My search for my family history led me down under
Maddie Grigg, from the UK, writes a weekly column for The People’s Friend, the oldest women’s weekly magazine in the world. She specialises in flights of fancy and has published three books.
When my best friend's son announced he was getting married in New Zealand, I seized the opportunity to take a trip Down Under. I combined the wedding with a visit to Australia because of strong family connections. My grandfather fought as an ANZAC soldier in Gallipoli, my great-uncle emigrated from Somerset, England, and made a life in Australia and my father's brother was a Ten Pound Pom whose family still lives in Adelaide.
I am now keen to return to Australia in the next few years to research her ancestors' stories, which I would like to use as the basis for a novel.
Genes reunited
In the migration museum of Adelaide, there is a verse by Mary Thomas, an emigrant in the 1800s:
Yes, England, I have fled from thee
Fast fades thy beauteous shore
then flow my tears, for I shall see
my native land no more
In 1964, my father's brother took advantage of the assisted passage scheme and left Somerset for the heat of Adelaide, South Australia, as a Ten Pound Pom. He has returned several times since – for holidays – and the last time I saw him was twelve years ago. It is a hugely emotional experience for me to meet him and his family on the other side of the world.
He walks out on to the pavement from his front door and playfully asks: “Who's this then?”
I hug him. I can feel the tears running down my cheeks. After 45 years or more, he hasn't lost that lovely and soft Westcountry burr.
He tells me about my grandfather, who was an ANZAC and fought at Gallipoli in the First World War. He tells me about my great uncle, who left in the 1920s and never came back. He tells me about my great uncle's farm I hope to find in New South Wales. He recalls how the house wasn't finished when Uncle Jim moved in. On the first floor, the walls hadn't been put in and you could look from room to room. Jim never finished it either, but he built up a fine farm of 4,000 acres with cattle, horses and dogs. Lots of dogs.
“They used to sit underneath the house to keep cool,” my cousin recalls. “There were loads of them.”
When Jim left for Australia, he begged his Somerset sweetheart to join him.
“He offered to pay for her to come out but her mother said he'd have to go back and get her,” my uncle recalls.
Both of them grew old and single on opposite sides of the world.
I think of Jim and his lost love as I stay with my extended family (and Jim's) here in Australia. It is a story of loss and regret and what-might-have-been. I hope I can find some remnants of his life here.
Always remembered
My great-uncle's last resting place is in a cemetery on the outskirts of Casino, the beef capital of Australia. Mr Grigg and I walked through the rows and rows of headstones in the baking New South Wales heat.
A shout went up from the left.
“Here it is,” Mr Grigg said.
We had finally found it.
I pondered for a while and thought of the adventures Uncle Jim must have had since landing in Australia in 1925. Driving the post coach and horses, seeing and buying the 4,000-plus acre farm at Rappville and then setting up home there with his young cousin Percy, who was to die a few years later in a flu epidemic.
Mr Grigg and I sat and drank beer in the Commercial Inn, built in 1911 and still stuck in place between the pioneering days and the 1960s. We were told the town had been used as the set for “that Pommy show Heartbeat”, which is being broadcast on Australian TV in the autumn. The whole place felt just as it might have done when Uncle Jim was alive.
We did not find his house although I like to think one of the timber-clad buildings we saw beyond the roadside could have been his. As we drove slowly along Myrtle Creek Road, which would have probably bounded my great-uncle's farm, a kangaroo bounced past and then hid in the forest. Around the corner, a herd of cattle ambled across the road, saw our car and then quietly disappeared into the bush.
I now intend to find out more about the life of Jim the man, so he is not forgotten. Always remembered.
Where has your search for your ancestors taken you? Share your experience with us in the comment below.
To read more of Maddie Grigg’s work, please visit her blog here.
If you have a story to share please get in touch at melody@oversixty.com.au.
Related links:
My grandparents’ World War I love story
Why everyone should share their life story
Why you should write your parent’s biography