What was special about January 10th 1982, give up? well it was the night that the coldest ever temperature was recorded in England.
I was watching the ten o’clock news with my wife Sue and when the weather came on they said that a record low of minus 26 deg. centigrade had been recorded at Newport in Shropshire. I couldn’t let the opportunity to experience, what would probably be a once in a lifetime event for me, slip by. I went and woke the kids up, Richard 10, Sarah 13 and told them to put on their warmest clothes because this was the coldest night ever and we were going out.
If they thought I was mad they never showed it and ten minutes later we were wading through snow a foot deep in the field at the end of the street, in places the snow had drifted to 4 foot deep and we just dived into it. We had great fun that night and I have never regretted taking the kids out to experience it.
Well, now here we were, 12 months later and venturing outside on our first morning in a new country and a new record for us – 40 degrees heat. The heat felt oppressive to us, having just come from England’s winter but we wanted to explore our new surroundings.
The hostel was much larger than I had thought, the main accommodation consisted of 4 apartment blocks, each having 24 flats on 3 floors, so that was about 100 families all up. There was a large playing field, a shop, a tiny bank and a canteen and kitchens which doubled as a social hall and youth club. Over on the far side of the camp there was the old accommodation, disused at that time, consisting of several rows of Nissen huts made of corrugated iron, this was where the original migrants of the 10 pound pom era of the 50s had been housed, thankfully things had moved on since then.
We eventually arrived at the main gate and looked through to the leafy suburb beyond and wondered if we were allowed outside, there were no gun turrets so we ventured out for a 10 minute walk but felt strange because we were the only people walking and anyone going past in a car gave us a stare, we realised later that of course no sensible family goes for a stroll in 40 degree heat.
Safely back in the camp we went to see the manager to book in formally, he was very helpful and told us that normally we would only be allowed to stay for 6 weeks but because the migrant programme had finished and we were in the last intake, that we could stay as long as we liked and indeed some families had already been there for 6 months, this was reassuring news but I was confused, why would people want to stay here when they could buy a house with all the money they were earning.
Welcome to the real world Trevor, in the 18 months it had taken us to get our visas, Australia had gone from boom to bust and just about everyone in the hostel was on the dole, that’s why they were still there. The hostel even had its own dole office/job centre, open twice a week, where you could apply for jobs and hand in your dole forms.
Not exactly the land of milk and honey that I was expecting, I had come here to make a better life and the last thing I wanted to do was go on the dole. Nevertheless, next day I went down to the office and signed on. We were to get 200 dollars a week out of which the hostel took 140 for food and accommodation leaving us with 60 dollars for beer and petrol, sounded like a good deal to me.
After 2 days of hanging around the hostel I was going stir crazy and decided that I must hire a car and explore Perth, I had opened a bank account before we left England and had 1000 pounds in there, so I went down to the little bank, which was not much more than a garden shed, and told the sole employee that I wanted to draw out 100 dollars. “What do you want that for” he said, I was a bit taken aback - people in banks don’t normally say that. “Well I was going to hire a car” I replied sheepishly. “Oh you don’t want to waste your money like that” he said and proceeded to tell me about his mate who ran a car yard and would lend me a car.
I said I would think about it and sensing a rip off I left without any money.
Later that day I was in the hostel shop and mentioned to the shopkeeper about the car and the bank teller, he assured me it was all quite innocent and that the guy who owned the car yard did good business selling cars to new arrivals and that he was well respected in the hostel, feeling less gullible I gave the car man a ring and he agreed to come and pick us up and take us to his car yard in Perth. So the afternoon saw us being driven into Perth for our first look at the big city.
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