Time to Knock Off

Next day the switchboard arrives on a truck and everybody gathers together to carry it off the truck into the plant room. My job is to connect the entire field wiring which had already been done into the switchboard and test it. I shudder, there are thousands of wires, some are marked, and others are not. It’ll take me weeks to sort that mess out. Weeks up here in Mt Isa, weeks in this heat, weeks away from my car, weeks away from Sue and the girls upstairs, I’m very depressed.

One of the Carrier ute's (pick-up)

Four o’clock and the boys tell me to ‘knock off’. Knock off what, I ask. Stop working they tell me, we’re going to the club. We all climb onto Bill’s ute and drive to the Irish club in town. Pots of beer are being delivered, and I throw mine back, it never even hits the side. Another follows the same way. Six o’clock and we’re back in the mess for dinner. It’s cooled off a little but it’s still hot. The meal is basic but tastes ok.

After dinner we go to town, there are four pubs, one on each corner of the town block. We have a couple of beers in each one, it’s still hot so we need them. We walk back to the sub-contractors barracks of Mt Isa Mines Ltd.

Mount Isa

It’s Friday and Urs calls me into the office. He informs em that I have to go to Mt Isa on Monday, installing the Switchboard I have been wiring. He hands me my airline ticket and tells me to be at the airport at 9.00 am on Monday Morning. Where’s Mt Isa, I ask.  Up North, he says.

And how long will I be in Mt Isa? I ask. As long as it takes, he replies.

I go home and look at a map.  The distance from Brisbane to Mt Isa is from Thun to Stockholm, and here he is handing me an airline ticket for such a distance. Back in Switzerland, we would have planned such a trip for weeks beforehand, and would have had many sleepless nights.

I go home and pack my bag. Ben will have to take me to the airport on Monday morning. I am trying to impress the girls upstairs but can’t, they tell me oh, you’re going bush. Hey, everyone, Willie is going bush on Monday. It’s taken for granted. What a strange country.

Monday morning I get to the airport nice and early. Ben is more excited than me; he knows he gets to drive my car home and presumably while I’m gone.

The mining town of Mount Isa

I’m being met in Mt Isa by Bill Bowman, the sheetmetal foreman in his ute. He takes me to the mine’s accommodation building in town. It’s very hot, the ute is not air conditioned and Bill tells me it’s normal such high temperatures. He also tells me to get changed into work clothes he waits in the ute, then we drive into the mine complex to the new building. The plant room where the new switchboard is going is even hotter than outside. Within no time I'm soaking wet with perspiration. But it's lunch time and the hooter goes off. We walk down to the mess and cue up for lunch. The mess has ceiling fans that blow hot air around. Hot air from the hot climate and from the hot kitchen. At least they have cold water.

I meet the other Carrier workers, mostly sheetmetal workers and a couple of pipe fitters. I’m the only electrician. 

My first experience with the Swiss Society

Fred Pieren is the president of the Swiss Society of Queensland. He calls and tell us that the Swiss Consul General from Sydney is coming to Queensland and the club is going up to Binna Burra on Sunday for a picnic. Ben and I are invited to go along with them. On Sunday Morning we walk to Sue’s flat in Red Hill, and when Fred and the Consul General arrive we all climb into several cars to drive to Binna Burra. I end up sitting next to the Consul General in Fred’s car. He asked me when did I came to Australia and where do I work. I tell him where I work and he asks me if I know Urs. Of course, I reply, he is the chief electrical engineer of our company.

He’s not an engineer, the Consul General says, he’s an electrician, He used to work at Mt Isa Mines as an electrician. I’m starting wonder, is my boss lying? He told me he has an electrical degree from Zürich Technical High School. I will have to check that out. 

Binna Burra Gold Coast Hinterland

We’re driving up a very windy road into mountains. In front of us is another car with a CH sticker at the back. He puts his blinkers out at every bend. I think that’s strange.

In Binna Burra, there are lots of Swiss already there. A Bar-B-Que is in full swing and before long we’re into real Swiss Bratwürste, specially made by a Swiss butcher in Brisbane, potato and bean salads, it’s great to taste real Swiss food again. Shame there is no real Swiss beer.

Some bloke comes over to Ben and me and ask us when we came to Australia. Before long he points out to another chap in the crowd and tells us to be wary of him, he can’t be trusted, he says. We’re taken aback. This guy doesn’t know us and warns us of other Swiss people, very strange. Sue comes back with another sausage. I’m full.


The view over the Gold Coast Hinterland is fabulous, the rolling hills remind me a little of the Jura region in Switzerland but the vegetation is vastly different. There is real rain forest nearby and we take a short walk through it. I am fascinated. I will come back here to explore the area further.

Later the chap we’ve been warned about comes over and asks us if the other guy had said anything to us. You’re new here, he says I’ve never seen you here. So, if this other guy said anything to you, don’t believe him. He’s a liar, everyone knows that.  Ben and I look at each other, are these people for real? I think that's the last time I will join a Swiss outing.

It's Party Time

Sue and her brother are asking me to a Bar-B-Que at Fred’s house in Newmarket. I pick up Sue from her flat and we drive over to Fred and Shelley’s place. It’s a nice house, up on a hill with a great view over Newmarket. There are a few people there, lawyers, business people, I feel out of place. Sue looks after me. She drinks a lot and gets quit tipsy.

My first BBQ

We’re all gathered around the pool area. The food Shelley has prepared is good. Lots of meat, salads, I tuck in. Food cooked by someone else always tastes good when you eat a lot of tinned food usually.

Fred comes over and asks me to take Sue home, by now she is quite drunk. We get her out into my car, she can hardly walk. As we drive up Newmarket Road she says she’s going to be sick. Oh Great. Not in my new car I say. I pull in at the next side street and kick her out of the car. I can hear her throwing up against someone’s front fence. She gets back in the car saying she feels better now.

I drive her to her home, and guide her up the stairs to her flat. She’s fumbling for the keys, not managing very well at all. I take her handbag, take out her keys and open the door. By now she’s half a sleep. I guide her into her bedroom and put her to bed. She is asleep before I leave her bedroom.

When I get back to my own flat, there is a party going on downstairs in and around the garage. The girls upstairs have invited a lot of their student mates over for a party. Ben is amongst them. I have to leave the car in the street, the garage is otherwise occupied.

They are a nice bunch of people and take a keen interest in us. We still find it hard to communicate properly and conversations are labouring but we persist. It’s the only way to learn. Ben finds it extremely difficult and says very little.

The party goes on well into the night. There is no use going to bed, the noise wouldn’t let us sleep anyway, plus we are enjoying ourselves.  Parties in Australia are nothing we had ever experienced back home.

A party in Switzerland takes place in a restaurant with everyone leaving after a couple of hours. Not many parties are held in homes. Swiss people don’t like the privacy of their homes invaded.

I need a car

The weeks come and go, I need a car. Fred, Sue’s brother tells me one day that he has a mate in the used car trade. He organises to have a five-year-old Falcon delivered to the flat in Red Hill. Ben, being in the car trade, checks the vehicle over and declares it ‘clean’. We agree to a price and I tell him I don’t have that sort of money. No problem, Fred says, we’ll get you hire purchase. You have a steady job, no problem getting a loan. Next day Fred arrives with the paperwork from a Finance company who will loan me the money to buy my car. We drive to Stones Corner to the office of the Finance Company to give them the paperwork and they give me a cheque made out to Fred’s mate in the used car business.

My first car - a 1967 XL Sedan

We drive over to his place and I drive home with my first Australian car. It smells nice, looks spotlessly clean and when Ben gets home from work we go for a drive into town. We cruise down Queen Street and I do a right turn into Edward Street where a policeman steps into the road and stops me. Didn’t I see the no-right-turn sign he asks me. No, sorry officer, I reply. He writes out a ticket for twenty bucks. Well done, Bohlen, the first night in my first car in Australia and I already have to pay a traffic fine.

I'm getting my trade's license

I've been working in the electrical workshop at Carrier Air Conditioning, wiring switchboards of large air conditioning systems, for a couple of months now, still without a full license. I remind the boss of that. He finally gets around organising for me to get a proper license.

A typical air conditioning switchboard

A date has been set where I go for my Queensland Electrical Fitter and Mechanic’s Certificate with the Electrical Workers Board. I’m a bit nervous, mainly because of my limited English.

I find my way in to the Board’s Office in town and am ushered into an inspector’s office. He is a friendly chap, asks me about cabling colours which I tell him, then he wants to know all about installations in Switzerland. How do we do this and how do we do that. We chat for quite a while then he tells me I can go, my certificate will be in the mail. I'm a licensed Electrical Mechanic and Fitter - not a licensed Electrician yet. That has yet to come.

A missed Opportunity

Ian McLellan, the Scottish lad from upstairs asks us if we are interested to go with him to the Folk Club in Ann Street. He loves folk music and we go along. It’s opposite the Canberra Hotel, down a narrow lane way, very dim and dark and has a small stage in the corner. No alcohol is served but Ian is friendly with Stan, from the Wayfarers, a band that performs every night at the Folk Centre. Stan sounds Irish and in their break, beckons Ian, Ben and myself to follow him. We go down the road, to the Crest Hotel public bar and drown a few pots of beer, before returning back to the Folk Centre.

There is a Big Band formation performing when we return. They are very good. We get to know them after they perform. Before I left Thun, I was playing in the local Big Band 'The Modernaires', named after the singing quartet  that used to accompany the Glenn Miller band in the 40s.

Me, second from left on trumpet in the 'Modernaires'

 The trumpet player of the band tonight, finds out that I play the trumpet too and have played in a Big Band in Switzerland. He tells me that they are a trumpet short and he invites me to come along next Monday night to their band rehearsal. They rehearse at the ABC Studios at Toowong and I’m very excited but worried about my lack of fluency in English. But I am interested to go along, so Ian takes me to Palings Music Store in Queen Street and I buy myself a trumpet.

Monday comes and I am nervous. I ask Ben to come along with me but he is not interested in music and refuses. In the end I chicken out and don’t go either. I am very sorry about that decision later on, I just know. 


Next - I am getting my trade license 

The Past is haunting me

Every week I get a letter from the girl I had met in hospital. Why don’t I come home? She misses me terribly and when she starts writing that my Mum and Dad miss me I know I must write her a strong letter. 


        I explain that I like Australia and in any case I’m committed to stay a couple of years there is nothing I can do about it.

But still, the letters arrive every week. I mention to Ben I wish she would stop writing.  A couple of weeks later I get a letter from a strange person I don't recognise. When I open the letter, I recognise her handwriting. She tells me she had received a letter from Ben, my flat mate, telling her to stop writing to me as it upsets me and he would destroy any further letters from her if he found them before I did. That’s why she used another name to write to me. I don't answer the letter.

Lunch is a problem

My staple lunch diet - Ham Sandwich

Everyone takes his or her own lunch to work, so do I. I make myself a ham sandwich in the morning but as the weeks go by I am getting bored with ham sandwiches, I start being more adventurous with my ham sandwiches by adding first cheese and then cheese and lettuce  with the ham still between two slices of square sliced bread, out of  greased paper. 

I keep seeing the word ‘Pies’ everywhere. Not sure what they are so I ask someone. I am told that they taste nice so I buy one and and discover what a meat pie is, so I start buying meat pies every day from the local Greek snack bar next door to Carriers but after a few weeks become sick of eating pies every day. Then someone suggests I try a hamburger, whatever that is. Again I buy one at the Greek place next door, like it  and start eating hamburgers every day.

Mealtimes are a problem as well. We still cook everything in tins but get sick of tinned sausages. We have no idea how to cook meat. Ben suggests we just buy one and cook it in water but that doesn’t sound right somehow. We ask the girls upstairs and they come down teaching us how to cook a steak. So gradually we try beef, then pork and slowly start to learn to cook for ourselves.

Ben says he likes rice. So do I. Jennifer says it’s easy, just boil water in a saucepan and add a cup of rice into the boiling water. We try but once the water is boiling I pour a cup full of rice into it. It doesn’t look much so I add a second cup. Ben says he wants two cups as well so we add another two cups.

We discover rice grows during boiling

The rice is expanding and the saucepan looks full so we boil more water in a second saucepan and move some of the rice to the new pan but still it’s getting bigger so a third saucepan is added and finally the frying pan. We call upstairs for help and the girls come down laughing, 'We told you to add one cup of rice not four', they say. After a good laugh, they stay for rice and a quarter stake. We’re learning. 

But we're happy, it is a great feeling to actually cooking food from scratch, rather than just opening tins. Sharing with our upstairs neighbours is just a bonus. 


I love Australia and although, we've been here for just a few weeks, I am certain I could settle here for good. 

Starting Work

Tram at the Treasury Building (Today's Casino)

Monday morning I take the bus early in the morning. I have been told that the bus stopping right outside our block of flats will take me into George Street near the Treasury Building.

There I am to take a tram to Clarence Corner, Mater Hill and walk up Annerley Road to Carrier Air Conditioning. I have no trouble at all and get to Carriers, nice and early. I’m the first one at the gate and have to wait for some time before more people arrive to finally open the gate to the factory. I am being ushered into the electrical workshop where I meet Brian Stockwell, the foreman. He has been told he’s getting a new electrician and is expecting me.

I have the dictionary with me and Brian takes me to a half finished switchboard and asks me to finish wiring the board. He gives me a set of electrical diagrams and tells me to follow what had already been wired. It’s not too hard, all the wiring is the same colour and the diagrams are quite easy to follow. I’m being observed by the other electricians but nobody talks to me.

Around 10 o’clock Urs Deutsch calls me in the office for a chat. I call him 'Herr Deutsch' in Swiss-German. He again tells me to call him Urs and to speak in English. He doesn’t want to speak Swiss-German in the office. I try hard. But I guess I have to learn sometime anyway.

I ask Urs if he studied in Switzerland or in Australia. he tells me he has studied at the ETH in Zürich, (Federal Technical University) and finished as an Electrical Engineer, I’m impressed. It was a few years later, when I meet the Swiss Consul-General who mentions that Urs, like me is just an electrician and used to work in Mount Isa in the Mines. So this is the first of many lies I hear from my new boss.

Urs introduces me to Bob Horsely, his second in charge. Bob is an Englishman and is the electrical estimator at Carrier Air Conditioning.

We have a nice chat with a cup of coffee. Urs tells me I’ll need a Queensland Electrician’s License but I have three months to get one. I need to be fluent in English, as well as be conversant with the Australian electrical rules and regulations. Urs suggests it would be easier for me to get an Electrical Fitters ticket as I would be wiring boards in the factory and not actually go on site to do wiring installations for which you need a full license. He said I could get one of those later. 

At five to five everyone gets ready to go home. One of the chaps asks 'Willie, would you like a beer'? 'Sure', I say, 'I’d love a beer'. 'Follow me', he says. We’re walking down to the Clarence Hotel, where there are already a few people from the factory at the bar. Someone puts a pot of beer in front of me. I sip, the others guzzle. Before long I have four pots in front of me and everyone says 'Hurry up Willie', and 'it’s your shout'! My shout? What do you want me to shout?

They explain what a shout is, I buy a shout and now I have five beers in front of me. I’ll never be able to drink all that. Come on, Willie, you’re not being a sissy? they ask. Of course not, I reply and drown the five pots down among a lot of burping and spluttering. The room is starting to spin and I don’t feel so well.

My Mater Hill Tram outside Treasury Building

I’m on the tram to the Treasury Building and very drunk. I need to hold my head out of the tram and get rid of some of this beer; I throw up out of the tram to the disgust of other travelers. Ben has dinner ready but I refuse to eat anything and crawl to bed.

Next morning, back at work, the questions come, 'Did you enjoy yourself, Willie, do you want to come for another beer, tonight'?

Brian, the foreman, who is tea totaller, and a member of the Salvation Army, gets upset with them for getting me drunk, but he also gets upset with me for letting them.

Life in Kennedy Terrace

They tell us that in the other flat upstairs are an English couple and a Scottish lad. They are not home yet.

Across the street from our flats is a corner store which is very handy.

Two of the girls come with us across the street to the shop. They introduce us to Mr Cook calling him ‘Cookie’ behind his back. We buy a few necessities such as butter, jam, sugar, coffee and bread. The bread is square and packed in plastic already sliced. Very strange.  We also buy some tins of food. A tin of sauerkraut and a tin of some sort of sausages and a tin of mixed vegetables and a tin of small potatoes, we’re going to live like kings.

From our army days we know that if you stand tins in boiling water the content cooks. Trouble is opening the tins. You can’t do it indoors as the pressure sprays the liquid some feet in the air so we carry the hot tins to the back of the flats and squeeze the tin opener. The hot liquid squirts into the garden, but we eventually have a nice meal. No peas, no mashed potatoes and no dry meat.

We have to eat like that for a few week, neither Ben nor I know how to cook properly.

On Saturday we take some towels to the lower part of the block of flats and enjoy the sun while reading some books. The girls come down and join us. Jennifer tells me her boyfriend will be coming to see her today and he has a car. Michael her boyfriend arrives and we all go for a drive through the suburbs of Red Hill, Paddington and Milton. Ben and I are a novelty to them and they are laughing and cackling as we try to communicate in English. When we make mistakes, they point them out.

Michael, also a teacher student’s father is a solicitor so he has funds. He tells us that tomorrow morning, he’ll pick us up to go to a local football club where they sell beer on a Sunday. The pubs are shut on Sundays. Alcohol is bad for Queenslanders they can’t handle it so the government won’t allow the sale in pubs, but the local football club sells beer under the counter to people he knows.

Sunday morning, we hear Michael’s car pull into the front of the block of flats. We’re having breakfast, bread out of a paper bag, butter that tastes salty and jam that doesn’t taste sweet and some liquid that poses as coffee.

We’re all climbing into his old Holden and take off to the local football club. There Michael points out that we’re not supposed to be drinking beer, so if we see anybody, especially cops to hide the cans and pretend we’re drinking soft drinks. It sounds very strange to us. Why aren’t you allowed to drink beer on a Sunday. It doesn’t make sense to us. We discover that the beer in Australia is much stronger than the beer in Switzerland and after lunch, back in the flat have a long snooze. 

We need Accommodation

We phone Sue, Fred’s sister, she is going to help us find a flat. She tells us she’ll pick us up after lunch. She’s a hairdresser and is taking the afternoon off for us. We have more coffee and lunch at Charlie’s cafeteria until Sue arrives. She sits down with us for some coffee too. She has circled several flats in the local paper. Most of them are in the Red Hill area; Sue also lives at Red Hill. She explains that Red Hill is close to town and a handy suburb for young people with limited funds.

The first place she takes us to is a flat in an old divided Queenslander in Red Hill. It looks a dump to me. The garden is overgrown, the paint is non-existent and the corrugated roof looks like its rusty and would surely leak in a storm. We walk into the house and it looks worse inside. The floor is made of old vinyl with gaping holes through which you can see the dirt ground below. Louvered windows with broken glass louvers some missing altogether. The furniture looks like it’s seen better days and very filthy. There is no way I would live there.

We drive to another place not too far away. The flat looks brand new. It smells of fresh paint and there are still building materials in he yard, but the landlord is there and tells us he won’t let this new flat to two single blokes, he is looking for a married couple. Sue explains we’re from Switzerland, clean living and well brought up, but he doesn’t budge. What a shame I would have liked this flat.

Our block of flats in Kennedy Terrace

Finally, we arrive in Kennedy Terrace where a block of four flats is situated on the corner of a small Street opposite a church. Both flats are vacant on the ground floor. The upstairs flats have tenants but there is no one around. We like the flats, they are built of brick, nicely painted and the furniture look ok as well. They have a large lounge room, two bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen and a laundry downstairs.  We decide to take one of the flats and sign all the necessary papers and hand over some cash. Sue leaves and instructs us how to get into town by bus. There is a bus stop right outside the block of flats. She tells us that the Jubilee line will take us right into the city.

We’re investigating the flat and surroundings. We even have a garage downstairs, next to the laundry complete with automatic washing machine.

On the other corner of Kennedy Terrace is a small shop. Sue had told us we could buy all our groceries in this shop. The name on the shop is Cook’s Emporium. We’re happy. But there are some things we need, like sheets, blankets, pillow cases and we didn’t see any cleaning utensils, brooms buckets etc. So we’re grabbing a bus from outside the flat and stay on it until we’re in the heart of the city. Queen Street. There are more people in the city now than there were last night when we drove through the city.

We find a place called Coles in Queen Street. We find the things we need or think we need, sheets, blankets, brooms, buckets etc.

City Trams

Back on the street, Ben says do you know which bus number stops outside our flat.

No,  I thought you knew

I don’t, do you know the name of the bus line?

No, I thought you knew!

We better call a cab, do you know the name of the street?

No, I thought you knew!

So here we are late afternoon, in the middle of the city, not knowing how to get home or the name of the street. I do however remember the area is called Red Hill, at least that ‘s something.

There is a policeman directing traffic at the top of Adelaide Street and I remember learning in school that in English speaking countries the “Police - Your Friend” motto is applicable, so I tell Ben to wait and minding the stuff we just bought and I venture into the middle of the intersection and tell the policeman in broken English that my friend and I are lost and can only remember Red Hill. He is a friendly cop and tells us to wait at the side of the intersection, which is right outside the George Street Police Station. Not long after he comes across and beckons us to follow him. We walk together into the yard of the Police Station and points for us to get into his police car. He drives out of the yard and heads for Red Hill. He drives up and down the hills of  Red Hill until we recognise the block of flats in Kennedy Terrace. He pulls into the yard. There are some girls sitting on the stairs to the upstairs flats. We get out of the Police car to the amazement of the young ladies and the cop explains that these two were New-Australians and cot lost in town. We thank the cop and smile at the girls before entering our flat. They tell us they are students at the Kelvin Grove Teacher’s College all in their first year. There are four girls living upstairs in one of the flats.


Next - Life in Kennedy Terrace

I find a job

Canberra Hotel Brisbane 

In the morning we’re starving. We make our way to the breakfast room around 9 o’clock and look around. There are a few people eating bacon, eggs, sausages, baked beans and burnt bread. The coffee looks disgusting. We don’t believe it. Why aren't these people civilised? Where are the croissants, where is the cheese, and where is the proper bread? Where have we come to?

A waitress comes and asks us what we want. Neither of us speaks much English so we look around for the least disgusting food, which looks like this burn bread and we point to it at the next table. She gets the message and brings us toast, butter and marmalade and tea.

'Why can’t they have proper bread' Ben asks, 'Why can’t they have proper butter', I reply, 'this stuff has fallen into the ocean, It tastes salty. And fancy eating eggs and sausages and baked beans for breakfast. Bloody hell, what sort of a place is this?

McDonnell and East - George Street

After breakfast, we wander down George Street, I need fags, I ran out last night. There’s a kiosk next to the Canberra Hotel and I ask for Peter Styvesant cigarettes but the bloke at the Kiosk doesn’t understand what I am saying. Ben is trying but no luck the bloke just looks at me mumbling something I don’t understand. There is a display box on the counter with Galaxy cigarettes in it. I take a packet of Galaxy and give him some money. He gives me the change and it looks from now, until I can speak English, I will have to smoke Galaxy because understand me when I say it.

Charlie Tschudin is a nice old chap and gives us coffee and cake and asks us where in Switzerland we are from and what sort of work we are looking for. I tell him I’m an electrician. Oh, he says I know an electrician who runs the electrical shop at Carrier Air Conditioning, I’ll give him a call and with that, he disappears into his office. When he comes back he says this chap’s name is Urs Deutsch and he is looking for electricians and he wants to see you right away.

Charlie calls me a cab and tells the driver to take me to Carrier Air Conditioning in Woolloongabba. Ben is staying back in his Coffee shop.

Urs is pleased to meet me and after a short chat which, he insists, we conduct in English, well, he talks English, I talk in Swiss-German. He tells me he prefers Swiss electricians and asks me 'When can you start'? I tell him, we have just arrived in Brisbane and are living in the Canberra Hotel and we need permanent accommodation. He wants me to start on Monday Morning at 8 o’clock. I have to agree. Of course I call him Mister Deutsch but he keeps insisting I call him by his first name, Urs. I am uncomfortable with that, but when he keeps insisting, I reluctantly address him by his Christian name. 

  

  He is from Winterthur and tells me about his jobs in Australia since his arrival a couple of years previously. We agree I would be there on Monday morning and we finish the conversation.

 He calls me another cab and tells the cabby to take me back to McDonnell and East where Ben is waiting with Charlie. I’m very excited. I have a job, with a Swiss bloke no less, he’ll look after me I know.

Hello Brisbane

We take off from Melbourne and I hear over the speakers that we're heading for Sydney. Oh, well, Sydney is supposed to be a nice place too. I'm sure we can make a life in Sydney. An hour later we land in Sydney where we are once again ushered into a waiting area at another gate, marked Brisbane. Now we know, we are going to live in Brisbane, which is just as well as Fred Pieren is expecting us in Brisbane.  

TAA flight from Melbourne to Brisbane via Sydney

The TAA flight takes another hour and finally we land at Eagle Farm in Brisbane. We’re on the ground and happy looking forward to a proper bed for a good kip. It’s ten o’clock at night when we enter the airport lounge and we’re being met by Shelley and Sue Pieren. Shelly is Fred’s wife and Sue his sister. They apologise for Fred not being at the airport but he had to go to an Army camp for a week.

We’re driving through Queen Street and there is no traffic and very few people walking in the street. I think we are in a Ghost town, where is everybody? Sue explains, Queenslanders go to bed early on Sunday nights. I ask if we can go some place for coffee. Nothing open this time of night on a Sunday. I’m beginning to feel bad about this place. Where on earth have we come to?

The girls take us to the Canberra Hotel in Ann Street in the city. We’re told The Canberra Hotel is alcohol-free run by the Temperance Society. Great No Beer. After the girls check us into our rooms there is only one thing to do, have a big sleep. Sue tells us to go next morning to McDonell and East in George Street to the Cafeteria, which is run by a Swiss called Charlie Tschudin. 

Last Leg on the Elektra

Finally we board the plane again for our last leg of the journey to Melbourne. We, the small Swiss group in the plane make plans for when we arrive in Melbourne. We really have no idea what is awaiting our arrival so we decide we’ll all go to a hotel and find a nightclub. We’ll have a good time in Melbourne.

We're flying over Ayers Rock

The pilot announces we’re about to fly over Ayers Rock and is doing a circle around the famous rock so we can have a good look. I am fascinated to see how flat and dry Australia looks. I can’t see any houses or lakes, just desert and a red rock but it has a strange beauty totally unknown to us. We are now getting very excited about coming to Australia. Only a couple more hours before we land in Melbourne and we are sure the journey on such a long flight was worth it. 

Flying over Melbourne

We’re getting closer to Melbourne and Ben and I, after flying for 48 hours, agree, we’re not getting on another plane again for a long time. We're not sure what's going to happen to us, that has never been explained to us. We assume we'll walk of the plane into Melbourne and get on with our new life in Australia.

We are wrong. We’re being asked to fasten our seat belts; we’re about to land in Melbourne. Again we all look at one another making sure we stick together so we can go to a hotel together.

We land and are told to remain seated. An official comes aboard with spray cans spraying on both sides. We’re not sure what that is all about. Maybe they kill any Europeanness out of us. We’re hiding our faces and cover up our noses.

Finally we’re allowed to exit the plane down the stairs and we’re all ushered into the building into a large room. We’re going though customs and are asked if we had any food. Some of the people had bought bananas in Singapore. They were taken away from them.

         A few more Immigration Officials enter the room and sart calling out our names. As they call our name, they hand us stickers with various colours and patterns on them. Ben and I are given a green and white circle and are asked to stick them on our lapels. Some people are given red stickers, some yellow.

They call Bohlen and Dahler again and when we wave, we’re told to come forward and we’re ushered quickly through a door following an official. We just have time to wave to our new friends from the trip and within minutes we’re on another TAA plane, this time for Brisbane. What happened to us getting together in Melbourne, having a good time?

Half-way mark - Ceylon

Ceylon is famous for rubber plantations. At Colombo airport, I buy a post card and a stamp to send home. The stamp doesn’t stick to the card. So far for Ceylon rubber. In Switzerland, the famous condom brand is called Ceylon but here their stamps won’t stick to the cards.

We’re off again, 6 hours to Singapore. We’re glad to be in the air conditioned plane after the heat in Colombo .

I am talking to other passengers

Everyone in the plane is bored. We've been flying for hours and we're only just half way of the trip. 

In Singapore we are taken by bus to a shed that has a lot of Indian stalls, a little like a market place anywhere. I look around the stalls and am taken in with a red Chinese silk nightgown. He wants $50, too much so I walk away. The Indian shopkeeper keeps following me trying to persuade me to buy the coat. He offers it to me for $30. Still too much, I tell him. 'How much will you give me for this beautiful genuine Chinese silk nightgown', he asks. 'I’ll give you $10', I reply but he refuses to sell it to me for that. I walk on and still he follows.

They announce our flight to Darwin is boarding and everyone moves to the bus. My Indian who is still with me hands me the nightgown and asks for $10. I give it to him. I have a bargain, a beautiful coat for only $10. I’m pleased.

Back on board I open the plastic bag containing my newly acquired silk Chinese nightgown and discover he has given me the largest size he had. The coat touches the floor and the arms are down to my knees. Oh, well.

Next stop is Darwin, another 10 hours of the same but we’re excited, we’ll be landing in Australia. The time passes very slowly. Every time I look at my watch only a few minutes have passed. Will this boring trip ever be over?

In Darwin we buy postcards with Kangaroos, Koalas and for the first time Australian post stamps. I write one to Mum and Dad telling them I have arrived in Australia. I look out of the airport window for any kangaroos but can’t see any, only our Electra on the tarmac being re-fuelled. It’s very hot both inside and outside the airport. No air conditioning.

Leaving Home

What shall I do? I have my trumpet, my 16mm Bolex film camera, a large tripod, my C22 Mamyaflex professional still camera that weigh a couple of kilos, a bottle of Kirsch and some clothes and it all weighs 28 kg.

I have to make a decision, what’s more important to me, the movie camera or the portrait camera. I decide on the movie camera but I still need the tripod. I just have to ditch some clothes and put the trumpet back in the cupboard finally get it down to 23 kg. I can’t possibly ditch anything else or I’ll have nothing to wear in Australia. So I take my raincoat which I wasn’t going to take, but the pockets hold a lot of stuff including the Kirsch, some lenses and some clothes and I finally get the suitcase down to 20 kg exactly but my raincoat hangs on me with all the weight but who cares.

I don’t sleep well that night I guess I’m too excited. No one speaks much during breakfast. Mum and Dad are sad, especially Dad. They come with me to the Railway Station in Thun to see me off. Ben is there with his family and we say our farewells. Everyone is sad. Lots of tears. I assure Dad that I’ll be back probably sooner than later. But I think deep down he knows that’s the end of our close relationship. Mum is brave and tells me the last things about looking after myself, eat properly and all the things mothers say to their offspring when they leave the home.

We take a train to Geneva

At last, the train leaves Thun and we settle down for our long journey. Both of us wear our new blazers with Thun emblems stitched on our pockets. We have to stay a night in Geneva. The plane takes off for London very early the next day so we have to be in Geneva the day before. The Australian government pays for the hotel accommodation and we meet a few young people with the same Qantas bags in the lobby. Obviously doing the same thing. We get to talk to a few of them and its decided we should go to a night club after dinner. Last night in Switzerland etc.

But we don’t last long and are in bed well before midnight contemplating the next morning. Breakfast is early and we’re all gathered together in a bus to take us to Orly airport in Geneva.

I had imagined the plane to be something out of an old movie, with benches, lots of people with chickens in cages on their laps and boxes everywhere and lots of engine and wind noise, so I got a pleasant surprise when I board the Swissair Caravelle Jet to take us to London. Proper airplane seats and a quiet atmosphere, they even serve coffee and biscuits on the short two-hour flight to London.

Brittish Eagle Electra

At Heathrow, we are ferried into a bus to a new terminal where we are met by a lot of Greek, French and Italian people with similar Qantas bags. The airplane is a big Electra, with four propeller jet engines, owned by British Eagle, a Charter Company.

It takes 11 hours from London to Kuwait in the Arabian Gulf where we have a short stop for refueling. The airport is a small shed on the airstrip. It smells of fuel, is hot. Ben feels sick and is talking about throwing up. We’re glad to get back on the plane for another 8 hours to Ceylon.

The food on the plane is boring, always the same, mashed potatoes, carrots and green pees with some sort of gravy soaked meat. Someone is playing a trick, pouring fruit salad into a sick bag then pretending to eat it again somewhere else.

There are a few Swiss people in the plane, mostly our age, mid twenties but there is an older bloke around fourty from Basel, we call him Dad. He’s an electrician.

There are no movies or any in-flight entertaining on board the plane. It is incredibly boring. We eat drink and sleep. The flight is reasonably calm but the propjet engines of the Electra are droning.

I am emigrating to Australia

         A couple of weeks later our Emigration approvals arrive Ben and I are asked to send them our passports for visa approvals. We have a choice, we can travel by boat or by airplane. 

        A boat would take too long, long so we decide to go by plane, even though neither of us had ever flown in one before.

The preparations for our big trip begin. I work in Uetendorf with a building company looking after the electrical switchboards on building sites and maintain the cranes. Maintenance really. I cycle to and from work every day twice. 15 km to and from. It’s winter and the roads are snow covered and frozen. The temperature is below freezing and the cold air bites as I cycle around six in the morning to work in the dark and five in the afternoon back in the dark. Lunchtime is not so bad; sometimes the sun warms the air. All the time while I am riding, I think in a few weeks I’ll be in sunny Queensland in the warmth, that’s what gets me going.

Sometimes I’m lucky and I work in Bern or other places where the company has building sites. On those days, I just cycle to work in the morning and pick up a VW bus to drive to Bern or wherever and don’t come back to the workshop until late in the afternoon.

My boss tells me I’m mad going to Australia. Life isn’t that good over there, he tells me. There are too many men and not enough women he says. A friend of his was glad to come back home after a disappointing time in Australia. You’ll be back too, he says. When you do, you’ll have a job here, he says.

I wake during the night and feel nauseous. I try to think what could I have eaten that makes me feel sick. Shortly after I start vomiting and my guts aches so much that I can’t go back to sleep. In the morning I phone work to tell them I’m sick. Mum and Dad go to work and tell me to phone the doctor if I’m not getting better. I am not getting any better, I can’t keep anything down and by lunch time I phone Dr Olloz who’s medical practice is across the street from us. His receptionist ask f I can come to the surgery, I say yes, get dressed and go across the street. He checks me thoroughly and says it must be some sort of wog and he gives me some black tablets to take immediately. He says if it isn’t getting better by tonight to phone him again.

Dad comes home in the evening, just as I am throwing up again. He calls Dr Olloz who tells him he’s coming over after surgery. When he arrives around seven o’clock he checks me again and says it could be appendicitis. He calls an ambulance I’m carted off to hospital.

By eight o’clock I’m lying in the operating table and they are about to take my appendix out. The surgeon is a Hungarian lady doctor I knew from working in the hospital when we built the new building. Even though I feel rotten, I am having a few jokes with her. She assures me everything would be ok.

When this hospital was built about a year ago, I worked in there, installing the telephone systems. We got to know most of the medical staff. Then when the staff moved in I was contracted by my boss to stay in the hospital for six months to look after the phone system and fix any problems. I had a great time for six months, very little to do other than chat up the nurses and occasionally take the Ambulance for a ride in non-medical emergencies. Driving the Ambulance is done by the maintenance staff of the hospitals in Switzerland assisted by doctors and nurses.

One day, there was nobody available so they ask me to drive to Bern, with a sample taken in the operating theatre to be evaluated by some important medical laboratory there.

I turned on the siren and flashing light and raced the thirty kilometers to Bern to the Insel Hospital, having a great time.

So now, I’m here as a patient, shortly before I go to Australia. To make matters worse, I have cancelled my medical insurance last week. Payment was due and I didn’t think I needed it anymore. So now I will have to pay for the operation and my stay in hospital myself. That is going to make a huge dent in my savings for Australia.

I stay in hospital for a few days walking up and down as soon as I can get out of bed without too much pain. In the TV room down the hall where I spend a great deal of time, I meet a young lady who is doing the same thing, recovering from an operation. We get to like each other and when we leave the hospital we promise to phone each other. 

View from my friend's farm on the Lake of Thun

Her family owns a farm in Faulensee, overlooking Lake of Thun and when I visit her I love the view onto the lake. The property must be worth an absolute fortune. But I’m going to Australia I tell myself. Don’t go falling in love now.

For a few weeks we’re inseparable. I spend a lot of time either at her property or she comes down to Thun, I like her but I don’t love her. One day she tells me she loves me and I can see problems coming up. When I tell her I’m going to Australia in a few weeks she is shattered. She tries hard to talk me out of it but it’s too late. There is no going back on my plans. I tell her that if things don’t work out in Australia, I’ll be back in a couple of years and in the meantime I’ll write to you often. It doesn’t soften her disappointment. 

 

Ben and I are packing; tomorrow we catch a train from Thun to Geneva where we pick up a plane to London and from there to Melbourne and Brisbane. We’re only allowed 20kg in a suitcase and already my suitcase is 28kg heavy and I have to take a bottle of Kirsch (1 kg) to the son of Mrs Pieren. He is a solicitor in Bribane and loves his Kirsch, which he can’t get in Australia. I need to make a decision what to leave behind. The travel instructions from the consulate are quite specific. 20 kg only. If you’re over, you need to ditch some weight at the airport. No one boards with more than 20 kg.

I am emigrating to Canada

It doesn’t take us long to find the Canadian building a few doors up the road. They are much more helpful there, and give us a lot of pamphlets and some forms to fill in and tell us to come back if we are still interested. 

         My parents have mixed emotions when I talk to them during dinner that night, My mother is excited for me and tells me, as a young girl, she always wanted to go some places, see the world, but my father is not pleased at all, saying that I am selfish for wanting to leave them.

A few days later, my mother mentions to me that she had bumped into one of her old school friends, who had just returned back to Switzerland, after spending more than twenty years in Australia. Her marriage came to an end and she decided to come back home, but her ex-husband, daughter and married son were still living in Brisbane, Queensland in Australia. When my mother told her, her son was thinking of going to Canada, she told my mother that I should also consider Australia as an option and she would be glad to show us her photos of Australia. She invites Ben and me for dinner and shows us some home movies and photos of Brisbane, the Gold and Sunshine Coasts, her home and also some brochures of Lone Pine Sanctuary. We are very interested and ask all sorts of questions of her. I had heard from a schoolmate who spent a year in Canada how cold it gets in winter. He told me about tree branches falling to the ground because of the sheer weight of ice hanging from them. And here we hear from Mrs. Pieren how much sunshine they have in Queensland, it really get us excited.

A few days later we are on a train to Geneva to visit the Australian Consulate there. There we are told that people with certain trades have their fares to Australia paid by the government in return for a signed agreement that they will stay in Australia for at least two years. This is too good an opportunity to turn down and after all, two years isn’t such a long time at all.

The consulate advises us that even though they cannot at this stage guarantee we will be accepted, we should organise a current passport.

My Dad is very upset when I tell him but my Mum is still encouraging me to go for it. Dad says, 'I have a son for over twenty years, then I don’t have one anymore'. I tell him, I was only going for two years but he insisted that I would not come back if I liked Australia. I guess he knew.

The next few weeks, we fill in forms; go back to Geneva for an interview with the Australian Consul General who conducts the interview in English, with an interpreter translating his questions and my answers. The interview is done on a one-to-one basis and I am very nervous, trying hard to give a good impression. He asks what I expect from life in Australia. I answer that I don’t really know but am willing to make a small contribution to Australian life.

I think he’s impressed with my answers, although I don’t understand what he is saying, I can feel what he says to the secretary is positive.