Simon Metcalf
Ship name / Flight number: Qantas
Arrival Date: 25/05/1967
On arriving on 25 May 1967 the ten of us on the flight on a Boeing 707 from Heathrow were taken out to the BBM farm on Cowpasture road. ( Now a very suburban area I believe).
I don’t really remember the other boys now except Robert Myram whom I sat next to and kept in contact with for a long time.
After a few weeks at the farm I was sent to a farm in southern NSW. It was Glen Avon near Barmedman, half way between West Wyalong and Temora.
The farm was owned by a very nice family Max and Lola Gorden and their family of three children, in fact Lola had her third child while I was there.
I have heard horror stories from other little brothers of not such good treatment, I cannot relate to that at all, I was treated as one of the family, even taken on holiday to Sydney with them at Christmas. The work on the farm seemed quite normal to me having come from a farm in Wales, just the weather was better.
After about twelve months, having realised there couldn’t be much advancement
as Max had three children to take over the farm, which had been in the family for three generations, in fact Max had had quite a promising career as a rugby league player for St George, but his father insisted he returned to the farm which cut his playing days short.
Bob Myram had a contact through a family friend who was an agricultural advisor in Esperance who said there was a lot of development going on and he could find us jobs.
We bought an XM Ford Falcon ute in Sydney and left for the West. Max and Lola even gave me a forty four gallon drum of petrol to help us on our way, that’s how good they were.
I picked Bob up in Mildura where he had been picking grapes.
On arriving in Esperance Bob’s contact put me in touch with a contractor that was clearing land for an American company Ready Credits. This was a very large block which was being Cleary and sown with subterranean clover ,and was to be called “The Beef Machine” which is still going today I believe. We spent eighteen months or so working out there, in a caravan thirty five miles east of Esperance,going into town once a week for groceries and entertainment!
After the eighteen months the job was finished, and I was offered a job in town driving trucks for a livestock carrier, doing local runs and trips to Midland market in Perth, little did I know that was the start of fifty five years driving Australia wide in a variety of jobs, the last thirty for Toll Linehaul going everywhere.
In 1970 I returned to the UK for my twenty first birthday, but didn’t stay long, and after a summer harvest job in Denmark I returned to WA.
On arriving back in Perth I met a young lady who was on a working holiday from Adelaide. We married in 1973, and moved to Adelaide where her family was. We are still together with a couple of great kids and now five grandies.
So I have had a great life in Australia and would never consider myself anything other than Australian, so it is with great thanks to the BBM for giving me a great start in this country.
