Dads stories

My Story - and why we migrated to Australia

Extracted from an email message to Harald. Dated 5th August, 1999
The german address of “thou” vs “you” irritated me when I was still living in Germany. Of course it is a form of respect when one addresses someone in plural, especially in the 3rd person. But then on the other hand if you don’t use this form, it can be seen as an insult. That is how I saw it years ago – when I was a hothead. But even now, like in my letters to you, when I write to a total stranger, I find it difficult to use the simple “du”. I guess I have calmed down over the years. And then I also discovered that other languages follow similar rules.
Doesn’t really matter in any case. Nowadays I am even subject to a queen. I can tell you that was difficult to swallow. And I guess I deserved being taken down a peg or two. There were so many things that I held such strong beliefs over. In those days during the Naturalisation Ceremony we had to swear allegiance to her majesty, by swearing on the bible (1966). No..not me! I was the only one in the large hall full of people who refused and so they made me come to the front. Hedwig wished the ground would swallow her up...she was so embarrassed. I then legally promised my faithfullness to the queen. What a circus!
Why did we migrate to Australia? A questions with many answers. Some of the answers can be read between the lines in the paragraph above. My strong fundamentalistic opinions about things. Heine touches on this in his writings. Some of the reasons were due to the “economic-miracle-people” who before the currency conversion were the most loving individuals (?). A big reason was Hedwig who already wanted to leave Germany long before we started going out together. And the biggest motivation would have to be attributed to the Police Chief, Kexel, our landlord, who lived directly above us, amongst other things regularly beat up his wife and without warning fined us for leaving our motorcycle parked for a few minutes on the footpath propped against the housewall before we took them to our garage.
Migrating was a topic that Hedwig and I had already discussed several times previously. I was not in favour for several reasons. Firstly I didn’t think my trade of Cabinetmaker would be in demand elsewhere, and secondly I doubted that it would make any difference to me: -what I could achieve there, I could easily achieve here. Big mistake. One day Hedwig found an advertisement in the local paper which said : “ sunny Australia is only 30 flying hours away”. Ah well, she cut it out and showed it to me without any expectations. Ok, I said, what do you hope to gain by this? She told me that in this huge country surely there must be a small piece of lawn where my children can play without disturbance and without fear! The next morning I drove to the Australian Consulate in Cologne.

……

Hedwig and I already knew each other since primary school. In 1940 we were in the same class. But we only started getting to know each other well in 1947. November 1949, at 19 years of age, we married. It was always our plan to have a big family. I wanted 6 children. Now I have 6 children, 12 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren. The oldest daughter is Inge. This year we celebrate our golden anniversary. This marriage was and is a total success.
My career: First I learned technical drawing in 1944. Then Cabinetmaking in 1946. Although successful, I could not imagine spending the rest of my life behind the workbench, there was nothing left to learn. When I was 20 years old I build a double base, which I played in a small band until 1962. In 1954 I joined the Rhine Tramways, as tram driver and drove the line 16. I did this so that I could join the Tramways orchestra which I managed to do (after teaching myself – with much pain and effort - to play the clarinet). In 1958 I was operated on the stomach, I had simply rehearsed too much (true!). In 1959 I started with the Duesseldorf Opera. In 1962 we migrated to Australia and I had various jobs in window factories in Sydney. In 1963 I started building sets for the Australian Opera. In 1965 I worked as a carpenter on the construction of the Sydney Opera house. In 1966 I took on a position as Stage Carpenter with the Melbourne Theatre company and built their sets. In 1970 I worked as a builder building houses. And 1972 – 1992 I took over the technical direction as Technical Director with the very dynamic Melbourne Theatre Company.

As you can see…I had a very colourful life!

posted by Inge @ 12:24 am