Anniversary of sorts


In the early morning mists of this day, April 25, in 1966, after five weeks at sea, the Sydney heads rose out of the sea, as the T/S Flavia was about to complete her voyage to a new land for over one thousand immigrants to Australia.
I was one of those people, and most of us were on deck with our eyes glued to what was to become our new homeland.
Over the course of the journey tensions had developed between the two main groups of people on the ship, Germans and Englishmen, who just over 20 years ago had been mortal enemies.
That was all forgotten on this morning 55 years ago as the Flavia, an old Italian troop carrier converted to the migration trade, slowly made her way through the passage between the Sydney heads into the beautiful and well protected Sydney Harbour.
Ours was an experience shared with thousands of people for over 150 years beginning with a British penal colony in 1788.
And, as we were to learn, the life of an immigrant is a hard one,
as over half of the marriages of friends I made on the voyage subsequently broke up, including mine.

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