Zizis' arrival in Australia, 1949.

Rasa, me & mum. the family was part of the contingent of "Beautiful Balts" the then immigration minister Arthur Calwell encouraged to come to Australia, believing that the fair-haired, blue-eyed foreigners would be less likely to raise the anxiety level of the locals than more swarthy types. in general, the Zizis family experienced kindness and support, and i in particular remember my 5 years of childhood in Sale as the most idyllic time of my life. the photo, one of only two on the ship, is more damaged than me memory. what a shame that the many photos my dad took on the journey on the ship, of Napoli & Bagnoli beforehand, & of the Bathurst reception camp afterwards were, as he discovered when he tried to develop them later, done on defective film acquired in Napoli. nearly all had to be discarded. i have a clear memory of us boarding the ship moored @ the left side, as you look out to sea, of the main international pier in Napoli. for the following i'm relying on www.naa.gov.au/collection/search/: the 'Amarapoora' departed Naples on 5/9/49 (not long after i turned 8) and arrived in Sydney on 20/10/45 (just before my sister, Rasa, turned 6). it was carrying 598 DPs from all over europe (18 were disembarked @ Port Said & Colombo for medical reasons; also, i remember, the 'burial @ sea', which i find confirmed in the record, of Kristina Adamaitys, aged 19 months). "All other passengers proceeded to the Department of Immigration Reception and Training Centre, Bathurst per special trains which departed from No 13 Wharf, Pyrmont at 11pm and midnight [i have a clear memory of the night train trip through many tunnels before i fell asleep]". interestingly (probably only for me!), checking through the Amarapoora's passenger list (on another website) i find there were two other passengers aboard with the family name 'Zizis' - but they were greeks. it explains why greeks have a habit of claiming, knowing better than i do, that my name is of greek origin (for fuller explanation see @ flic.kr/p/8N6Xyk). on my certificate of australian citizenship which i applied for in 2003 my name is given as Arunas Zizis "I, the Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural affairs, hereby declare that the above named is an Australian citizen and that citizenship was acquired on 1st January 1984." i had required this document to renew my litho citizenship. now, i gather, my Oz citizenship can be revoked without my prior knowledge by Minister Dutton, should i be deemed to have misbehaved - ah well, par for the course, the jesuits pulled a stunt like so on me years ago @ flic.kr/p/8NnQ7Y. for the following i'm dependent on trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper. but first i note that despite it being almost impossible not to find evidence of yourself in the Trove collection now that it has been completed up to 2006 neither of the two other Zizis' have made it into there. they must have led very quiet lives seeing as Trove is a great way of checking whether your parents, grandparents, neighbours, or anyone else of interest to you has ever been newsworthy enough to make it into the press, however local. juicy court cases, a staple of the press, provide particularly rich grounds to mine for information. search a few names you know - you'll be surprised whose made the cut in small country courts in the regional rags; or in the major city ones for that. you have to have been almost invisible not to be in there somewhere. & @ this point i challenge the person in my own street who said to me "ah, so you've done time" to find evidence of it. i note, in the "Argus" (2nd Feb 1955) my father, calling himself "Simonas Zizis", lodged an intention to apply for citizenship. my mum makes it into the "Gippsland Times" (Thursday 5/11/53, page 6) for membership of a forum in "The New Settler" festival: "The main idea of the festival is to show old Australians something about the countries from which European migrants have come". quite a few things are reported re our family in the Gippsland Times that year. my sister Rasa (spelt "Rasa Zazis"), boarding @ the Notre Dame de Sion Convent school (@ flic.kr/p/8NmR4Y), won the grade 5 'Dr Ryan's prize' for Christian Doctrine (@ flic.kr/p/8NixER); also she got a credit for First Grade piano; i got a credit for Second Grade piano; "a daughter arrived at the Gippsland Hospital for Mr. and Mrs. S. Zizis of York street [Sale. presumably Egle hadn't been named yet]". now fast forward to The Biz, (Fairfield, NSW : 1928 - 1972), 21/1/71, page 2 where there is a very leggy full length shot of my youngest sister described as "Lithesome Egle Zizys (17). snapped by Richard Piorkowski at Merrylands last week is a star member of a Lithuanian dance group. Away from that, she likes reading and poetry and she wants to become a journalist [her son, Matt, now edits a paper in Alice Springs]. She has also written children's books [news to me!]." & you thought some things, e.g. your bank account number, are private......dream on. there are scores of perfectly legal sites, not to speak of the 'dark web', illegal access, authorised access by a variety of agencies, where your info can be browsed from an ordinary home computer. for some prison records you may need to go 'on location' but. finally, let's return via this circuitous path, to the photo above. i remember, with a kind of crystal clarity, the day we steamed through the Sydney heads. i don't remember what is obviously the stiff breeze evident in the photo. i spent most of the passage up the harbour on the opposite, port side, of the Amarapoora staring at mile after mile of red roofed houses passing by along the shore. it was the middle of a brilliant day without a cloud in the azure sky. next i remember pulling into the pier and people on the ship looking down from the rail at the greeting party of compatriots and some relatives waiting below. someone next to me remarked how healthy they looked....next memory is from the train in the middle of the night on the way to Bathurst. the only other photo on the Amarapoora is @ flic.kr/p/8NaYM4

 

*************

 

1/4/21. yesterday got this email from me sister Egle:

 

"Hi Arunas and Helen

 

I might have mentioned that in 2008 Mum wrote a memory manuscript for Matt [me journo nephew with the ABC in Darwin] about the first year in Australia - a kind of Elena's Journey 2 [or u could title it "Getting Established"]. Last year I transcribed the text (with a light edit) and gave it to Matt for a final polish and to decide what he wanted to do with it. This is still to be done, but in the meantime I thought you might be interested.

 

Much of the detail you have both read before in other texts, but some is new.

 

I forward it to you now as is.

 

see you both soon

 

love

E

Egle Garrick"

 

***********

the manuscript: -

 

"Elena’s Journey part 2"

1949-1951

 

ELENA JONAITIS

Sydney, 2008

 

 

INTRODUCTION (undated)

BATHURST

1.

October, 1949

‘Mum, do you know where we are going?’ asked my eight- year old son Arūnas looking from the slow train window at wide, sun-burnt slopes.

‘No, I don’t know,’ I answered somewhat impatiently and Vytautas, my husband, hastened to supply the required information:

‘It’s to a place called Bathurst’.

‘Is that a town?’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘It doesn’t look that this train is going to a town!’ chirped out not quite six-year old Rasa gazing at the huge shining emptiness through which we were travelling.

Our family of four was amongst six hundred other East-European newcomers to Australia who had landed in Sydney the previous day and now were being taken to the newly established migrant reception centre in Bathurst, New South Wales. The ship “Amarapoora” which had brought us from Naples had taken six weeks for the voyage, so the travellers had had time not only to relax after five post-war years spent in various camps in Germany, but also to be introduced to the country where we were going to settle. There were daily lessons of English for adults and for the children, lectures, talks, films, singing sessions, books, newspapers, all intended to provide information about Australia and to what the accompanying migration officers called ‘the Australian way of life’. Most people were anxious to absorb as much of it as possible, although the lack of English language made it difficult for many, and there were not enough people on board capable of interpreting.

As during the time in displaced persons’ camps in Germany, people of different nationalities on board this British ship tried to stay together in their own national groups. The majority were Balts: Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians. They organised activities in their own languages, produced news bulletins, staged concerts and sports’ competitions. Did we need to reassure ourselves that now with all the preparations for a very new and different existence we could preserve something of our fundamental values?

Our family, the Lithuanian Žižys (Ed‘s note – in English ‘Zizys’), could not participate in all these common activities. Vytautas was kept busy in other ways. He was one of those who could speak English, so was placed on a list of interpreters and was being called upon by the Australian officers any time language help was needed. He quite enjoyed it and felt that it was useful for some future occupation in the new country. He could find out for himself all the information provided in talks and lessons that he missed while interpreting for others.

I was sick during most of the journey. It was not sea-sickness but frequent debilitating attacks of pain in my side and back which started towards the end of our unexpected four months’ stay in Italy. We had left Germany as a family of five with our baby Saulutis who was born in Stuttgart. He was a big, healthy baby whom the health commission allowed to travel without raising any concerns. We left Stuttgart by train to go to Naples and expected after a day or two to board a ship to Australia. On arrival in Italy, however, we were told that the ship had been delayed and that we would have to wait a few weeks in a transit camp in Bagnoli near Naples. After four weeks of waiting, the Italian summer heat set in. Saulutis became sick. We could not leave and stayed in Bagnoli another desperate three months battling with supervisors, doctors, hospital authorities. There was no help for the baby: at first the official camp doctors refused to believe he was sick. When, at last he was sent to one city hospital and then to another, it was too late and he could not be saved.

Three days after Saulutis’ funeral, we had to board the ship and leave. During the whole voyage wherever my glance turned, I saw my dying baby’s small fleshless face with his parched mouth and enormous eyes, imploring, accusing. Every night, if I managed to fall asleep, I would be awakened by the sound of his exhausted painful crying, just like I heard him cry in those dreadful last days of his brief life.

So I could not be a fit traveller, or a member of society, or even a member of my own family. I spent long days on my bunk in the women and children’s dormitory below decks, mostly doubled in pain, ignoring the ship’s and my family’s activities. Vytautas was patient and understanding. Other travellers helped look after the children when such help was needed. Only towards the end of the voyage did I manage to get up, re-join the others and prepare for disembarking.

 

BATHURST

 

Bathurst migrant reception centre was a collection of close-standing identical wooden barracks with corrugated iron roofs. They were built in the middle of a great yellow plain bordered on the horizon by a chain of rounded hills. Coming by bus from the Bathurst railway station the newcomers wondered at the surprising colour of the landscape: there were no greens under the radiant blue sky. On both sides of the road the tall grass of the fields was pale yellow turning in the distance to white. The few isolated trees here and there looked mere outlines marked in grey and brown. For the greater part of the journey no human habitation could be seen. When the cluster of the roofs of the migrant centre came into view, they looked like an uninhabited island in a shining white sea, its ripples of pale gold the only movement.

TEXT ENDS HERE

 

NEXT PART, written 2008

1950

 

It was the first day of school in Sale’s school of Notre Dame de Sion. In fact it was not the first school day for all, only for the teachers and boarders arriving from outside town. The day pupils would all come tomorrow. I was introduced to the other teachers and the nuns. I had a talk with the Principal – Reverend Mother Julian. My teaching load would be forty periods a week, plus some boarders’ supervision in the evenings. It would be mostly French as the convent belonged to a French order. Besides French I was going to take some classes in…Needlework (everybody can do a little embroidery and such) and a class or two of…History!! Seeing my fright, Rev. Mother suggested postponing that for some weeks until my English became more fluent. Instead I was to go to Rev. Mother to practice in French conversation with her - which she was using with me until now anyway. I was to have lunch at the convent with Miss Daly, the other lay teacher. Seeing that my little son would be going to the public Catholic school at the other end of the town he’d take a cut lunch and his main meal would be kept warm from our lunch when he came back from school. Little Rasa would be a boarder like others here. Already she seemed happily absorbed by a group of other little girls, already dressed in uniform and happy with the world and herself. Poor child. I just had a glimpse of her with the others in the corridor. Smile on her dear little face, she gave me a little wave from the distance. I wonder how she would communicate in these early days? Arūnas would find it much harder to adjust all alone in a strange place and further away from me. As in general, it was very, very difficult to find a place to live in, Rev. Mother would let me have one of the little cottages belonging to the convent, just across the road. One of them was lived in by two Irish ladies, great friends of the convent: a Mrs Connelly and Sister (nursing sister, that is) McGregor, the other one would be ours. It had been used for storage for several years, so it wasn’t quite liveable yet. Some senior girls, who arrived a few days earlier, were given the task to clear and clean the cottage and to make it as presentable as possible. They promised to have it ready for next week. Meanwhile Arūnas and I would continue staying with the Henneberrys practically next door to St Mary’s, Arunas’ school. Rasa, as a boarder, would sleep at the school.

So, our settling in was all arranged. Rev. Mother had thought of everything. No, not quite yet. After inquiring after my husband and hearing that he had to stay in Bathurst, busily occupied interpreting for other new arrivals, Rev. Mother after a brief moment, suggested: ‘A little later, when the beginning of the school year is sorted out, I’ll speak to one of our pupil’s fathers who is an influential man here, to look into your situation and see how to get your husband to Sale on his company work contract.’

Now, that really was everything. We were surrounded by kindness from all sides. Almost drowning in it…Will my teaching repay it all? Will I manage to teach?

A moment by myself in the teachers’ room. It is on the second floor and looks out onto the back playground. It is quite a large area, but the playground is not big: it is a round cleared area, surrounded by decorative plants, opening onto a wide shaded avenue, with great trees on both sides, wide reaching branches meeting overhead, making a living green roof for people below. Beyond the avenue and on its both sides stretch the convent’s orchard and its kitchen garden. At the moment several small groups of little girls can be seen in the playground and the avenue. They seem to be talking or playing gentle games. All are in uniform. All black but bright blue play tunics over them, all looking very neat and very prim. A young sweet-faced nun stands in the shadowy opening of the avenue, obviously supervising the pupils.

A calm, peaceful scene with no marks of any past storms or wars, many miles away from wrecked Europe lying in ruins, licking its wounds.

Can it be real. Can it last? Will the past be forgotten, or completely ignored? Can strangers be accepted here and feel part of the peaceful scene.

 

After school, Arūnas was very quiet. Asked how the first day went he answered with one word (in Lithuanian of course): ‘all right, good’ and a little shrug as if there was nothing to be said about it, as if it was unavoidable and therefore has to be accepted. Only later, when he was ready to go to bed, he said: ‘I wonder what Dad is doing now? I wonder’…

Before meeting the classes, the Rev. Mother raised another problem: what would the pupils call me? My surname will be too difficult for them to pronounce with two ‘Z’s’ and a ‘Y’. Would I mind if they simply called me ‘Madame’? So let me be Madame. For the five years that we lived in Sale, I was ‘Madame’ not only for the pupils and teachers at school but also in the town at large.

 

When tall, straight Rev. Mother walked along the long, wide corridor, she never had to raise her hand to open the double doors in several places dividing the corridor into sections and she never slowed her pace. There were always two girls, each on either side of the door expertly curtseying and opening each wing of the door. Rev. Mother passed through without a glance at the girls and without a change of expression. It looked as if the doors just open automatically at her approach.

When Rev. Mother for some reason entered a class-room the girls rose in perfect unison, like a regiment of soldiers at attention before a general. Such was the discipline in the school intended for the daughters of well-to-do families of the town and especially of the wealthy farmers of the large properties widely scattered in the countryside.

Local papers describing some social event liked to mention: ‘Miss So-and-So, a former pupil of Notre Dame’, or: ‘Miss So-and-So, educated at Sale Notre Dame school…’ The level of that education or the results achieved never got a mention.

 

1950

 

Rev. Mother herself took me to each class where I was to teach: middle-sized to large junior classes, small senior classes, Matriculation French class – nine girls. Every class presented the same scene: perfectly uniformed girls standing by their desks without a sound or a whisper, replying in chorus to Rev. Mother’s greeting, remaining standing until after some words of introduction about myself, she invited them to sit down and turn their attention to me. They must have been told about the new teacher, for after my standard ‘Bonjour, mademoiselles’, the prefect chorus answered: ‘Bonjour, Madame’. A few more words in French from Rev. Mother and then she left the classroom. All eyes on me – sink or swim. Of course I had planned and memorised some words and phrases for the pupils to repeat, copy, illustrate (for juniors and a little fuller conversations for seniors), I was not at all sure that they were suitable and appropriate. However the attention did not seem to lessen to the end of each lesson. Or was it their well-schooled manners? There was no sign of protest. The girls, sitting in their desks straight-backed, hands joined on the desk, eyes on me, not showing any animosity, making an effort to understand, to repeat or answer what was asked. When the bell went at the end of the period, the pupils didn’t rush from the room, but continued sitting, only indicating that they were waiting for the teacher’s permission to stand and file out.

Of course, of course, that sort of perfect behaviour could not last forever and even would not be natural for children of their age. But what an unforgettable first day of school! Despite all my inadequacies, what a gift of sympathy, attention and friendliness!

 

1950

 

The Cottage

 

The senior girls had finished the task of preparing our new home. I was given the keys and accompanied by a nun went across the road to see it. From the street, the cottage was hidden from view by some trees, especially a huge old acacia, covered in white blooms, growing in the centre of the block. A long path (probably be newly swept) led to the cottage which looked very small amongst all the greenery. On one side, parallel to it, stood its twin – another cottage, looking exactly the same but somehow different, perhaps wearing a brighter coat – newly painted? On the other side a small shed and a large bare field beyond.

“That used to belong to the convent, but was sold a few years ago” explains the accompanying nun seeing me looking at the field. At a glance I see at some distance, a lone big gum tree. The nun, noticing my look, continues with her explanation; “This old tree is good for wood. Mrs Connelly and Sister McGregor use it for their fireplace. You probably will want to follow their example. Plenty of dead branches, excellent for fires.”

Stepping inside we stopped to take in the place.

It was shiny! Whitewashed walls, dark furniture shining with polish. That’s what the girls were doing here - making it not only liveable, but inviting and welcoming. A huge fireplace by the side wall, a door to the next room which was the main bedroom. All fully furnished: the sitting room had a big table in the middle with six chairs with straight backs around it. Obviously old convent furniture. A cross above the fireplace. In the next room two beds, similar to the boarders’ beds in the convent, all fully made-up with mattresses, blankets, pillows, white well pressed sheets. Above the beds there was a little framed picture of the Madonna. At the end of the room a wardrobe and a chest of drawers. Like the things in the main room: all of heavy, dark and now highly polished wood. No mirrors, same as the convent.

The sitting and bedroom made up half the cottage. The next half was also two rooms of similar size. The first was the kitchen. A wood burning stove instead of the open fireplace in the first room, a small table, a few stools, a tap with a hand basin, next to the smallish window looking out onto the backyard. On the other side of the window – there was an ice-chest. On the second wall a long shelf with crockery and cutlery already filled. Nothing forgotten!

On to the last room – a second bedroom with bunk beds and a small chest of drawers. The toilet was outside, and there was supposed to be a shower in the laundry, also outside. I could hardly take it all in. I was delighted. Our first home in Australia!

When Arūnas saw the place in the afternoon he too was delighted: not a camp, not a dormitory. This was a real house, a home! “Who is going to live with us?” he asked as if there was too much space for one family. “Well, you’ll have to share your room with Rasa when she comes for the weekends and the holidays”. That suited him as they never been separated. “And Dad will share with you when he comes, won’t he?” – “Of course,” I answer, not all that sure at all. Goodness knows where Vytautas would be sent for his contract work.

When Rasa saw the place she loved it too although not to the point of not wanting to go back to the dormitory with all the other little girls. A little later, when all the nuns knew about our arrangements, they would allow her to cross the road and come ‘home’ for the night.

We all loved the place despite some short-comings, mainly the absence of washing facilities. The laundry was supposed to serve as laundry and bathroom. The rusty tub was not connected to any heating and had been used for storing wood. The shower had only cold water. Bed linen had to be laundered in the convent’s laundry at agreed times, small things had to be washed by hand. The big fireplace in the house and the cooking stove were, at least for me, hard to light, so were not much used at all except in winter, when cutting winds from the Antarctic blew into Sale and it could be very cold. Still we did not worry about any of it at all. We loved the cottage and the lovely shaded block on which it stood, where the children could run around and play, where I could set up a garden and grow vegetables and a few flowers….hopefully there would be some free time?

 

1950

 

Classes

 

The last time I had faced a class of children or adolescents was in 1941 in Šiauliai, ten years ago. All my prior teaching experience had been two years earlier: 1939-40 in Pasvalys H.S. and 1940-41 in Šiauliai H.S. There I had been a totally unprepared temporary teacher with no plans of making school teaching my permanent vocation. Nor did I have any professional training. I had been good at languages at school, but then I had been good at most other subjects, especially maths. At that time I didn’t have any definite future plans, although in the family there was never any doubt of me and my two younger brothers undertaking tertiary education – that was a given. After high school (Aušra H.S. in Kaunas) I had enrolled in Kaunas University, Faculty of Arts and was still debating what subjects to choose when the results of an Alliance Francaise competition which I had participated in during the last school holidays came through and I won first prize: a course of French at the Sorbonne University in France.

Of course I had to go Paris, forgetting any other possible studies. Two years later, in 1939, I had completed the course set by Alliance Francaise and graduated with a ‘’Diplome de Preparation de Professeurs de Francais a l’Etranger’’ (Ed: Diploma for teachers of French as a foreign language). I had also done half of the course (Bachelier des Lettres) for a B.A. degree studying French literature and philology. Feeling pleased with myself I decided to go home to Kaunas for summer holidays. It was during these holidays that Germany invaded Poland and the second World War started. The northern and western borders of Lithuania closed. I was stuck at home.

Many other things happened at this time and I did not worry about being ‘temporarily’ unable to return to Paris. To fill in time ‘until the madness blows over’ I was offered a temporary teaching job in the country in Pasvalys. Now, all these years later, I was to resume it in Sale.

A newcomer stepping into an assembly of unfamiliar people may feel apprehensive. In those days long ago of my early teaching I always feared meeting my new class. Here though I had already been formally introduced to all classes, the next morning waiting in the corridor for the bell to go, I felt choked with dread. Not only was I totally unprepared, not really knowing what I was expected to do and how to behave in my only shabby, home-made dress and worn sandals on bare feet, but there before me was an enormous, perhaps insurmountable obstacle – my inability to speak everybody’s common language. I had already accumulated some elementary knowledge of words and structures on paper and perhaps would manage to make up little sentences but it was doubtful that anyone would understand my pronunciation of them. And probably, more importantly I could not understand what other people were saying.

I would have to rely on my still fluent French, but would the children tolerate it?

They did. Gracefully, beautifully. With the seniors, who had been very well taught by old Sister Eleanor, simple conversations could be held from the first day and then quickly grew more fluent and complicated.

In the junior classes I tried to talk all the time: gesticulating, indicating, grimacing. The children, baffled but curious, watched in silence. Very soon, though, here and there, lips could be seen moving in repetition of an understood or guessed word or expression.

Imperceptibly the routine began to change, loud repetition was introduced, co-operation started, a little dialogue introduced. As days and weeks went by, silent curiosity was replaced by lively participation, enjoyment, little games, bits of songs (the eternal “Frere Jacques”), and all the time the dear little girls did not abandon their perfect good manners and their patient generosity.

It was very hard work which exhausted me like heavy labour, I never stopped still for a moment even though I was still recovering from a major operation, never having a free period or coming home without school work. But – I was happy. I did love those children.

The pupils were learning and so was the teacher. I cannot exactly remember when I started speaking a sort of English. Very early, I think. I was surrounded by it all the time in the convent. Only Reverend Mother and old Sister Eleanor who was the only other teacher of French at the school (not French herself though) spoke to me in French. I shared the music room at school, which was allocated to us as our teachers’ room and where we had lunch and a corner desk to keep our things in, with Sheila. Sheila was an English, History and Geography teacher and was about my age. She was a devout Catholic and a former nun. She didn’t know any French, so from the first day spending lunch time together, we had to find ways to communicate somehow. At first it was only Sheila doing the talking with me only smiling, nodding, trying to understand, pretending to understand, nodding more, often at the wrong times. Dear old Sister Brigidene looking after us and serving lunch (always on a beautifully set table with a white starched tablecloth and with a little bouquet of flowers or greenery in a vase in the middle of the table which was freshly cut every day) loved to talk and reminisce about Ireland and daily asked for our news. I had to find some elementary words to reply to her. And of course, as I did with everybody out of school, the elderly ladies, Friends of the Convent, whom Rev. Mother had asked to look after us and who did it faithfully. In short, everybody around us was Australian and spoke English. By and by, I had to pick it up and did. At first it must have been a great source of amusement to the children at school that their teacher confused the meaning of words, mispronounced words, gave wrong instructions. Every day I could make a list of verbal mistakes I made in class. Still, it was more acceptable than waiting until the pupils were ready to speak French…

Thinking back, I still wonder at how the pupils never lost their decorum at their teacher’s blunderings. How innately kind and generous they were. Of course, almost always I was aware of making an error. I could read a sudden merriment passing through the children’s eyes, although not reaching their lips, not provoking a sound of laughter, but making me stop and often ask: “Was that wrong, did I make another mistake?” How funny it must have sounded when I wanted to say that pupils who didn’t do their homework would score NOUGHTS, I pronounced it NUTS. Or in a teenage girls’ class I asked them to explain the contents of the CURSE when I meant COURSE. We all, they and I, were progressing steadily, by leaps and bounds.

 

Did my own children find it as challenging as I did?

 

THE CHILDREN

 

Rasa was six, Arūnas eight. Until now, living mainly in mixed Baltic communities (camps in Germany, transition camp in Italy, on board the ship, in the collection camp at Bathurst) besides the family talking only in Lithuanian, they had heard mainly German. They did not speak it at all, but at least the sound of it must have been more or less familiar. Not so with English which was totally new and unfamiliar. Surprisingly they never mentioned any difficulties they experienced. Rasa did not seem to have any problems at all and Arunas refused to discuss it. During weekends which we three spent together, Rasa did not stop talking about her week at the convent. She had already made three new friends who were the only other foreign pupils at the school, all Hungarians in a similar situation to ourselves as recent refugees. But they were not her only friends. She mentioned other names, also the names of the nuns – her teachers. And quite often she would say: “And Sister said that she…” and I could not resist asking: “How do you know what she said?” and she would say as if self-evident: “I just know it”, or “Well, I heard it!”

Arūnas on the contrary, did not speak about school. Even when Rasa was not there, every working day, after homework, we did not talk about his school. It is not that he kept silent when we were together. When we were alone with nobody around us, he would talk all the time – about what he saw on the way to and from school, on the street, in the cottage and around about; his thoughts about everything in our daily life, news from Bathurst and his father, still quite fresh memories of that camp where we had gone straight from the ship and where we had stayed several months. There he and Rasa had had the freedom to wander in the sun-bleached fields of the surrounding area, while his father was busy interpreting for other newcomers, and while I was sick in hospital. He still clearly remembered our voyage and some of the ghastly time in Bagnoli camp. He did not appear to have yet moved on from the family’s past experience to the new life. He missed the family being together, permanently so. “When will Dad be coming?” was his daily question. As Vytautas himself was still waiting to be sent somewhere to a place of appointment and did not know when this would be as he was still needed at the camp as an interpreter of English and German, the boy’s question could not be answered.

Every day meeting him from school and asking about his day he would answer with one word: “Good”, offering nothing more.

When some months had passed since we arrived, I met his teacher and asked about him and she answered: “Oh, he’s a very good boy, very very quiet in class. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say a word. Does he speak at home?”.

Should I start worrying? Did he really not understand what was happening around him?

The problem solved itself. One day he came home pre-occupied. Before I could ask him what the matter was, he said: “I want to make a rug. There is one with a beautiful orange collie dog. I want to make it!” It took me a while to work out which dog he meant and what it was all about. It was a hooked rug pattern that his class was going to make for a competition in Sale’s agricultural show later that year. Arūnas only knew that his class was going to make hooked rugs and he saw one he wanted to make. The parents had to buy the painted canvas, the wool and the hook. I already had saved a little money and didn’t mind spending on what the child so wanted, and what was needed for school. I did not understand why he was so worried about it. I said to him: “Are worried that we don’t have the money for that? Don’t worry, it’s all right. Do you know how much it costs?”

 

"You’ll have to come and see the Sister”.

 

“You know that I can’t come myself. I can’t leave my classes, but I’ll give you the money”.

 

Arūnas was upset.

 

“You don’t understand! You have to come”.

 

“Surely you can do without my coming?”

 

“No, I can’t, I can’t”.

 

“Why?”

 

“I just can’t”.

 

The argument went backwards and forwards and it only stopped when I declared with finality:

 

“You can have the rug when you tell me how much it is and I’ll give you the money to take to Sister”.

 

The child started crying, turned his back on me, climbed onto his bunk and put his head under the pillow shaking with sobs. It did not occur to me as to where lay the reason for such heartbreak.

 

The next day we spent the evening in silence. I dared not ask and Arūnas did not ask again, but remained silent and miserable. So was I. A few days later the original argument was repeated with his request: “You must come”, with me answering: “If you so much want to do it, you must tell the Sister”.

 

Some time past in this unhappy way.

 

It looked as if he were giving up on the idea. Then one afternoon he came into the house declaring: “I need twelve shillings for my rug. I’m going to make that orange dog”. He went and spoke to his teacher, got his rug and to the nun’s surprise from then on, the silence was broken! He spoke and participated and played with the others!

 

Rev. Mother found Arūnas a job. Since his school was at the other end of the township and practically next door to the post office, he could help the convent by going to the post office after school to collect the convent’s mail. To make it even easier, he was given an old bicycle that had belonged to a former gardener. Arūnas was delighted with the offer of the bicycle and he did not mind collecting the mail daily. The bicycle was to be kept in the shed of our cottage and he could use it whenever he wanted. So my little son became not only a talking pupil of St Mary’s but also the Notre Dame convent’s postman. At the end of term, he was given a good report, with a comment that the principal was delighted with his progress of integration into the school. His collie dog rug was also progressing steadily and before the end of the school year it won first place in the competition in the town’s agricultural show.

 

GOOD NEIGHBOURS

 

Two Australian families contributed greatly to our learning and then practicing English. The first one was our neighbours next door: Mrs Connelly and Sister MacGregor. In the new little extension to their wood and chicken shed there was also said to live a Mr Connolly, but we never saw or met him. Mrs Connelly and Sister MacGregor were always together. Years ago they had come from Ireland, were staunch Catholics and official Friends of the Convent who had special front row seats in the convent’s chapel where we attended Mass every Sunday and every official feast-day. They were a strange couple. Mrs Connelly was the older, setting the tone, a middle-aged lady, all comfortably plump and round with greying hair set in a bun on her neck and a rosy cheeked face. Sister MacGregor was a younger woman, still working as a medical sister at Sale Hospital, well over six feet tall and slim with dark hair severely pulled back from her face. Her face had no distinguishing features, but she always had a serious, almost solemn, expression. The ladies had a car – rather Sister MacGregor had it and they shared it with Sister at the wheel and Mrs Connelly in the passenger seat.

 

Rev. Mother must have told them about us, for when she introduced us officially, they seemed to know all about us already and graciously promised to: “look after us and help us with anything we might need to know about our new country and the Australian way of life.”

 

They took their promise very seriously and from then on, we saw them very often. First of all, they wanted to show us the sights.

 

These were our first experiences of car rides, especially on those Saturdays when Sister did not have to be on duty in the hospital. At first, we did not venture far out of town as there was much to see and learn right there. Mrs Connolly liked to stop in the shopping centre and look at the window displays. This was in order to explain to us (again and again and again) how lucky we were to be here.

 

“You probably have never seen so many things available”.

 

“That is not what you were used to in the old world, is it?”

 

“You probably never had that at home, but….”

 

In the early days I couldn’t understand all her comments and certainly didn’t possess the vocabulary to reply, so I usually just nodded in agreement, smiled, showed appreciation and occasional delight. The important thing was the learning of English sounds, new words, ‘The Australian way of life’, but as time went on it all started to grate. Further excursions to the surrounding area were much more pleasant.

 

To both the children’s delight they took us to a small park which had swings, then to a big park that had a lake with black swans swimming in it. One special Saturday we even travelled about 20 kms to Seaspray beach.

 

Living so close to each other (the two cottages were separated by a narrow garden walk with a broken fence in between) meant that we spoke to each other nearly every day, usually Mrs Connelly advising me about something and me nodding in agreement: “Yes, yes...mmm…yes”.

 

Other early acquaintances and later great friends and benefactors were another family, also Friends of the Convent, the Henneberries. They were four middle-aged to elderly sisters and one brother, all unmarried and living together in a big stone house on the other side of town. They were part of a well-to-do squatter’s family. One other brother had a family of his own on a large cattle farm where he lived and worked with his wife and two daughters, while the older brother and sisters, except Hilda, the youngest, were retired and lived in Sale.

 

The two youngest Misses Henneberry were the two ladies who, at Rev. Mother’s asking, had met us on our arrival at Sale, when none of us could speak any English, and that was all they spoke. Miss Hilda Henneberry drove the shiny black family car that belonged to them all, but was only driven by her. They were not seen at the convent as much as Mrs Connelly and Sister MacGregor, as they attended Sunday mass at the Cathedral and were highly respected members not only of Sale’s Catholic community, but of the town’s ‘leading class’.

 

From the first day of our arrival and due to the obvious lack of means of verbal communication, unobtrusively but constantly, they took care of us and helped in many ways not only when they were asked by Rev. Mother. Already on our first Sunday in Sale, they established a custom which lasted five years, until we left Sale; they invited us for Sunday lunch with their family.

 

It was an almost formal occasion.

 

In the middle of the great family room stood a festive looking big oak table covered with a stiff white damask tablecloth, sparkling glasses for water, fine matching plates, three for each seat, silver cutlery.

 

Introductions were made first, as until then we had only met Hilda and Elizabeth Henneberry, the two youngest sisters. There was Miss Irene who seemed to be the manager and housekeeper of the family and Miss Mary, a frail looking elderly lady, who as we discovered later, had the role of the family decorator, a painter whose oil landscapes adorned the walls of this, and as we were shown later, other rooms of the house. Mr James Henneberry , the only man in the house, was a retired gentleman who on occasion went to their other brother’s property to help with the office work.

 

We all shook hands with the hosts, who seemed to welcome us with smiles and kind sounding words which we did not understand and then they invited us to the table. The meal was a baked lamb roast with potatoes and three hot vegetables, followed by sweets of fruit salad and ice-cream. Everything was very tasty, but with our worry about what the correct behaviour at the table should be and our lack of language we could not fully appreciate the meal. The children were exceedingly shy at first, especially Arūnas, but nobody seemed to mind and by the time the ice-cream came around, they managed to show that they liked it very much and tried to say a word or two of thanks. After the meal Miss Hilda and Miss Elizabeth cleared the table and Miss Irene served the tea and cake – clearly home-made, covered with cream and decorated with strawberries. Sheer delight! Even Arūnas became bolder and accepted a second slice.

 

That Sunday was an example of their established custom and we felt included in it. That first time, after the meal, we were shown the other rooms in the house, and the garden which at that time of the year was full of flowering shrubs and greenery. Back inside, Miss Hilda found some old picture books that had belonged to her now grown-up nieces and showed them to the children, speaking easily to them as if they understood perfectly what she was saying, and which they probably guessed correctly.

 

As time went on, some Sunday afternoons after lunch, we were taken in their car on excursions out of town, right into the country, the bush, the sea-side, from time to time even to their other brother’s property, where we met the family, and were shown how the large dairy-farm worked without a lot of hired labour, but with a lot of machinery. The country Henneberry family were as friendly and welcoming to us as the town ones, but they seemed much busier. I wondered if they ever had time to swim in their big swimming pool or play on the well-kept tennis courts. Perhaps these were left over from a previous more numerous generation.

 

I was learning, experiencing kindness, friendliness and generosity.

 

UNITED

 

Brief weekly letters came from Vytautas. He continued to be fully occupied in the Bathurst migration reception centre, interpreting for the administration and the newcomers from and into English, German and Lithuanian. The Australian officers of the camp seemed to appreciate him being there and didn’t want to send him anywhere else in a hurry, even though that was part of the migration contract.** (Ed’s note: ** The Australian government required of migrants that the head of the family (or single person) undertake a two year contract to work as and where requested to pay back the cost of travel to Australia).

 

He was not unhappy with what he was doing there and must have appreciated the satisfaction of being needed. However he mentioned in almost every letter that he missed his family and was worried about us.

 

I answered the letters briefly as well as there never seemed to be enough time to write longer ones.

 

Days were filled with schoolwork: teaching face-to-face forty periods a week and preparing for them. Marking pupils’ work in the evenings, followed by more preparation. Sundays were dedicated to the children and visits to the Henneberries, evenings to washing, ironing and mending Arūnas and my clothes, essential as we did not have enough clothes for frequent changes. Rasa was given second-hand uniforms, so I did not have to worry how to keep her clean and tidy. As she liked to spend Sunday nights with us, it was compulsory to tell the children a story in bed (reading their own stories came months later.) Only after the children went to sleep, did I have quiet time to write a letter but I was too tired myself. The letters had to be brief.

 

Rev. Mother did not forget her early promise to try and have Vytautas sent to Sale for his contract job with the help of some influential friends. As per our passports we were qualified as Labourer (male) and Domestic Help (female). Rev. Mother thought however, that as Vytautas was already working as an interpreter, he may be able to continue this occupation in Sale. There appeared to already be a number of foreign migrants in Sale, all having difficulties through lack of English language and needing an interpreter. Rev. Mother discussed the matter with the Henneberries, who shared her opinion and advised her to speak with the director of the Sale district hospital which was a very large establishment and already provided jobs to most of the foreign newcomers. The director agreed that there was a real need for an interpreter in the hospital and promised to make a special application to the migrant employment office. Rev. Mother felt sure that “Madame’s” husband could have that position. I felt excited and assured that our problem was solved and that we would soon be together again as a family.

 

The same evening – not waiting until Sunday – I wrote a brief note to Vytautas to share the news. He replied immediately that he too was excited and very happy and asked more about the hospital, the promised job and his future employer. I didn’t know all that much about it but I had high hopes. Being together again was the most important thing, surely?

 

A mid-term break came along allowing the boarders to visit their families for three whole days. There was no school on Monday. I took the opportunity to go ‘down the street’ with Rasa, perhaps to buy her an ice-cream and to look at the window displays. As we stopped to admire some hats in a shop window, I heard someone behind us say: “Devil take it, all the wrong dates…all in loud and clear Lithuanian! I pulled Rasa’s hand and caught up with two tall men.

 

“Gentlemen, you speak Lithuanian!”

 

“Is that forbidden?” one answered, laughing.

 

It felt like meeting close, but long-lost friends. Introductions on both sides followed; situations explained, worries shared; right there on the street.

 

They were Adolfas Eskirtas and Antanas Bikulčius. They were both in their thirties or early forties, married with no children and had come a year earlier than the Zizys family. It was the earlier period of post-war migration when only single people and families with no children were admitted. Both were working in Sale hospital in contract jobs and living in garages. When I mentioned that my husband was coming soon and had already been promised a job in the hospital as an interpreter, Bikulčius expressed some doubt.

 

“Why would they make an exception for him? Our papers are clearly marked ‘labourer’, not ‘office worker’. Anyway, there are a few amongst us already who have picked up enough English to help the rest of us. Everybody is trying to learn the language.”

 

I felt that I shouldn’t have said anything about Vytautas’ hope for an office job and asked them about something else. We exchanged addresses – the men promised to give mine to their wives – and said they wanted to meet my husband when he arrived.

 

It turned out there was already a whole group of Lithuanians in Sale and that they enjoyed getting together to share their own stories and as well as news from the larger group of compatriots in Melbourne.

 

Later the Eskirtas, Bikulčius and Zizys families became the nucleus of the Sale branch of the larger Lithuanian community in Victoria.

 

When he finished his work contract Bikulčius moved to Melbourne and joined various organisations, becoming a well-known member of the community. He sponsored two young boys through their studies, one through medicine, one through religious studies.

 

The Eskirtas family stayed on in Sale where they became farmers and owners of several houses in the town. They were well known and respected in the town and surrounding area, as well as being active members of the Catholic church and patriotic Lithuanians. They had a daughter who as a baby was left with her grandmother in Lithuania. From their first days in Australia they started a campaign which lasted seventeen years to get their daughter out of Soviet Lithuania and over to Australia. When at last their campaign was successful and the girl came out to Australia we were the first who went to Melbourne airport to meet her. By then Eskirtas also had a younger son born in Sale. We had become best friends with them especially me with Elena Eskirtas.

 

Soon Vytautas received his papers from the camp administration in Bathurst with an instruction to depart and to report for work to the Sale district hospital. When he arrived and went to the hospital, he was told that his job was to be the hospital’s boiler attendant. There was no mention of translating and interpreting. He was bitterly disappointed.

 

There was no-one to complain to. At home his family was overjoyed to finally have him with them after the long separation. New Lithuanian acquaintances in the town all had menial jobs and didn’t see any problem. He tried to speak to his superiors at the hospital who only reminded him:

 

“Before coming to this country, you signed a contract and knew what to expect. It’s not too difficult a job anyway and you are together with your family.”

 

It was all true and Vytautas knew it. Nevertheless, he thought that it was humiliating, demeaning and wasteful. The disappointment and bitterness which he felt on arriving lasted the whole two years of his contract. He avoided speaking about it and tried not to show his feelings even to his family, but there remained in him a sadness which at least at home, could not be hidden.

 

“A poor man” was a new expression that he used whenever there was talk about the general situation of migrants, those newcomers to a new country who had to adjust to new ways.

 

It took some time for me to understand his feelings. One evening when he came home later than usual and dead tired, I suggested to him that he try to rest more and not do so much overtime, which he took on from the first day, and he interrupted me angrily:

 

“It is not the work I am tired of. The work isn’t hard and I want to do all the overtime I can. After all it is paid and we need the money. What I hate about it is being at the beck and call of all and sundry, all those chits of nurses-aids ordering me around as though I was an illiterate idiot…”

 

“Darling, I didn’t know”.

 

“No, you wouldn’t.”

 

Later he apologised for his outburst and insisted he did not blame me for anything, it was just the general circumstance that for the first time in his life he felt useless and that he was going to make those two years as useful for the family as possible for our future.

 

The first thing we needed to do was to save money for that time when he would be free of the contract and be able to take his family away from here. That meant owning our own house first of all. Even though he heartily disliked the contract work it brought a regular income. A lot of overtime was available and he took almost as much as was offered, including double-paid work during the weekends. He saved most of it, spending only what was absolute necessary.

 

My weekly salary was 6 pounds, but out of that 2 pounds was for rent of the cottage, another 2 pounds went to Rasa’s boarding fees and 1 pound was the cost of lunches at the school. The leftover was not paid regularly fortnightly but only when it accumulated to some small sum at the end of term or even less frequently. In the first year I had managed with almost nothing in the way of cash. When Vytautas came, he gave me a little housekeeping money regularly, which was mine to manage and to spend. When he worked during the day, he ate at the hospital, so I only needed to get breakfast for us three and we didn’t need much as Arunas and I had a full cooked meal at the convent. We did not need – at least at the beginning – any new furniture for the cottage as everything had been provided. What we did acutely need was clothing, especially underwear. The children had grown out of theirs and mine was practically gone through wash and wear and needed to be supplemented. In winter I learnt where to find cheap wool and began knitting. I could make clothes for the children and even my own dresses (I had done a dress-making course at the camp in Germany), but I had to get access to a sewing machine. The first big outlay of money was required. The school was ordering new sewing machines for dress-making classes. So, I managed to save a minimum deposit for a new sewing machine from my house-keeping money. My order went with the common order for the school, with the same discount and we acquired our first furniture item: a new Singer sewing machine in a shiny dark wood cabinet! It would take two full years to pay off the debt, but that machine did serve me for a great part of my life.

 

Besides doing frequent overtime and saving money, Vytautas looked for something useful to study, “so as not to become a professional illiterate”. I don’t know exactly where and when he found an advertisement about various correspondence courses at the Melbourne technical college. He wrote for more information and applied to be admitted to a radio technician’s course. He was accepted and became a student, although he avoided speaking about it at home to me and never mentioned

it to any of our new acquaintances. I really never knew how and at what times he studied; this was somehow his separate private life. He never seemed to have any books or notes. But in two years’ time, when he finished his contract work, he was able to straight away get a job as a technician in a radio station and then he applied for another correspondence course in radio engineering - again at Melbourne technical college – and eventually graduated as a radio engineer.

 

Looking back, I still wonder how he managed to achieve it all and how little I knew about it at the time. I must have been too absorbed in my own teaching job (as, I am ashamed to say, I must always have been and probably still am, even in my old age and doing practically nothing).

 

In fact, as long as he lived, he never stopped studying and his family were hardly aware of it. He never took time off his daily work and we never saw him studying at home. Coming home from work he seemed to leave behind not just his daily occupation, but also study and reading. What books could be seen at home were my books, my work, and books for my studies later on. I must have neglected my husband so much.

 

After Vytautas came, the cottage we were now both living in started to gradually change and became more lived in, not just occupied. He started doing work on it. First of all, he roughly repaired the bath in the laundry shed, emptying the kindling out of the tub where it had been stored and cleaning it thoroughly. Then he fixed the roof of the shed and made the shower usable even if it still only had cold water. He made a lean-to from the tumble down woodshed against the back fence and put in there the things taken out of the laundry and whatever was lying around the backyard; a few garden tools, briquettes for the fireplace and kindling wood, small bits of cut wood and anything else that didn’t have a special place to go. The whole backyard became empty, a place to bring out a stool and sit in the sun.

 

He decided to make the large front yard into a grassed area with garden around it. There was plenty of hard labour in the plan and this he loved.

 

The first person to talk to him outside the hospital was, of course, Mrs Connelly. Curious to see the new member of the family next-door, she did not wait long to come and introduce herself and was most impressed to find a stranger with such a good command of English. Immediately she overflowed with advice on how to do this, that and the other. Vytautas smiled politely but did not show great interest.

 

From the first Sunday he came to visit the Henneberries with us and unless he was working overtime from then became a constant Sunday lunch guest there.

 

The Henneberries were, as always, beautifully tactful and with them Vytautas relaxed and was attentive and interested in everything they said, especially when the older Mr Henneberry spoke about his childhood on the farm.

 

I introduced my husband to Rev. Mother in the first days of his arrival and he thanked her for making the effort to bring him to Sale, without mentioning his disappointment. I sensed a definite coldness in his attitude to her though and could not help but notice that he avoided going into the convent, even just to mass in the chapel on Sundays.

 

On one occasion he made his feelings perfectly clear to me. Rev. Mother noticed him digging up the ground around the cottage and asked me what we were planning to grow there. I explained. She said:

 

“Mr Zizys seems to be really interested in the land. I just thought – maybe he could come and help our gardener from time to time? The old gardener is getting too tired and I am sure he would appreciate someone young and strong to give him a hand…”

 

When I mentioned her suggestion to Vytautas, he exploded:

 

“Tell your beloved Rev. Mother that I am not here for her service! She already overworks you without proper pay, she has turned Arūnas into the convent’s messenger boy, she sees me and already thinks how to make use of an extra pair of hands. No, thank you! I already have a full-time job and try to do things around the cottage to make it more comfortable for us and am not here to improve the convent’s property value!”

 

I started to remind him I did not teach without pay, but was actually paying for the cottage and Rasa’s school and that Arūnas had got a bicycle from bringing in the convent’s mail. But he did not listen.

 

“All right, all right. You must enjoy being exploited. But please don’t involve me.”

 

Vytautas very early made contact with all the Lithuanians working and living in Sale. Most of them were our generation and very friendly people. They met often, most worked at the hospital. They visited one another at their places even if only one family had bought a house of their own. So, we too met with them and often had visitors coming after work to our cottage. When Adolfas Eskirtas bought a truck on Saturdays we went as a group to explore the area outside Sale, to have a picnic, talk, sing together well-known Lithuanian songs, watched the children play together. It was the early life of a national community abroad.

 

THE THREAT

 

I was called to Rev. Mother’s one lunch hour.

 

“Sorry to interrupt your lunch, Madame, but I thought you should know. The school is getting ready next month for its yearly inspection. It is quite important for us to maintain our rank in the system of secondary private schools. Please think about it and prepare to impress!”

 

“Reverend Mother, what should I do to impress? I thought I was doing my best, spending a lot of time preparing my lessons, learning them by heart…I know I haven’t much English yet, but I am trying so hard and the pupils are very attentive and very well-behaved. What can I do more?”.

 

“Well, I hope we pass the inspection. Keep up the good work.”

 

I held back tears because lunch hour was ending and I had a class waiting. It was a small year eleven class with whom we were studying a French poem. The girls read it beautifully, the conversation flowed in French, my inadequate English was hardly needed. Let them listen to that! I thought with pride.

 

Vytautas had an early shift and was already changed and had rested for a few hours when I got home after school. He listened patiently to all the details of my conversation with the Superior and commented:

 

“So, why are you worried? Think of the results you are getting from your pupils! How could you do anything more or better?”

 

“What if the inspectors fail me and they fire me?”

 

“They won’t fire you! It was so difficult for them to find a teacher before the beginning of the school year. Where would they find one now in the middle of the year? Don’t even think about it.

 

“But, what if…”

 

“It’s not a death sentence is it? You would find another place, you are getting experience, your English is coming along very well and quickly…”

 

“I’ll never get another place…”

 

“The we would survive without it. You are a free person without a contract. You could look for a different job.”

 

“Where would we live?”

 

“We would find something, like everybody else who is new here”

 

“What would I do?”

 

“Be a lady of leisure for a change. Look after your family.”

 

End of conversation. I did not add: “But I love teaching, I love doing what I am good at, I love the pupils…”

 

Next Sunday I decided to spend at home and work on preparing something different and interesting for each of my classes keeping in mind the inspectors. I had apologised to the Henneberries from the school phone a few days earlier, Vytautas took the children to the lake to see the black swans and left me to have time to myself.

 

From that time on this pattern repeated itself and so we removed ourselves a little from Henneberries although our relationship with them remained as warm as before except that we visited them less frequently. Perhaps, it was time anyway as we could not possibly return their hospitality and I began to feel that we were exploiting them. They found ways to show their support and friendship which did not diminish as long as we lived in Sale and Hilda, the youngest remained close even after we left Sale. ........ (2b cont) .....

 

 

Done