I was 15 months old when my family made the journey from Manchester, England to Port Melbourne.

My parents were both on the Ten Pound Poms (an assisted passage scheme for British subjects to migrate to Australia after World War II) and we left in the middle of December 1957. It was a four-week journey and of course I can’t remember any of it but my mother told me that the whole family – she, my father, my older brother and sister and me – were all put in one small cabin. My siblings, who were around nine and ten at the time, said it was an interesting journey and there were lots of other children on board.

We arrived in Australia on January 11th, 1958 and from my parents recollections’, it was a very, very hot day. Out of all the children present, I was picked to have my photo taken for The Herald that was doing a story on the ship which was dubbed the “floating kindergarten” due to the large number of children on board. To be honest, it was probably the ‘baby’ factor that put me on the paper’s third page. Aside from the excitement that my parents felt coming here, there was also a sense of trepidation as they were leaving behind all that they knew to come to a brand new country. One fortunate thing was we had English as a common language and my father had a job in a clothing manufacturing company waiting for him here.

Life wasn’t easy when we first arrived.

Both my parents were working full days within the first week. I was sent to day care so they could concentrate on making ends meet for the family to settle in well here. Their hard work paid off in the end and Australia has been very good to our whole family. I was naturalised in 1977 and Melbourne has been my home ever since. I have been back to England on a number of occasions, but now, I just find London very ‘grey’, where else, Australia, if I were to give it a colour, would be bright yellow.