Not all migrants who came to the Illawarra would stay. There were those who chose to return to their homeland or move to other destinations in the South Pacific. The reasons were varied.
Albert Vanderplancke is a seasoned world traveller who throughout his life has been lucky enough to do several world trips and visit many countries, both for work and leisure. In preparation for his latest trip, albeit a short one across the ditch from New Zealand, he wanted to take the opportunity to “walk down memory lane” when he and his family migrated to Australia some 62 years ago. All he could remember was “we lived in a Mash style tent, with shared shower block and went to the food hall for meals. It was near a river or river mouth and the name Unanderra seems to ring a bell”. Albert was only about 6 years old when he came with his family to Australia. As Unanderra Hostel no longer exists, nor is there any type of sign that it existed at all, Albert visited the site of the former Balgownie (Fairy Meadow) Hostel on Squires Way, North Wollongong, as maybe that could trigger some memories.
The Vanderplancke family were from Belgium. Leo Vanderplancke, Albert’s father, was a young man in occupied Belgium where during World War 2 he had to work as forced labour for the occupying German forces in a Messerschmitt factory in Germany building aeroplanes. His father told him, this same factory later become a BMW factory. Albert says his father was a talented mechanical engineer and he would tell the story of when he worked in the Messerschmitt factory as a lathe operator where he would ‘tweak’ engine parts by a fraction of millimetre just enough for the aircraft engine to work but would cause the engine to fail pretty quickly. His father saw this as his contribution to the war effort. Sadly, his father also spoke of being badly tortured by the German forces, with several fingers across each hand cut off at the knuckle and a massive stab wound in his back. In hindsight, Albert now recognises that this trauma was probably what drove his father to be unable to settle down in one place for very long.
After the war his father, Leo, used his skill in mechanics/engineering first working for others in Belgium. Eventually he started and ran his own significant lawn mower repair and manufacturing business. He was very successful with selling to an English lawn mower manufacturer some lawn mower mould casts and other models based on a royalty payment and the family prospered. Nelly, his mother, always worked at any job she could in addition to bringing up the children and helping in the lawn mower repair and manufacture business.
The Vanderplancke family lived mostly in Brussels, Belgium, when they migrated to Australia under the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM) which was established in Geneva in 1951. (When first established the ICEM would help settle displaced persons after World War 2 and later, as a member country, Australia made arrangements to accept assisted migrants with a number of European countries including Belgium through ICEM).
The Vanderplancke family consisted of Leo (father), mother Nelly (deceased 2023), his siblings Helene (deceased 2014), Raphael and Catherine and Albert who at aged 6 was the second youngest. The family left Belgium and were driven to Rotterdam in the Netherlands by a family friend and then boarded the ship “MV Fairsea” for Australia via the Suez Canal. Their furniture and his father’s tools would follow by sea freight. Of the sea journey to Australia Albert recalls the first time he sailed to Australia it was a pleasant enough journey with the exception that nearly everybody smoked and they only served tea. Being from Belgium, coffee was their beverage of choice. He also recalls experiencing a couple of bad storms onboard the ship. One in particular he remembers is he and his family all together hanging on to the legs of a table in the dining room with the ship severely listing from side-to-side causing chairs and plates and the food to slide across the floor from one side of the dining room to the other.
The Vanderplancke family arrived in Melbourne on 31 December 1961. The ship’s passengers record had the address on arrival as “Department of Immigration – Bonegilla”. From Melbourne they boarded a train and were taken to Bonegilla arriving there on 5 January 1962. Albert remembers that train journey as being “stinking hot” and seeing his mother quickly jump onto a train station platform during a stop on the way to Bonegilla to purchase cold orange juice. He remembers the orange juice dispenser machine as it had some type of refrigeration coil attached to it to cool the juice. To Albert, that train journey from the port of Melbourne to Bonegilla seemed to go on forever. The family’s stay at Bonegilla was a short one because by 19 January his father had left Bonegilla for Unanderra Hostel to work in “iron and steel” at Port Kembla. His mother, Nelly, and the children left on 24 January 1962 for Unanderra Hostel. Albert does not remember much about Unanderra Hostel. He remembers his father working at a steel mill and that his mother also worked while they lived in at the Unanderra Hostel. Albert thinks his mother may have found work at the Hostel itself.
Albert thinks his father chose Australia to migrate to because it was a country the furthermost away from Belgium and the scene of his war time trauma which left him with undiagnosed and unsupported PTSD. Albert neither remembers living in a timber framed hut nor the Nissen Huts at Unanderra, but after seeing the former Dining Hall from Balgownie Hostel it allowed him to remember having meals in the dining hall at Unanderra.
None of his family spoke English and for Albert going to school was not easy. He does remember being picked up by bus and taken to school probably from Unanderra Hostel. His introduction to the English language was a teacher-led singing of Baa Baa Black Sheep every morning on that school bus.
At some point the family then lived in a tent and while in a tent he was still going to school. It was suggested to Albert that perhaps the family left the Hostel and took up accommodation at Stuart Park like so many others who found hostel living not to their liking, but he was unable to recall if it was Stuart Park. Because of his father’s business success in Belgium, they had the means to purchase land and engage a local builder to build their house shortly after their arrival in Wollongong. Albert could not remember which suburb. The house was completed but the family did not get to live in it as they left Australia and returned to Belgium. Albert remembers driving past the newly built house just before they left Australia.
The short stay in Australia and return to Belgium was the precursor to the life the family would have with their father Leo. As mentioned earlier, Leo was unable to settle down. Once they arrived back in Belgium from Wollongong, his father would be off again moving the family from one town to another in Belgium. The family then returned to Australia, but this time they stayed only one month and it was in Melbourne. Once again, their furniture and father’s tool would follow by sea freight. On this second journey to Australia Albert remembers the ship was the “MV Aurelia”. The next country the family went to was New Zealand in about 1964 to Wellington and then a place called Levin, then it was back to Belgium once again. From Belgium they went back to New Zealand but this time it was in Gisborne on the east coast of New Zealand and it was for a much longer stay this time – about 6 years where the family became New Zealand citizens. However, in 1970 the family found itself back in Belgium but only stayed for about one year until they once again returned to Gisborne, New Zealand, where Leo was finally able to stay in one place until he passed away in 1979. For Albert, all this moving and experiences had an element of excitement, however there was also a detrimental side especially in respect to education with the 10 years between the age of 5 and 15, he attended about 14 different schools across three countries and no doubt their father’s wanderlust and itchy feet affected all the family in different ways. Albert also comments, living on the other side of the world and not having any family around was also one of the challenges as we only had each other.
Albert remained in Gisborne where he worked as a head cook for 4 years and then moved to Auckland employed in hotel management for New Zealand’s Lion Breweries, Hotel division for about 6 years. It was also during this time he took up flying and attained his private pilot’s licence. He later worked in real estate as a very successful agent for five years in the Auckland area. Then in in the early 80s after the father’s death progressively, Ralf, then the two sisters and ultimately the mother all moved to Perth WA. Then in 1994 Albert also again migrated to Australia as a solo dad with his two sons Ryan 13 and Jarod 15 to find work in IT in Perth, Western Australia and stayed in Perth for about 9 years until he returned to Auckland, New Zealand, but during this time Albert and his son Jarod also got their Australian citizenship. Prior to moving to Perth Albert was previously married. Albert is now retired after 28 years in IT and finds himself looking for answers on his migration story without any significant aid of family photographs or collective family memories from his remaining siblings especially his mother who over the last ten years progressively had dementia.