The Southern Cross
Without Prejudice
We left Southhampton on the 22nd of November 1968. I was 16, George, 18, David 12 and Helen 4.
I took the photo of everyone sitting on the steps of the swimming pool.
Joy and Hubby and kids were there. My half sister who was later to find out the father of her 3 kids was not what he seemed to be. Coming home one day and finding him in bed with another Man.
The weather was freezing and grey. lowering skies I was so sick of day after day, missing the beaches and pools of Australia. I might have been born here on the British Isles in Edinburgh Scotland but it was no longer my home.
Someone once said that, your home country is your wife and your new country, your mistress and you choose to stay unfaithful all your life. And that was how I was, I loved having an extended family. And I would return and see them for years.
I love England, and I have always thought what a nice place that would be to retire to, a little English village, but everything I love is here in Melbourne, so it's trips only. I love my Aunty Betty who is 90 this Monday, and no doubt she will be out for another visit, soon.
Back to The Southern Cross. ..........
The Atlantic Crossing was terrible, rough, unending sea sickness brought us down like nine pins. Bodies heaving, retching, right left and centre, it was a shocker. Dad sailed through it all, never givimg in to sickness.
The other passengers were the same as us and our Dining room Steward, Rodney said the dining room was deserted except for Dad and a few other cast iron stomachs. While we were hurtling off top bunks and barely made it to the hand basin, poor little cabin steward coming in with mop and bucket, and the smell of the disinfectant would soon make us vomit again, it was sheer unending agony.
One person had to be put off at the first port of call, elderly and dehydrated. So sick, they had been in the hospital most of the first leg of the journey. We recovered after about 5 days and Dad, the little soldier, soldiered on.
When we asked how he was, only ever replied he was " exhausted" a bit.
So we went up to our first dinner, ravenous and ready to chew our arms off and on the menu was Boston Baked Beans, hand made with maple syrup dressing, creamy potatoes, vegies, and we all ordered them.
They came to the table with pork back fat straps, striped and scored and looking divine with little cradles of oil on them.
Dad took one look and rushed off much to our suprise,
"Whats' wrong with Dad?", I asked,
George replying,
"He's just gone off to be exhausted again."
So the first thing we did, now that we were so much better was explore the boat and goin up on deck was magic. The sea was calm, the sky was blue and the breeze was freah, and after so much sickness we felt the wind of health and vitality returning.
There was music coming from the back deck and we all peered over and the crew were playing the radio at top volume and painting in the sun. Some had bandannas tied on their heads and for the first time I heard Evie, parts 1, 2 and 3 and thought it was outstanding.
It was only 72 degrees, so I in my wisdom decided to sun bake near the pool. The cine film George took shows me in a blue button front dress, arching my back and posing for the film maker and by that night I was tossing in my top bunk, so badly sunburned, Mum and Dad had to fetch the doctor.
And guess what I got??, 5 days in bed, flat on my back, unable to move. The burns so severe my smallpox scar re opened from five years before and wept blood and pus all down my arm.
We'd been told the scar tissue was dead tissue but the burns reactivated the cells and I had small pox fever all over again, screaming out at the vivid hallucinations you get in your dreams.
It was like Day Of The Triffids but in drag. I can remember the walking flowers, yellow and bordered in black that threatened to overwhelm me.
I lay flat on my back and had pain killers, but nothing worked. Blisters appearing within hours and all joining up to one big bubble down my arms and when it popped the skin tightened and the pain was worse.
I cried at my own stupidity and I was so angry with myself and missing all the fun was painful as well. Everyone was so good to me and we tried baby oil on the burns and Zinc cream usually for nappy rash and if a the slightest breeze came near me I would sob in agony. Stupid girl, taking that lily white body out to the sun and wind.
But I eventually recovered and David and George had palled up with some kids, so we had kids to hang around with. We went all over the boat once again and Debbie, a friend and I sashayed passed the painting crew.
She was an open hearted flirt and was my age and grabbed George in an intimate place in the pool and he only just told me about it this year.
I was so dumb, I just thought she was a harmless flirt but she meant business, George said. And he had moved away, prudish. We all were I guess, the UK having closeted us up, especially attending a Grammar School, we were total little snobs and let it be known.
We spoke with a mixture of broad Yorkshire, like the "Eee By Gum" accent or like our Mother with little upper class accents. It depended on who we were with.
If we were with adults we played ladies and gentleman, and with our friends, rough house knock about kids. We drove the crew mad with our pranks and perfidity and were suitable shocked when we found out "The Australian Nurses", were getting drunk at nights and cavorting in the pool, naked.
We had five years of Britain being the number one country and classifying the "Aussies", as rough and colonial. We looked at each other hearing about the nurses behaviour and were shocked and tut tutted a lot. even Debbie, The hypocrite.
Our first port was Trinidad and it was gorgeous, big splashy red flowers and all steel bands, playing on what looked like cut down 44 gallon drums. The music, the tropical heat, the colours and markets, temples, parks, it was lush and we loved it. Dad especially, an all steel band, now you're talking!.
We danced in front of the street bands, and Debbie and I were allowed to go off exploring on our own. An unusual treat. So we set off across the city and just happened to meet up with some of the cheeky crew and Debbie went off with one, for a passionate snog and his friend eyed me off and I thought,
"Not a chance, buster. "
I was a very innocent girl and very protected. I was furious with Debbie and had to find my way back on my own and all she said, was,
"Where did you get to ??"
But it was all better and we sailed off to Cuaracao and the Panama Canal. and that was stunning, we rose really early so we could see the entry into it and our dignified passage through. It was the most incredible and the largest and most difficult engineering feat in the history of the World. and we were in awe of it all.
The trip through takes 8 to 10 hours and we didn't get tired of looking, when the canal was first begun in 1880, 21,500 people died. mainly from malaria and yellow fever and land slides. that was under the French and they stopped the project.
The USA started it up again and this time 5,600 deaths occurred and it was eventually finished in 1914. The construction meant days saved not having to go around the treacherous Cape Horn.
We went to Curacao and Panama and and they were pretty similar and we then started the long haul across the Pacific to Tahiti. There were costume parties and Mum went in her black cocktail dress with a long cigarette holder and a chain around her waist, a chain smoker, which was true.
The costume that won was a girl dressed as The Sydney Opera House and we were convinced she had bought in London or somewhere. It was so elaborate and clever.
I went as a Hula girl and looked like a little yorkshire pudding, dressed in feathers, bikini top and a Grass skirt, lei around my neck.
To be continued
Love Janette
We left Southhampton on the 22nd of November 1968. I was 16, George, 18, David 12 and Helen 4.
I took the photo of everyone sitting on the steps of the swimming pool.
Joy and Hubby and kids were there. My half sister who was later to find out the father of her 3 kids was not what he seemed to be. Coming home one day and finding him in bed with another Man.
The weather was freezing and grey. lowering skies I was so sick of day after day, missing the beaches and pools of Australia. I might have been born here on the British Isles in Edinburgh Scotland but it was no longer my home.
Someone once said that, your home country is your wife and your new country, your mistress and you choose to stay unfaithful all your life. And that was how I was, I loved having an extended family. And I would return and see them for years.
I love England, and I have always thought what a nice place that would be to retire to, a little English village, but everything I love is here in Melbourne, so it's trips only. I love my Aunty Betty who is 90 this Monday, and no doubt she will be out for another visit, soon.
Back to The Southern Cross. ..........
The Atlantic Crossing was terrible, rough, unending sea sickness brought us down like nine pins. Bodies heaving, retching, right left and centre, it was a shocker. Dad sailed through it all, never givimg in to sickness.
The other passengers were the same as us and our Dining room Steward, Rodney said the dining room was deserted except for Dad and a few other cast iron stomachs. While we were hurtling off top bunks and barely made it to the hand basin, poor little cabin steward coming in with mop and bucket, and the smell of the disinfectant would soon make us vomit again, it was sheer unending agony.
One person had to be put off at the first port of call, elderly and dehydrated. So sick, they had been in the hospital most of the first leg of the journey. We recovered after about 5 days and Dad, the little soldier, soldiered on.
When we asked how he was, only ever replied he was " exhausted" a bit.
So we went up to our first dinner, ravenous and ready to chew our arms off and on the menu was Boston Baked Beans, hand made with maple syrup dressing, creamy potatoes, vegies, and we all ordered them.
They came to the table with pork back fat straps, striped and scored and looking divine with little cradles of oil on them.
Dad took one look and rushed off much to our suprise,
"Whats' wrong with Dad?", I asked,
George replying,
"He's just gone off to be exhausted again."
So the first thing we did, now that we were so much better was explore the boat and goin up on deck was magic. The sea was calm, the sky was blue and the breeze was freah, and after so much sickness we felt the wind of health and vitality returning.
There was music coming from the back deck and we all peered over and the crew were playing the radio at top volume and painting in the sun. Some had bandannas tied on their heads and for the first time I heard Evie, parts 1, 2 and 3 and thought it was outstanding.
It was only 72 degrees, so I in my wisdom decided to sun bake near the pool. The cine film George took shows me in a blue button front dress, arching my back and posing for the film maker and by that night I was tossing in my top bunk, so badly sunburned, Mum and Dad had to fetch the doctor.
And guess what I got??, 5 days in bed, flat on my back, unable to move. The burns so severe my smallpox scar re opened from five years before and wept blood and pus all down my arm.
We'd been told the scar tissue was dead tissue but the burns reactivated the cells and I had small pox fever all over again, screaming out at the vivid hallucinations you get in your dreams.
It was like Day Of The Triffids but in drag. I can remember the walking flowers, yellow and bordered in black that threatened to overwhelm me.
I lay flat on my back and had pain killers, but nothing worked. Blisters appearing within hours and all joining up to one big bubble down my arms and when it popped the skin tightened and the pain was worse.
I cried at my own stupidity and I was so angry with myself and missing all the fun was painful as well. Everyone was so good to me and we tried baby oil on the burns and Zinc cream usually for nappy rash and if a the slightest breeze came near me I would sob in agony. Stupid girl, taking that lily white body out to the sun and wind.
But I eventually recovered and David and George had palled up with some kids, so we had kids to hang around with. We went all over the boat once again and Debbie, a friend and I sashayed passed the painting crew.
She was an open hearted flirt and was my age and grabbed George in an intimate place in the pool and he only just told me about it this year.
I was so dumb, I just thought she was a harmless flirt but she meant business, George said. And he had moved away, prudish. We all were I guess, the UK having closeted us up, especially attending a Grammar School, we were total little snobs and let it be known.
We spoke with a mixture of broad Yorkshire, like the "Eee By Gum" accent or like our Mother with little upper class accents. It depended on who we were with.
If we were with adults we played ladies and gentleman, and with our friends, rough house knock about kids. We drove the crew mad with our pranks and perfidity and were suitable shocked when we found out "The Australian Nurses", were getting drunk at nights and cavorting in the pool, naked.
We had five years of Britain being the number one country and classifying the "Aussies", as rough and colonial. We looked at each other hearing about the nurses behaviour and were shocked and tut tutted a lot. even Debbie, The hypocrite.
Our first port was Trinidad and it was gorgeous, big splashy red flowers and all steel bands, playing on what looked like cut down 44 gallon drums. The music, the tropical heat, the colours and markets, temples, parks, it was lush and we loved it. Dad especially, an all steel band, now you're talking!.
We danced in front of the street bands, and Debbie and I were allowed to go off exploring on our own. An unusual treat. So we set off across the city and just happened to meet up with some of the cheeky crew and Debbie went off with one, for a passionate snog and his friend eyed me off and I thought,
"Not a chance, buster. "
I was a very innocent girl and very protected. I was furious with Debbie and had to find my way back on my own and all she said, was,
"Where did you get to ??"
But it was all better and we sailed off to Cuaracao and the Panama Canal. and that was stunning, we rose really early so we could see the entry into it and our dignified passage through. It was the most incredible and the largest and most difficult engineering feat in the history of the World. and we were in awe of it all.
The trip through takes 8 to 10 hours and we didn't get tired of looking, when the canal was first begun in 1880, 21,500 people died. mainly from malaria and yellow fever and land slides. that was under the French and they stopped the project.
The USA started it up again and this time 5,600 deaths occurred and it was eventually finished in 1914. The construction meant days saved not having to go around the treacherous Cape Horn.
We went to Curacao and Panama and and they were pretty similar and we then started the long haul across the Pacific to Tahiti. There were costume parties and Mum went in her black cocktail dress with a long cigarette holder and a chain around her waist, a chain smoker, which was true.
The costume that won was a girl dressed as The Sydney Opera House and we were convinced she had bought in London or somewhere. It was so elaborate and clever.
I went as a Hula girl and looked like a little yorkshire pudding, dressed in feathers, bikini top and a Grass skirt, lei around my neck.
To be continued
Love Janette
