25-03-2008

Peter Plowman

Peter Plowman (left) attended to give a presentation on a small portion of his encyclopaedic knowledge of maritime history. Ken McMillan (right) was given the responsibility of thanking our guest for his fascinating talk. Information about Peter and his writing can be found on his web site. Some of Peter's presentation is set out below.

• I have always been interested in ships, stemming from growing up in Bermuda.
• The Bermuda Triangle is a myth cobbled together from carefully selected events and theories. Even though it’s a myth, it has done incredible harm to the Bermuda tourist industry.
• My grandfather was in the British Army in 1904 when he was posted to Bermuda. My father was born there in 1908. Although he left Bermuda for schooling in England, he returned to Bermuda in 1938. During World War II, he was put in charge of rationing, then – after the war – when cars were introduced, he went into car sales.
• By the time that I was 10 years old, I had crossed the Atlantic 10 times.
• At the age of 13, I was sent to England to a boarding school.
• I enjoyed living in England; it was a bigger place than Bermuda which is only 20 miles long by 1 mile wide.
• In 1965, I became a £10 Pom, emigrating to Australia. I had a choice of 3 ships: the Canberra, the Fairstar, and the Orsova. I chose the Orsova because of the route that it would take.
• The trip took 32 days, and I was with 5 other men, strangers, in a 6-berth cabin next to the engine room, with the propeller shaft underneath, and 18 inches clearance above my bunk from the air-conditioning duct.
• On the 10th of February 1965 we were at Tilbury with sleet and snow. A travelling companion, I found out, had left his home town of Leeds for the first time. We were the same age, but by that time I had already crossed the Atlantic 23 times.
• It took a week to get to Suez, and many passengers experienced sea-sickness on the way. We got 3 hours down the canal, when we had to pull into a side canal to allow through some tankers going north. Some of the Poms didn’t know how to live in a hot climate, and a lot went onto the deck to sunbathe. Many were seriously sunburnt, and there was a long line at sick bay.
• We were allowed to go ashore at Aden in a lifeboat, but there was a civil war going on, and we were guarded by soldiers for the couple of hours that we had.
• At Bombay, more people rode on top of the trams there than rode inside. Because the conductor couldn’t get to them while they were on the roof, they rode for free.
• When we got closer to Australia, people started to get fearful. Up to that point, they were on a cruise, but they had to face the prospect of leaving behind family, friends, jobs, everything, and starting a new life in Australia.
• Some of the émigrés disembarked at Fremantle, some at Adelaide, and some at Melbourne. For the last 2 days of the trip, from Melbourne to Sydney, I had the cabin all to myself.
• We were taken to Villawood, given half a nissan hut, and told, “It’s now up to you”.
• The conditions coming over were very bad for the non-English speaking émigrés. For example, Mrs Stefaniak told me her husband chose Australia because the name sounded nice. They separated the men and the women for the voyage, and crammed 14 people into an 8-berth cabin. Because her children were deemed to young to require their own beds, Mrs Stefaniak had to sleep one way on her bed, with her children sleeping the other way around at her feet. Many children died; they had a burial at sea nearly every day. When they got to Fremantle, the sick kids were taken off, but the parents had to continue their voyage. In Sydney, they were put on a train, then onto Army trucks, and taken to Cowra, to the old Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. There was no work there, so Mr Stefaniak had to leave Cowra, go to Sydney, and share a single room with 7 men for 2 years to get enough money to get his family out of the Cowra camp.
• Australian Migrant Ships is in its 3rd re-print. It details over 300 ships which were used to bring migrants to Australia in the period 1946-1977.
• I’m trying to get as much maritime history recorded as I can before it disappears.
• Some of my books are: Coast to Coast, Ferry To Tasmania, Murray-Darling Paddle Boats, Australian Cruise Ships, and Across the Sea to War.
• Across the Sea to War includes ships used in the Sudan campaign, the Boer War, the First and Second World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam.
• I have written 13 books on Australia, and 2 on Bermuda, and I’m now working on a book on the migrant ships of 1900-1939.
• The International Refugee Commission (IRC) organised travel for a lot of refugees.
• Some of the boats used to bring refugees to Australia were so bad, they were condemned as soon as they arrived.

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Last changed: 03:21:32 04-10-2008