intermediate High School, primary department. / . / 1968: While I was in the Bourke, our friends Gerda and Gerard van Hoorn, followed their daughter, Netty, back to the Netherlands because she seemed to like it there. / . / 1969: During the summer school holidays, my parents and I return to the Netherlands, for the first time (together), after migrating to Australia, in April, 1956. / . / We join the members of at least two of the Dutch Australian social clubs, on a charter flight, organised via Royal Dutch Airlines, K.L.M.. My parents and I get to sit in business class because my father was president of the Netherlands Society, in Bankstown. / . / The planes were DC10s and DC8s. First stop Darwin. Then Indonesia and India, before landing in Amsterdam. / . / Our friends, the van Hoorns take us to the harbour of Scheveningen. / . / My mother’s elder brother and his son, show us their place of work. / . / (Family friend, Mr Gerrit Blom, also from Gouda, came from Canberra to Eastlakes (3.5 *hours’ drive, then) to take us to the airport (10 minutes’ drive)
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This butterfly finally landed! This series of butterfly photos is of one Yellow Swallow Tail Butterfly that put on a show for me. She flew all over the marsh, around and up to me as if she knew her picture was being taken. Check out the series of photos. She is definitely my favorite model.
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This butterfly finally landed! This series of butterfly photos is of one Yellow Swallow Tail Butterfly that put on a show for me. She flew all over the marsh, around and up to me as if she knew her picture was being taken.
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migrating snow geese in Gateway National park
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Brant geese flying south
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brant geese in gateway national recreation area
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brant geese in Jamaica Bay
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hand drawn pen and ink, arrangement and colour via p/shop
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Still friends. Toch vrienden. As time goes by and other clichés!
by MrJoopEngels eerst. Nederlands, hier onder. English first. Dutch, below. / . / I ‘ordered’ a White Christmas. The timing may not have been quite…
Engels eerst. Nederlands, hier onder. English first. Dutch, below. / . / I ‘ordered’ a White Christmas. The timing may not have been quite right, but the snow arrived, in the Netherlands, right after I did and I have already gathered in digital photo format and digital video, memories to last me the rest of my days. / And, believe me, it has not just been through the lenses of those cameras. But so worthwhile having. / The bad news is that looooooooong-time friend, from my primary schooldays, in Gouda, the Netherlands, and his wife, Joke, could not reach Heiloo, where I am staying, from Coevorden, where they live – yet! / To sustain me until we DO meet up they have sent me a HUGE box of Dutch goodies to share with my daughter and her man, when they ‘drop in’ after Boxing Day, to spend a few days, here, in the Netherlands, before completing their around the world flying visits. / . / Many of you have read this before. / When my parents and I migrated, in April, 1956, primary schoolfriends, Piet Perdijk and (girl-)friend, Ria van Groningen, came to see us off, in Amsterdam. / The little bus that brought our relatives, then beat the ship to the coast (the locks), where they waved to us, one last time. / Friend, Piet (pronounced Pete), raised his arm and covered his face and THEN, my mother and friend Gerda (We migrated with her, her husband Gerdard and daughter, Netty), who had put on a brave front, until then, felt the tears well up. / My (late) mother told so often afterwards that she THEN realised that these two friends might never see each other again. / . / Well, we did!! (And we will again! Shortly.) / / . / During the 1969 December-January Summer School Holidays, (I’d been teaching for six years.) we took the opportunity to fly by KLM (DC*) charter flight, (My parents and I) back to the Netherlands. (My father was ‘president’ of the Dutch-Australian social club: The Netherlands Society, in Bankstown and through these clubs, these charteer flights were arranged. So!!!!! My parents and I travelled ‘first class’, with the other ‘presidents and their families.) / . / Two years later, I visited Piet and Joke again, IN Coevorden. / . / Yesterday, Joke emailed me a photo of me, sketching her daughter, in 1969!! / We have yet to meet up but the snow IS melting!!! / . / / . / Als U dit leest dan kent U dit verhaal waarschijnlijk al. / (Maar toch heb ik het zo net weer helemaal verteld, en, ja., ja, ik moest de verbinding vernieuwen. Ik had de tekst bewaard – DACHT IK! Maar het was weg. (SNIK). / . / Dus: Samenvatting: Gisteren kwam ik hier (in Heiloo) weer thuis. Gerry en Peter hadden mij WEER thuis gebracht en ik merkte eerst geeneens dat er een grote doos op tafel stond. / De vriend van de eigenaren hier, (Ton en Christa, die momenteel in mijn huis verblijven) was hier juist binnen geweest, om weer voor de planten en de post te zorgen, toen AL DAT LEKKERS afgeleverd was. / Je kon die doos wel eigenlijk niet missen! Vol met lekkere dingen die ik kan gaan delen met mijn dochter en haar vriend, waaneer zij, na de kerst, hier ook even in Nederland zijn, voor zij door gaan naar Belgie, naar Praag en naar Amerika en dan Sydney – eventjes! / Al dat lekkers was gestuurd door Piet en Joke. / . / In april, 1956, kwamen Pietje Perdijk (Ik word hier weer JopIE genoemd.) en Ria van Groningen, mee in een busje naar de kade van Amsterdam. / Het busje reed na ons afscheid, naar de sluis van IJmuiden, waar onze familie en vrienden van mijn ouders, Jo en Co Mul, en van Gerda, Gerard en Netty van Hoorn.) nog een keer naar ons kwamen zwaaien. / Piet hield zijn arm voor zijn gezicht en TOEN hadden mijn moeder en Gerda er moeite mee. Ze hadden zich goed gehouden tot dan. / Mijn moeder heeft zo vaak gezegd, later: Ik besefte toen dat die jongens elkaar misschien nooit meer zouden zien! / Nou. Dat lukte Maandag j.l., niet, i.v.m., sneeuw, op de wegen. Maar ik ben nog niet weg. Het MOET kunnen lukken. / Ondertussen heb ik hier lekkere dingen te eten en drinken voor ik mijn vriend weeer eens ontmoet, 53 jaar nadat we afscheid namen, in Amsterdam!!
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