Down Under (Chapter 9 - Melbourne, Australia)

Publicity can be very deceptive. We had pictured South Australia and Victoria as being sun-drenched states, particularly in November, which of course is almost midsummer. Yet there we were, shivering in the saddle and realizing the folly of jettisoning warm clothes, including a perfectly good pair of gauntlet gloves. Trying to operate the clutch, change gear, and front brake with one's hands swathed in several pairs of spare socks required some effort. But driving without hand covering in that icy, cutting wind, which blew direct from Antarctica, was sheer agony.

Fortunately, half-way through the journey, the sun came through the thick cloud and we reached the capital of Victoria only partially frozen. We made straight for the NSU agent in the city centre, determined first to thaw out and then to start the ball rolling in the rather hazy direction of replenishing our slender financial resources.

In Melbourne, we hit the jackpot. Within three days, with the kindly assistance of Frank, the agent, I was selling motor-scooters in the city's motoring quarter-another Elizabeth Street. And while I explained how the longest journey could be undertaken quite confidently on one of these little machines, Nita was selling books for Christmas in one of the largest department stores in the world, Myers Emporium.

There was a wonderfully festive atmosphere in Melbourne during our two months' stay; partly from the approach of Christmas but due mainly to the Olympic Games which were just finishing when we arrived. The weather was kind, and although Nita and I worked like Trojans we enjoyed every minute of our enforced stay. Another 'dinkum' Aussie befriended us and threw open his house, later finding a vacant bungalow for us about nine miles outside the city in the suburb of Doncaster.

For the next two months we settled down into a routine and the scooter was used daily as a work horse. We lived very quietly, spending only what was strictly necessary and saving the rest. Gradually the kitty mounted, mostly from our wages and from payment for articles I wrote for the local papers, and fortune smiled on us once again.
Melbourne offers a lot of opportunity for the English migrant. The city is vibrant, young, and fresh. Built symmetrically on a square, all the main roads run directly from north to south or from east to west: within a short time it is quite easy to find one's way around without becoming bogged in a maze of twisting streets.

The driving is of a fast and competent standard, and the only hand signal is the abrupt raising of the right hand as a stop sign. There is no (often misleading) arm flapping which we at home delight in using. Parking meters are in evidence everywhere, although of course we never needed them. The two most striking differences in the world of motoring in Melbourne were the use of U-turnings to branch either left or right, and the enormous number of outside sunshades which were fitted to nearly every vehicle, and are extremely restful under the hot Australian sun.

Working in a city is the best way to learn about the community and its people, as Nita and I did. The essential problem was how to get along with these near-relations. It was not difficult, but there are a few rules to be observed, minor ones perhaps, which if followed can make one's stay exceedingly happy. Not observing them, in this country of essentially outdoor Anglo-Saxons, can bring about real misery, as many people from Britain-particularly emigrants-have found to their cost.

We discussed this problem with both Britons and Australians while we were there, and began to realize the causes of past friction. Ask the average Englishman to name the country with the closest ties with Great Britain and he often replies 'Australia'; he may well have some personal link with Down Under. 'My young brother is in Adelaide-been there since '48-doing very well, too. . . .' Many families in the British Isles seem to have some connection with this twelve-thousand-mile-distant land, and on reflection recall that 'young Johnny is getting on well. . . .' Why, then, are the emigrant ships, when the cost of passage is so attractively assisted, not loaded to capacity with good British stock? And why has it become necessary for an uneasy Australian Government, concerned at the constant influx of southern Europeans, to launch a 'Bring out a Briton' scheme? Why, also, do numbers of emigrants return to Britain every week? To find the answer one must go deeper than the reasons usually given, that 'the cost of living was too high', 'we couldn't find a house', or 'I wouldn't have minded if my mother had come out', etc.

Australia resembles England in so many respects that when the new arrival steps off the gang-plank he is almost immediately open to what may possibly be the greatest single cause of ill-feeling between our two countries-comparison. He gazes around at the familiar advertisements of his favourite cigarettes, dodges between the latest-model British cars, and armed with a district map to guide him, gapes with amazement at an Alice-in- Wonderland version of his homeland: Brighton, Preston, Kew, and Derby. Familiar names, yet alien in their jumbled setting. 'Come on, mate-get a move on!' cries a voice almost like his own, and he jumps aside to avoid the hurrying throngs in King's Cross; at every turn he is reminded of his homeland. Maybe their pubs are not so cosy as ours, he thinks, and they have private cars with checkered paint-work and not proper taxies, and they're a bit behind with all these trams. . . . Small enough criticisms in themselves, but if he is foolish enough to voice these thoughts and continue to make unfavourable comparisons it is not long before he is labelling the Australians as dour and unfriendly.

He will not lose an opportunity to tell everyone he meets that Sydney Harbour Bridge was designed by an Englishman, that Nevil Shute is not an Australian, and how much better the road surfaces are in England. He doesn't like all the radio advertising, and the boy who throws the daily paper over the garden wall instead of putting it through the letter-box, and so on. But by restraint of speech and a tactful approach at the outset, the newcomer can avoid much unhappiness and frustration that might lead to his joining the crowd disembarking once more at Southampton.

All this does not mean that a migrant, or visitor, must necessarily become a mute, spiritless imitation of an Australian in order to enjoy his stay. But it is as well to remember that his colonial brother (although tough on the outside) is sensitive regarding his growing country and does not want to hear anything disparaging about the land under the Southern Cross. My wife and I met a good cross-section in Australia during our year of wandering, and found them to be a proud, commendably nationalistic people. They will not thank you to tell them that their country is a bit of England in another hemisphere. It is not 'just like England' (or Scotland, or Ireland, or W ales), although of course in some respects there has been a very big influence from the' Old Country'; but first and last it is indisputably Australia.

The Englishwoman's reactions to the cost of housekeeping in Australia are not always favourable at first. One housewife who worked alongside Nita in the department store, although in a comfortable position, held very strong views on this: 'It's impossible for me to glide over the practical aspects of comparison,' she said. 'Naturally, as a housewife, my chief concern is money and whether there will be enough to keep us reasonably happy. When we first arrived in Melbourne I was shocked at the price of everything-and am still.' The thrifty housewife is baffled to find that the familiar two-shilling pieces (with kangaroo on one side) will only buy half the amount of chocolate it would have in England and, psychologically, would feel better about it if the coins were quite different. On the credit side, however, I was more than happy to pay only 4s. 10d. for two ounces of tobacco and 3s. 10d. for each gallon of petrol; and then remember that those prices were not sterling.

Because of Australia's similarities to Britain, people often fail to judge her for herself. They expect too much of her and cannot understand why they should sometimes receive less value for their money than at home. Being a nation of grumblers, and not averse to self-criticism, the Britisher can jeopardize his own position in Australia by a stream of complaints against the system which he would criticize in just the same way in England. Having chosen to try his arm in Australia, the emigrant can find (as one sandy-haired little man from Manchester did) that' the missus and I were miles apart and I had to line up every day for two months before I landed this packing¬department job. And this Melbourne weather! Talk about a land of sunshine. Been colder here than I ever was in Manchester. Four-and-six for a haircut! No National Health here, chum. You could drop dead in the street and no one would worry. . . .' Harmless and humorous, born to grumble, with consequent damage to his own chances, the little man already had visions of returning to Manchester. I remember his parting shot: 'I'm taking the wife and kids back home and you don't find us shifting again, not for atom bombs, credit squeezes, or our lousy weather. At least we'll be looked after.' So much for the product of a welfare state; too much emphasis, perhaps, on welfare and not enough on self-reliance.

'As game as Ned Kelly' is one of the highest compliments paid by Australians to a man who won't give up. Ned Kelly was a battler and a notorious bush ranger, but so great is their admiration for the tenacious Ned that he has been forgiven all his crimes (including murder) and as the years have passed and legends grown he has been elevated to a position of first national hero. As I see it the newcomer to Australia has to measure up, in some degree, to the great Ned for tenacity in wresting a living from the land of the gum and the mulga.

For the man who is determined, therefore, to overcome many difficulties, and who is constantly on the look-out for somewhere decent to house his family and who is willing to work all day and half through the night, the chances are that soon everything will-in the vernacular-'come good'. He will not mind being called a 'Pommy'. Someone gives him the tip and he discovers that not all the modem bungalows command a fabulous rent. His colleagues begin calling him by his Christian name and he hears offers, casually voiced, to give him a hand with the new house he is building at week-ends. And so the new arrival comes of age. No longer is he a 'Pommy', but 'Out from the Old Country', a Cobber. Once this stage is reached and the images of England have receded a little, then he will probably cease to make those twelve-thousand-mile mental journeys and find that Australian friends are among the most open-hearted and loyal that a man could wish for.

The disillusioned man in the packing department had said, 'They don't look after us.' And I think I understand what he meant. In England he had known the social security of feeling that the Welfare State had his life neatly tabulated, and that the machinery behind it would deal with any contingency which might affect him. Perhaps he had just forgotten how to stand on his own feet. This, of course, is not so important in Britain today. A pioneer spirit is not a necessity. But in a young country, gingerly feeling its way to adulthood, self-reliance is essential, even in the cities.

One must have the ability to see Australia, not as a replica, but as the home of a proud younger brother, and the capacity to accept an exciting challenge as an independent person. I do not for one moment think these qualities are non-existent in the average Briton. So why, then, are not more of them sailing out there?