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here was a time when the stretch of
TSydney Road between the Melbourne
suburbs of Coburg and Brunswick was
celebrated more for its cinemas that ethnic
food outlets. I was part of that time. My parents
and I disembarked from the migrant ship
“Himalaya” at Port Melbourne in 1954 and, by
1955, were residing in Brunswick. We soon
had our own home in Shamrock Street, a lane
dotted crescent linking Albion Street and
Moreland Road. Our home was a jerry-built
weatherboard at number 87, by no means
salubrious, but a much-desired anchor in the
lives of three human beings who had done their
share of wandering the streets and paying “key
money” for the privilege of renting tiny,
uncomfortable rooms in other people’s houses.
One such place in West Brunswick was known
locally as “The Warren” because of its
overcrowded condition. With a labyrinth of
cubicles running off a main corridor, each little
room either contained a migrant family – like
us – or Australian people who had known
better times. Bathroom, toilet and kitchen were
all shared. Tension was a constant factor of life
and the police made frequent visits. So, we Empire, 294 Sydney Rd. Brunswick, c. 1949. Opened 1912; closed 1976.
were happy to eventually move into our own
home, even if it was just across the road from was an irony in her work, as her own marriage victims were the elderly and babies. I was born
“The Warren”. was not a happy one. Whenever reminiscing in London in 1951 and, on displaying
about the wedding, which took place in 1947, symptoms of a bronchial condition, my father
Like most people in Brunswick, my parents she would recall how a black cat had crossed made the decision to head for healthier
were wage workers. Dad, who is Maltese, her path at the church. My father felt the same environs. His brother, Joe, had been working
worked in a factory and Mum continued the way. on the wharves in Melbourne since the 1920s,
career she had begun in the early 1930s back and agreed to nominate us. It was not difficult
home in London, working in a photographic To make matters worse, my father was not at to raise the fare, as it was only £10 per adult
studio, developing and printing photographs. all happy with Australia. Again, the forces of under the assisted passage scheme. My father,
The studio, known as “Astra”, was in Sydney irony were at work. My mother, on boarding who had been so keen to come here, quickly
Road, Coburg, and was a booming small the “Himalaya”, had assured her family that became disillusioned. Australia, to him, was a
business. It could hardly keep up with the she’d be back soon. It had not been her backwater rather than the antipodean version
numbers of newly arrived migrants and decision to emigrate, but my father’s. London of cultured London he was expecting. He
teenagers who were getting married. Astra had been experiencing an environmental found the local people bigoted and reactionary.
specialised in wedding photographs and my disaster known as “smog”. A fatal combination For all his attempts to assimilate, including a
mother churned out high quality black-and- of coal-fuelled household heating emissions, change of surname while in London with the
white ten-by eights of smiling, happy young industrial pollution and fog, it killed thousands Royal Air Force, he felt that his status as a
couples each day, Monday to Friday. There of Londoners in the early 1950s. Its chief “wog” or “dago” was accentuated far more in
Melbourne than it had been in London.

Prior to coming to Melbourne, my parents had
experienced poverty and hardship in their
homelands – and a world war. The latter had
devastated my father’s tiny and beloved
Mediterranean island and resulted in him going
overseas with the Air Force. My mother had
experienced the full force of the London blitz
and somehow overcame her bad nerves to do
duty as a fire-spotter. I was born into the
anxieties and uncertainties of their respective
pasts, of their marriage and of their migration.
As a child, I craved (as did my parents, I’m
sure) a sense of stability in life. When that was
absent, as it was most of the time, I sought
escape through imagination. The pictures, or
movies, or flicks – call them what you will –
provided one way out. I was easy prey to those
Hollywood and English films that idealized
family life. National Velvet was a favourite –
everyone seemed so happy, their roles so set,
home life so comfortable and relaxed and,
when dilemmas and conflicts arose, they were
always resolved before the words “The End”
Alhambra, 828 Sydney Rd. Brunswick c. 1940. Opened 1914; closed 1959. appeared on the screen.

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