Those who have been following my Australia travelogue will notice that — after three installments — I am still in Sydney and the Sydney area.
Although there are many reasons for dwelling on this magnificent city, it is time to move on — but not before mentioning one (or two) more thing(s).
Perhaps some of the reasons why we fell in love with Sydney are the same reasons why the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1993 selected Sydney to host the 2000 Olympic Games over four formidable opponents: Beijing, Berlin, Istanbul and Manchester. I would be surprised if Sydney’s vibrant diversity (at the time Sydney’s population included about 140 different ethnic groups), its cultural richness, love of sports and other “people factors” were not as important to the IOC as what Sydney had to offer in the way of logistics, infrastructure, transportation, security, etc.
Most surprising is the fact that Sydney was able to meet and surpass one of the IOC’s major objectives: to have a “green” Olympics. This in spite of serious pollution, contamination and other environmental and safety problems and issues at and around the proposed Olympic site and facilities at Homebush Bay. Indeed, thanks to typical Aussie can-do attitude, perseverance and optimism, the Olympic facilities and Games became an environmental success. The Olympic Village, for example, became “the largest solar powered suburb in the world, using about 75% less grid electricity than a suburb of comparable size.”
What had appeared to be liabilities — the environmental concerns and issues — became a “showcase for Australian environmental technology”
The Games of the XXVII Olympiad were an unmitigated success, “fast-tracking Sydney as one of the world’s great destinations,” where it has stayed since then.
While still in Sydney, and related to the Olympics, we read about the death of Australia’s oldest Olympian, Basil Dickinson, 98, who competed at the 1936 Games in Hitler’s Germany and was thus the last “human link with Australia’s pre-World War II Olympic history.” Dickinson, then a 21-year-old triple jumper, displayed even at that young age the grit, individualism and strength of character that, in this writer’s opinion, is so typical of our friends Down Under.
According to The Australian:
On arrival, [the 33 athletes selected to represent Australia at the Berlin Olympics] were informed by German officials that they were expected to perform the Nazi salute to Adolf Hitler at the opening ceremony, but the Australian team declined.
“We did just the eyes right,” Dickinson said, noting that those teams that did give the Nazi salute received the biggest cheer from the crowd.
Finally leaving Sydney, but not the Olympics, our next stop was Canberra, Australia’s young, meticulously planned and “executed” — just as the Sydney Olympics — capital located in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), 185 miles southwest of Sydney.
There we would meet another person with links to the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games: Vera Palmer, a lovely, unforgettable 98-year-old lady and the mother of three other charming Aussie ladies. Two of them — Tory Greeney and Margaret Lawson — along with their husbands were our hospitable and kind hosts, companions and guides while Down Under. Vera also happens to have “about 56 great-grandchildren.”*
When I had the pleasure of visiting Vera at her Canberra home, a white, blue and silver Olympic Torch on top of a cabinet in her living room immediately caught my attention. Lo and behold, I found out that, 13 years ago, Vera had taken part in the 2000 Sydney Olympics Torch Relay in Tamworth, New South Wales.
Remembering every bit of her participation in the Torch Relay, Vera invited me to hold the torch. It was a great moment. I had never seen an Olympic Torch close-up, let alone hold one, and I could just see this determined lady proudly carrying the Olympic Torch — at age 85.
We chatted for a while and eventually our conversation turned to Australia’s rich, interesting and ever-changing immigration (“migration”) history — something I became fascinated with.
But aside from my “fascination,” immigration is an important and sometimes controversial subject (as it is in the U.S.) in this young country where only three generations ago, just about everyone was an immigrant — voluntary or otherwise — and predominantly of English and Irish descent.
In New South Wales, even to this day, four out of every ten people are either migrants or the children of migrants, according to the New South Wales Migration Heritage Center. It was so with Vera’s grandparents who arrived in the mid 1800s from Britain and Ireland. (Vera’s English grandmother arrived in Australia aboard the ship Tory Belle, after which Vera’s daughter, Tory Greeney, and one of Vera’s sisters were named.)
It was also around this time when the character of Australian immigration started to dramatically change as the flow of convicts became a dribble and eventually stopped, to be replaced by those who, like Vera’s grandparents, came from Britain and Ireland as free settlers with the necessary skills — such as agricultural — to start a new life.
But then, when gold was discovered just outside Bathurst in 1851, the nature of Australian migration changed once more:
People arrived in far greater numbers and from more varied backgrounds than ever before. Between 1851 and 1861 over 600,000 came and while the majority was from Britain and Ireland, 60,000 came from Continental Europe, 42,000 from China, 10,000 from the United States and just over 5,000 from New Zealand and the South Pacific.
Vera, however, focused her sharp mind and amazing memory on the late 40s through 1950s period when — in another change in “migration” policy — Australia, under the catchphrase “Populate or perish!” negotiated a series of agreements with countries such as the Netherlands, Italy, Austria, Belgium, West Germany, Greece, Spain, the United States, etc. to accept “more than two million migrants and displaced people” and assisted one million British immigrants with £10 (in those days, approximately $25) passages. They were nicknamed “Ten Pound Poms,” according to the New South Wales Migration Heritage Centre.
Vera told us how these immigrants, who arrived by ship at major ports such as Sydney and Melbourne, were housed in primitive “migration hostels,” some of them former military barracks and how they sometimes stayed there for months awaiting work. But, eventually, they all found work in many of Australia’s ambitious post-war projects, in factories, in the iron and steel industries, on the railways and in mines.**
Vera animatedly discussed these post-World War II immigration policies that brought to Australia much-needed skills and labor, but questioned the next wave of Australia’s migration policies.
While browsing through the cornucopia of wonderful, free tourist literature about Australia at one of the abundant and excellent Visitors Information Centers –this one in beautiful Apollo Bay in Western Victoria, we met a woman who had come to Australia in the late 40s — after going from one refugee camp to another immediately after World War II. She was from Latvia and she told us how grateful she was to America for taking care of her after the war and to Australia for allowing her to immigrate.
Unfortunately, we did not get the chance to talk more, but from a little research on this aspect of Australian migration, I learned that in 1947 Australia agreed to accept a minimum of 12,000 of the approximately 11 million people who had survived the Nazi labor and concentration camps and that, on November 28, 1947, “the first Displaced Persons – 844 young Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians – arrived on the General Heintzelman in Melbourne and were transferred to Bonegilla migration hostel.”
I wonder if “our Latvian lady” had perhaps been aboard that ship.
I also wish that I had spent more time with Vera tapping her amazing store of knowledge and experience, especially on “migration.” Australia’s and Australians’ attitudes towards immigration and immigrants have fluctuated back-and-forth over the past 225 years.
An interesting footnote might be News Corp chairman, Rupert Murdoch’s recent remarks at the Lowy Institute in Sydney where he encouraged Australia to embrace high immigration in order to add dynamism to the economy and because diversity gives the country a competitive advantage.
* Mrs. Palmer’s family information courtesy of her son-in-law, Robert (“Bob”) Greeney. I worked with Bob, then a Royal Australian Air Force exchange officer, in 1976-1978 at the Communications Computer Programming Center (CCPC), Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma.
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** The author augmented his notes from his conversation with Mrs. Palmer with information from other sources, as indicated.
Lead Image: Olympic stadium Sydney, Regien Paassen Regien Paassen / Shutterstock.com
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.