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A Migration Story – £10 Poms From Nottingham

Migration is a fascinating subject. Why do people pack their bags and move somewhere completely different? Whilst all will say they are seeking a better life. To seek a better life in a new country, there has to be a strong urge to get away from the old.

Here is a local story that typifies both extremes. An unhappy childhood in 1930’s Nottingham and a successful migration to Australia, in the optimism of the 1950’s.

Edna Johnson was born in 1923 to Bernard and Sarah Johnson (nee Smith) at 31 Dickinson St Nottingham. Like many people at the time she had a tough upbringing. She was the third youngest of ten children, two of which died in infancy. Her dad was a policeman but for one reason or another he did not provide much to the family.  Accordingly, it fell back on Sarah Johnson to improvise in order to clothe and feed her brood.  However  stoic and caring her mother was, Edna was never in doubt about the poverty that they endured. Despite moving to Carrington, Edna attended St Augustine’s Catholic School on Woodborough Road, where she was treated abysmally by the nuns who ran it. Caned regularly for the slightest misdemeanor, her hands were to bear the scars for the rest of her life.

Lunchtime often meant running errands for her mother, to the pawn shop and back home again to get some money  order to get food for dinner.

“It was still a fair way to go till I reached home. I would try and run until my breath would enable me no more. I would have to get from Alfred St near St Ann’s Well Rd and back to Carrington in my lunch time. I have no idea how far home was from school but it was at least a mile.”

Edna’s education would finish at the age of 14. In her early teens and in order to provide for the family, she took on some babysitting work for a woman whose family lived on Carlton Road. During this time she got to know the woman’s brother Ron Miles. Now 16, any hope of a relationship and happiness were interrupted by the outbreak of war. Ron would not return home until 1945 by which time Edna was now a married mother, although happiness had still eluded her. She remembered her first husband Kenneth as an abusive alcoholic who soon departed and would play no further part in Edna or her daughter Carol’s life.

After returning from the war, Ron Miles reacquainted himself with Edna and they became a couple. However, due to divorce problems with the Catholic Church, they could not  marry until 1953. They had two sons, moved to Kennington Road in Radford Nottingham and later to Clifton. Ron was now a printer but was restless for something better.

Edna and Ron in Skegness

In March 1957 the Miles family arrived in Melbourne Australia aboard the SS Otranto.  As  “ten pound poms” life was still a struggle, but Edna now had a happy family that settled and established themselves in the new country.

What is remarkable about Edna’s story is that despite her difficult early life, and her limited education, she developed a desire to write poetry. She wrote many, but none it would appear, directly about her time in Nottingham. This is a shame but understandable. The following poem published by AH Stockwell gives her view on her life.

 

DIVIDED HOPES AND DREAMS

We left our homeland with its green pastures and all familiar places, things and faces

But we must not forget the other side, of cold and frost and snows.

Neither must we forget the gale force wind that off the Atlantic blows.

We traversed a great ocean deep to arrive the other side

and were met with some kind remarks, and many that were snide

We settled down and a home for our children we tried to make

and through the years worked hard for a stable background to create

Now our children are all grown with growing children of their own

and grandad and grandmama still find our thoughts go home

across the great expanse of ocean and on the other side

Where our memories are deep and still glow

of the meandering streams and scented flowers that grow

Now our dreams are divided between the old and the new

For this is a wonderful country and has its hold on one too.

Edna Miles passed away in Venus Bay still living in her own home in 2009  aged 85 years. Her son’s and daughter still live in Australia.

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