Up In Annie's Room
Without Prejudice
I was born Susan Anne Campbell, but everyone calls me Cass. I always wanted to be a Cassandra with delusions of grandeur, so I insisted on Cass or I wouldn't answer. We talked of it recently my siblings and I and of encyclopaedias and Websters dictionary with the half moon steps labelled with a gold letter, we would walk the golden steps with our fingers and learn a new word, every day.
I was 8 and 3 months when the screaming in the night started. Harsh and rasping it woke us all from our beds and sent us stumbling on sleep numbed legs to the source. When I realised it was Lachlan, I said nothing, Mum and Dad were there before us, Heather and I and we padded back to our rooms on bare boards in bare feet and entered the room that Dad had spray painted Battleship Grey which gave us nightmares.
The screams i blamed on the heat and the foetid trapped air, no fly screens so if we didnt want the Christmas beetles in, they had to remain closed.
But maybe it was the fault of The White Australia Policy and Arthur Calwell. We had come to the new land in the fifties, Alistair was 9, Stuart, 8, Heather was 6, Lachlan 4, and me 2, the baby but not for long, Andrew, the only Australian, born in Adelaide came along 4 years later.
Since early 1945, more than 7 million people had come to Australia as new settlers. The trigger for a large-scale migration program was the end of World War II. Agreements were reached with Britain, some European countries and with the International Refugee Organization to encourage migration, including displaced people from war-torn Europe. Approximately 1.6 million migrants arrived between October 1945 and 30 June 1960.
I was born Susan Anne Campbell, but everyone calls me Cass. I always wanted to be a Cassandra with delusions of grandeur, so I insisted on Cass or I wouldn't answer. We talked of it recently my siblings and I and of encyclopaedias and Websters dictionary with the half moon steps labelled with a gold letter, we would walk the golden steps with our fingers and learn a new word, every day.
I was 8 and 3 months when the screaming in the night started. Harsh and rasping it woke us all from our beds and sent us stumbling on sleep numbed legs to the source. When I realised it was Lachlan, I said nothing, Mum and Dad were there before us, Heather and I and we padded back to our rooms on bare boards in bare feet and entered the room that Dad had spray painted Battleship Grey which gave us nightmares.
The screams i blamed on the heat and the foetid trapped air, no fly screens so if we didnt want the Christmas beetles in, they had to remain closed.
But maybe it was the fault of The White Australia Policy and Arthur Calwell. We had come to the new land in the fifties, Alistair was 9, Stuart, 8, Heather was 6, Lachlan 4, and me 2, the baby but not for long, Andrew, the only Australian, born in Adelaide came along 4 years later.
Since early 1945, more than 7 million people had come to Australia as new settlers. The trigger for a large-scale migration program was the end of World War II. Agreements were reached with Britain, some European countries and with the International Refugee Organization to encourage migration, including displaced people from war-torn Europe. Approximately 1.6 million migrants arrived between October 1945 and 30 June 1960.
After World War 11, Australia launched a massive immigration programme, believing that having narrowly avoided a Japanese invasion, Australia must "populate or perish." Hundreds of thousands of displaced Europeans migrated to Australia and over 1,000,000 British Subjects immigrated under the Assisted Migration Scheme, colloquially becoming known as Ten Pound Poms.
The scheme was initially open to citizens of all Commonwealth countries and after the war, was gradually extended to other countries such as the Netherlands and Italy. The qualifications were straightforward: migrants needed to be in sound health and under the age of 45 years. There were initially no skill restrictions, although under the White Australia Policy people from mixed race backgrounds found it very difficult to take advantage of the scheme.
The White Australia Policy was held dear for many years. In 1925 Prime minster Bruce maintained "we intend to keep this country white" and at the start of the war Prime Minister Curtin was still reinforcing the policy by saying, "This country shall remain forever the home of the descendants of those people who came here in peace in order to establish in the South seas and outpost of the British race.
Arthur Calwell was the Minister of Immigration in 1945. He was a staunch advocate of the White Australia Policy and was responsible for implementing the Ten Pound Pom assisted passage scheme. Calwell understood the importance of the media and often appeared on government propaganda news reels to manage public perception and fears around White Australias new immigration policy. He was responsible for hatching a plan to bring a batch of Beautiful Balts to Australia, young immigrants from the Baltic States, with fair hair and blue eyes... to satisfy the perceived demands of the Australian public. In 1946 Calwell claimed that for every foreign migrant there will be ten people from the United Kingdom.
Both the Australian and British governments subsidized the Ten Pound Pom scheme, though Britain gradually reduced its contribution to the fare after 1950, down to 150,000 per year (enough to pay for around 1,000 migrants).
Upon arrival in Australia the government organised transit, reception, accommodation and employment for the Ten Pound Poms in holding centres, transit camps and migrant hostels such as the Bonegilla Reception and Training Centre.
The living conditions in the migrant hostels were often poor and jobs were not always available. The marketing campaign in the UK, with its colourful posters and brochures, had been somewhat deceiving! Around a quarter of a million Poms returned home within a few years of arriving in Australia, though many of these subsequently changed their mind and came back to Australia, they were called Boomerang Poms.
We were dinky di Aussies as far as we were concerned, although my very aristocratic Mother was called a dago once by a Greek cab driver and she slammed the door on him after calling him an Aussie Bastard. We kids were shocked at Mums language but she was shocked at the venom of the cab driver and trembled with rage and had to smoke at least five Capstan cigarettes to calm down , lighting one off the other.
The scheme was initially open to citizens of all Commonwealth countries and after the war, was gradually extended to other countries such as the Netherlands and Italy. The qualifications were straightforward: migrants needed to be in sound health and under the age of 45 years. There were initially no skill restrictions, although under the White Australia Policy people from mixed race backgrounds found it very difficult to take advantage of the scheme.
The White Australia Policy was held dear for many years. In 1925 Prime minster Bruce maintained "we intend to keep this country white" and at the start of the war Prime Minister Curtin was still reinforcing the policy by saying, "This country shall remain forever the home of the descendants of those people who came here in peace in order to establish in the South seas and outpost of the British race.
And, among many others the Ten Pound Poms certainly did the honours and filled up a lot of empty spaces!
Arthur Calwell was the Minister of Immigration in 1945. He was a staunch advocate of the White Australia Policy and was responsible for implementing the Ten Pound Pom assisted passage scheme. Calwell understood the importance of the media and often appeared on government propaganda news reels to manage public perception and fears around White Australias new immigration policy. He was responsible for hatching a plan to bring a batch of Beautiful Balts to Australia, young immigrants from the Baltic States, with fair hair and blue eyes... to satisfy the perceived demands of the Australian public. In 1946 Calwell claimed that for every foreign migrant there will be ten people from the United Kingdom.Both the Australian and British governments subsidized the Ten Pound Pom scheme, though Britain gradually reduced its contribution to the fare after 1950, down to 150,000 per year (enough to pay for around 1,000 migrants).
Upon arrival in Australia the government organised transit, reception, accommodation and employment for the Ten Pound Poms in holding centres, transit camps and migrant hostels such as the Bonegilla Reception and Training Centre.
The living conditions in the migrant hostels were often poor and jobs were not always available. The marketing campaign in the UK, with its colourful posters and brochures, had been somewhat deceiving! Around a quarter of a million Poms returned home within a few years of arriving in Australia, though many of these subsequently changed their mind and came back to Australia, they were called Boomerang Poms. We were dinky di Aussies as far as we were concerned, although my very aristocratic Mother was called a dago once by a Greek cab driver and she slammed the door on him after calling him an Aussie Bastard. We kids were shocked at Mums language but she was shocked at the venom of the cab driver and trembled with rage and had to smoke at least five Capstan cigarettes to calm down , lighting one off the other.
