David Horsnell

Ship name / Flight number: Orcades

Arrival Date: 26/04/1956

b. 9 April 1939

I was born in Stratford East, London, just five months before World War II. I have two younger brothers: Alan born in 1944 (passed away in 2017) and Graham born in 1948.

After the war ended, my parents, Win and Stan, moved to Felixstowe to manage a guesthouse with 13 rooms and a restaurant. My mother also taught piano and violin to private students. She tried to teach me piano as a youngster, but I didn’t take to it.

Some of David’s aeroplane cigarette cards

I went to Felixstowe primary school followed by a secondary modern school and then a private school – Felixstowe Academy. My parents decided to invest in my education after I contracted rheumatic fever as a 14 year old. I was taking six aspirin a day to thin my blood and missed a lot of school. My headmaster, Charles E. Robinson, who was a graduate of Canterbury University, was very encouraging.

In my spare time I liked sailing toy yachts on a lake at Felixstowe and collecting matchbox cars and cigarette cards with planes and cars. I went to Sunday School at a Methodist church, but my family weren’t very religious. As a young teenager, I was a bit of a wanderer and loved catching the train from Ipswich to exhibitions in Earls Court and the annual motor show in London.

After school, I worked for a local butcher preparing and delivering meat on my bicycle. I didn’t consider an apprenticeship because by then I had heard about the BBM and I was more interested in getting out of the UK than settling down in Felixstowe.

Some of the photos from David’s album of  his trip to Australia, 1956.

I heard about the BBM through my school mate, Clive Whitton. My dad made some enquiries, but I was only 15 years old at the time, which meant I would need a sponsor or guardian. I was keen to go to Canada, but their entry requirements were stricter, so I settled on Australia. My mother’s sister lived in Sydney, so that gave me a connection to this foreign, far-flung country.

Despite my heart problem, I passed my medical tests, but only after I had some bad teeth extracted.

It was a big thrill getting ready to sail on the Orcades in 1956. There were 16, 16 year olds on the boat and an Aussie chaperone. We were offered the same niceties as other travellers, which was special.

When we arrived in Sydney, my aunt was there to meet me in a massive Pontiac motor car. It was impressive! We went straight to the training farm and I was then sent to work on a poultry farm in Dee Why on the north side of Sydney. I worked six and a half days a week  until my ‘Big Brother’ came to visit and thought I was being exploited. I was allowed to leave and went to live with my Aunt Vera in River Road, Revesby. Aunt Vera was nearly 20 years younger than my mum and had two boys, so it was like having little brothers again. 

My aunt organised a job for me at Sebel furniture at Bankstown as a clerk. After about four years there, they offered to help me do an accountancy qualification, but it really wasn’t my thing.

I decided to move on and a friend I had made in Revesby, David Rice, helped me to get a job as a driver-salesman for Coca-Cola. This meant that I delivered the soft drinks as well as handling the money and sales. It was a step up from delivering meat on my bicycle, but it wasn’t too different!

David and Bev at their wedding, 1961.

The Coca-Cola depot was in Gardeners Road, Rosebery, and I’d lift heavy loads of glass bottles on and off the truck. In those days, retailers could sell their empty glass bottles back to the company for a refund, which meant a lot of lifting. I looked forward to the big loads because these were loaded on with a forklift.

Next, I took a sideways move into merchandising. I was a representative and would visit the retailers between Wollongong and Newcastle and help them to improve their product displays. I liked driving and the freedom of being on the road. I had to complete a certain number of deliveries and visits each day, but it was better than being tied to a desk.

One day, I was taking a sharp turn from Marrickville Road into Canterbury Road in Sydney and the truck rolled onto its side and all the glass soft drink bottles fell out. The shop-keepers came out with their brooms to help clean up the broken glass. The company brought a fork-lift truck out from the depot and gradually lifted it up again. These trucks didn’t have power-steering or good suspension then.

In 1960, about four years after I arrived in Australia, I met Bev at a dance in Marrickville Town Hall. She was teaching ballroom dancing and my Aunt Vera had given me some lessons at home so I was a reasonable partner. We met at other dances in Petersham, Marrickville, Strathfield and Rose Bay. Bev was originally partnering my best friend and I was partnering her girlfriend, but then we swapped and Bev and I hit it off. It’s hard to find places to go ballroom dancing now; most people just jig around on their own.

Bev and I were married at St Jude’s church at Randwick in 1961 and we’ve been together for 65 years. My best man was David Rice, who helped me to get a job with Coke. For our honeymoon, we took a caravan trip north to Bundaberg.

We lived with Bev’s parents in Matraville for about 18 months after we were married to try and save some money. Bev’s mother had another daughter, Coral, 19 years after Bev was born and after her father returned from being a POW in World War II. When Bev’s great aunt and godmother, Aileen  Aitken, became sick, we moved into her family home in Kingsford so Bev could look after her great aunt. When Aileen died, she endowered her house – we were very lucky. Bev worked as a secretary to the head of Prince Henry Hospital until we had our first son, Geoff, in 1964.

David holding his Salesman of the Year trophy from Rowntree.

While I was a sales rep for Coca-Cola, I met a sales rep from Rowntree, a British-based confectionery company. He helped me to get a job as a merchandiser, but I moved over to sales when Rowntree took over Sweetacres in 1971. I was based in Sydney but when I was promoted to sales supervisor, my area expanded over the Blue Mountains into central NSW and I supervised sales reps in places like Dubbo, Orange and Parkes. I liked being out on the open road. The area I was responsible for also included Norfolk Island, which was an enjoyable perk of the job.

Rowntree was based in Melbourne and I often had to fly there to work for the week. At first it was a novelty, catching a plane to work, but it got tiring after a while.

I was with Rowntree for the rest of my working life and joined their quarter century club. I won salesman of the year three times and delivered training to sales reps over most of NSW. They offered me a job in Melbourne in the marketing department, but the timing wasn’t good: our eldest son had just started an apprenticeship and our other two children were in high school. As it turned out, a year after this in 1988, Nestle took over Rowntree and the office in Melbourne was downsized. I stayed with Nestle until I retired in 1998. My final job was manager of the warehouse in Arndell Park, near Blacktown.

Some of the model cars, trucks and tractors David has collected over the years.

I sent aerogrammes to my parents and told them how good life was in Australia. My parents and two brothers decided to migrate to Australia in 1960, just before we were married. They were sponsored by the Salvation Army and stayed in a hostel in Albert Park, Melbourne, at first. I drove to Melbourne to bring them back to Sydney and they bought a house in Panania, near my mother’s sister in Revesby.

We have three children: Geoff was born in 1964, Linda arrived in 1967 and Deryck in 1970. They all live in Sydney and now we have eight grandchildren and one great grandson. Bev and I have done our bit to populate Australia!

Bev and David Horsnell, 2026.

After I retired, we did some travelling back to England and Europe. I visited my cousin John Horsnell, who was the government administrator on the Isle of Wight and my old headmaster, Mr Robinson. I tried to track down Clive Whitton, who came out on the Orcades with me. He was working in Benalla, running his own excavator business in the early 1960s, but I heard that he went back to England and I’ve lost contact with him.

I have always been interested in cars and I had more time for them after I finished work. I joined a local MG car club and an early Falcon club and built an XK Falcon from parts. I also had a TR4 Triumph sportscar in the early 2000s. We joined the car club in our local Probus group and had many enjoyable outings in our TR4.

Bev and I are both members of our local Probus Club and looked after the walking group for 12 years. Now we look after the Opal Card group and take members on public transport to interesting places. People have more confidence when they are travelling in a group.

Looking back, it was a good move to come out to Australia. There wasn’t much of a future available for me in England.