Almanac Life: I’ve Got a Story

 

I’ve Got a Story

 

Recently I had a question put to me by an interested friend.  So here is the question and answer paraphrased.   The question was something like, “Did your parents immigrate to Australia to have a better life?”  The question made me think, and I have to say the answer is a little more complex, than the simplicity of a ‘better life’.

 

Hi, I’m Stan.  Much of the following is put together from snippets when my parents were alive and pieces I researched after they had died. It’s pretty finite, and my quest to know more about my parents is far from over.  As was the way, my father did not talk much about the WWII years.

 

 

Mum and dad during WW2

 

My parents came to Australia by assisted passage in 1950, with two and a half children.  My father was Polish.  Mum was Irish born, but bought up in Scotland.

 

Mum was born in Belfast in 1924 to a single mother.  Scandalous in those days especially in Ireland.  She was fostered out to a Scottish family, who I suspect was a relative. She was never formerly adopted.  Mum was christened with the same name as her Mum, Eleanor Harris.  She was raised in Peebles, Scotland by Mr & Mrs McGlasson, who were childless and also adopted another child, Albert.

 

At age 16, Mum found out that she was fostered.  She was devasted.  She never did find out who her real mother was, as tracing parents in this situation was not something encouraged until the late 20th century. For all her life, it affected her greatly, not knowing who she was.  I did not know or understand any of this until I was an adult.   During the war years she enlisted in the Womens Auxillary Air Force (WAAF), as ground staff.

 

Dad (Wladyslaw) was born in Radomice, Poland in 1916, at home.  He was the second eldest of six children.  (Two of his siblings died in infancy, and he never forgot them, as a father himself in later life, he named two of his children after them) .  He was christened same day after a journey in a horse and cart of 15 km at a neighbouring town.

 

Wladyslaw was devoted to his mother, who sounded like a gentle soul.  He said his father was a hard man.  Probably typical of Eastern European males around the turn of the twentieth century.

 

Wladyslaw attended the local school, and it was only up to grade 4, so as he was so young he stayed at school for another two years, basically assisting the teacher as a monitor.   He then helped his dad on the farm, and got an ‘apprenticeship’ with a cobbler.  His father actually paid the cobbler, during the apprenticeship.  Later, Wladyslaw returned to the small family farm.

 

Around 19 years of age he either joined or was conscripted to the Polish army (Their cavalry unit—no horses).   Of course, Hitler then invaded Poland.

 

My father never liked talking about these years to us, but occasionally would let us children know of some of the things that happened.   Dad was captured by forces aligned with Germany (Hungry or Yugoslavia?) and placed in an internment camp (basically a concentration camp).  The internment camp was nothing short of a death camp.  One day on a work party outside the camp, Dad saw an opportunity to escape.  He jumped out of a returning work party and hid in a pile of horse manure.  The heat generated by the manure made it the warmest he had felt since being captured.   After his escape, he was assisted by resistance forces to make his way east across Europe.   The various arms of resistance would provide him with a series of written permits dated to move east within certain time frames.   At Budapest he crossed the frozen Danube and fell in love with a girl.   But he had to move on.  So that was a very short relationship.

 

Sometime later he made it to France, where he was again reunited with other Polish troops and fought against the Germans.   The horror of war continued.

 

Then miraculously, the remaining Polish troops were patriated to Britain (in an agreement with the exiled Polish Government) and they ended up in various camp locations across Britain.  For Dad it was a place called Forfar in Scotland (not far from the famous St Andrews Golf Course).  I think this was in 1942.   The local folk were very hospitable, and it was a much more convivial way to see out the rest of the war, than what he had endured in Europe.   Wladyslaw soon learnt to speak English, through interaction with the locals.

 

Dad and Nina in Scotland 1946

 

Mrs McGlasson somehow met my father around this time and he must have met her approval, as she introduced Eleanor to Wladyslaw. My Mum was on leave from the WAAF.    They were married in 1944, and had their first child in 1945.  That year saw the end of the war, and they were both discharged from their respective military appointments.

 

 

Mum on the ship to Australia

 

Post-war Britain, was pretty grey economically and employment wise.    There was the offer of assisted passage to one of the Commonwealth countries.  In 1950, my parents chose Australia and had an Australian sponsor, a dairy farmer in Gippsland, Victoria.

 

So, my parents, embarked on a new life on the other side of the world.  Was it a better life.  Possibly it was.   But I would prefer to say a ‘new life’.    It’s hard to say it was a better life.    Certainly, they were ‘successful’ in their new life, establishing a showcase dairy farm from an undeveloped block of land.  However, my parents were both lost souls as a result of their birth and the aftermath of WWII.   My mother never knew who she really was, and never got the opportunity to find out.  My father had lost his family to behind the Iron Curtain, unable to ever see his beloved mother, his father and siblings again.

 

 

With sister Nina and a grumpy Santa!

 

Nina at Cape Patterson 1952

 

As a child, I was not totally aware of the emotional toll on my parents.  As an adult, I started to join the dots.

 

They share-farmed for about 13 years, until they were granted an allotment on the Heytesbury settlement (Cooriemungle) in 1962.  From an undeveloped 180 acres, my parents transformed that property into a showpiece of a dairy farm.  This again is another story for later if you are interested.

 

 

In Grade 3 0r 4 Timboon Consolidated School

 

I went to Timboon Consolidated School /High School.  I was dux of the high school in 1972.  They could not find anyone else to award the prize to.

 

After leaving high school I wanted to pursue a tertiary education.  My parents could not afford to send me to university. I won a teaching scholarship, which was not really my prefered career path.  Three years of study at Geelong Teachers College was so easy in comparison to the pressure of HSE at Timboon.    A very relaxed environment, which opened my eyes to a different world and new friends.

 

And yes, I had a motorbike.  First a clapped out, smoke belching 2 stroke Yamaha 250.  Then a Honda 360G,  (loved it) which I bought from earnings doing hay carting in the summer break.

 

My first teaching appointment was about thirty kilometres  east of Stawell called Landsborough West in 1976.  It was a one teacher school with eighteen children.   The first few weeks were a bit like the film ‘Wake In Fright’. Again, that’s another story.   But I soon found my way, made a lot of friends, drank a lot of beer, played local football for the first time in my life and did a great job of teaching (I think).  Transport to and from school, was a Ford XY Falcon Ute that I borrowed / bought from my Dad, and sometimes my motorbike.

 

They say the further you go north in Victoria, the friendlier the people.   This was certainly true of this area.   I still have very fond memories of this area and have kept in touch with people from this area.  I could not have had a better learning curve, professionally and socially.

 

 

 

I will continue this story another day…….. if you are interested.

 

 

Read more from Stan Kluzek Here.

 

 

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