Margaret

From England to Trafalgar

Never in the world did I think I’d be a fair dinkum Aussie.

I arrived in Australia in 1976, just after the ten pound pom movement. My husband had always thought he’d like to retire in Australia, and some of our children and grandchildren were already here.

We followed them with plans of driving around and exploring the countryside.

The day after we left our house in England, our daughter-in-law passed away suddenly. She was survived by two young children and her husband – our son.

So we arrived in Australia at ages 55 and 67, and returned to nappies and bottles. We helped our son care for our grandchildren for two years before we moved to a small, historic town in regional Victoria, northeast of Melbourne. We would live there for 20 years.

I wouldn’t say we were welcomed by any means. Nothing awful happened there, except it wasn’t a very friendly place. Some of the people in the town had never been to Melbourne, you see. We could have been off the moon. We had ‘go home, poms’ written on our luggage and sugar put in the petrol tank of our car in another town. We weathered that and got around some of the people in the end.

My husband had worked in the army, so we lived all over the world before settling in Australia. He fell in love with the countryside of our new Australian home. He walked all the tracks he could get to.

For a time, I was quite busy. I was so busy when I first came, settling myself in … I didn’t miss England. It all just happened, just like that. I kept some chooks and was part of the school committee. I took up painting in watercolour, which I liked very much when I was young but my father had put a stop to it. Now, the walls of my house are lined with my own paintings.

I think the locals got used to us in time. But I felt we lived too out of the way. To get to the shops, you had to travel 25 kilometres. That’s an awful long way, really.

So after 20 years in the country, we moved into town next to a park. It suited me very well.

We lived there for ten years until my husband passed away at the age of 96. He had 30-odd years in Australia.

I moved again after my husband died, this time southeast of Melbourne. I chose to live on my own in a small house in Trafalgar, West Gippsland. This area was very tolerant and very nice. I think attitudes have changed a lot. Here, I’m surrounded by my watercolour paintings and closer to my daughter.

Of our five children, four are in Australia and one stayed in England. I’ve 29 great grandchildren. You can’t say in a large family everyone’s done well, can you? But on the whole, we’ve been very fortunate. Australia has done us very well.

Margaret Palmer passed away on 15 December 2020, at the age of 99 years and 7 months. Margaret is survived by five children, 15 grandchildren (two deceased) and 30 great grandchildren. Vale, Margaret.