The first one to flee the nest

Being Pete’s oldest sister and the eldest in our family I feel moved by his story to share my experience of running away from home. In one of Dad’s emails he mentions that this is a family tradition with us and that makes me feel very guilty because I obviously started the tradition. Because you can’t count Mum and Dad leaving home early due to the war. They didn’t run away. They left with their parents blessing because it was a done thing to send children into the country to escape the bombings in the cities. But then you could sort of count us leaving Germany and migrating to Australia. That was somewhat like running away  -  and I remember how upset my grandparents were that we were leaving Germany, and going as far away as was possible. Neither of them expected to see us again. In those days people didn’t travel as much as they do now…in fact we seldom left our city. I remember going to Cologne (approx 30 km) was a once in a lifetime event and we only did that because we had to visit the Australian embassy to get approval for our migration. So I guess I could make myself feel better by claiming that it was Mum and Dad that started the tradition! They certainly ran away from home…much further and for much longer than any of us did! However, I am not going to try and dodge the responsibility. Instead I will try and explain what actually happened.

Coming to Australia was in some way a very exciting thing for me as an 11 year old. It was a huge adventure. We were going into the unknown. Never having travelled far it seemed like an amazing thing to get onto a huge ship and travel for 5 ½ weeks over several oceans, calling into exotic places on the way and then to come to a sort of nature paradise where the sun never stops shining! I certainly was looking forward to it. But was also very sad at leaving friends and relatives behind us. As a child the impact of that didn’t quite sink in. My immediate family was with me. However over the next few years I found myself missing my grandparents, aunts and uncles and the many cousins that I grew up with and the many family gatherings, the feast day celebrations that broke up the year. Despite this I loved the first 4 years we spent in Sydney. Many weekends we would head into the country, often to a beach, to camp. The weather was nearly always perfect. The first years were difficult at school because I was trying to learn english. Being german in the 60 ties was still not so easy either. The stigma of WW2 and all that happened was keenly felt. However even that seemed easier in Sydney than the experience of school in Melbourne.

But the hardest thing was the cultural differences in how children were brought up here vs how they were brought up in Germany. My friends were allowed to do things that I was not able to do. They seemed to have much more freedom. The fact that Mum and Dad had to struggle financially also made it difficult as a child to relate to my peers. And the teenage years are not the most compassionate years of once life. In fact it is probably the most selfish time of our existence. Only our own problems matter. We are incapable of showing sympathy for the problems of others, especially those of our parents who are after all responsible for EVERYTHING. My goodness…if it weren’t for them I wouldn’t even be here! A very convenient attitude that. Means that I can squarely blame them for everything that goes wrong and makes me unhappy and after all THEY ARE ADULTS so they certainly can be blamed for any problems they seem to have. I get shocked now when I look back and realise that my parents at the time were only a couple of years older than my children are today!

From the moment we moved to Melbourne, things got very difficult. And most of it was due to Dad’s new job in the theatre. The years we spent in Sydney, Dad was very unhappy in his work. He managed to get only factory type jobs most of the time which were completely against his creative nature. Apart from a very short stint with a theatre company in Sydney that didn’t quite work out. Hence during that time his spare energy was spent on the family – that is when he wasn’t lying under the car keeping it roadworthy! Looking back now these 4 years were like one long holiday. We were very happy. And as I mentioned before, we loved all the outings.

All that stopped when we arrived in Melbourne. Suddenly we found ourselves in a less than ideal situation. The Melbourne climate was nothing like the endless sunshine of Sydney. More like the variableness we were used to in Europe with many days of rain and cold. Dad was totally married to his job and we didn’t see much of him. Despite the fact that his work was a 5 minute walk away. The theatre was a small company who were very ambitious and for Dad it was a total labour of love. More like a vocation than a job. And being a small company, it was a closeknit community that became his life.  And those first 2 years in Melbourne our living quarters were also far from ideal. We lived at the back and on top of a shop in a busy shopping street very close to the City. No back yard. Our street was an alley with corrugated tin fencing as our entrance. I hated Melbourne and declared that as soon as I was able to I would head back to Sydney.

For Mum and Dad these were very difficult times. Especially for Mum because she didn’t have a career as a distraction. To her fell the job of keeping us fed and clothed on a very low income. By now there were 7 mouths to feed. Thinking back now it was Mum that carried the brunt of the load. I had school to distract me. Mum was stuck in that terrible apartment with 5 children (including twins who were now 4 years old) who had no nice lawns or parks to play in. And we were very isolated. No wider family and also no friends. Dad had his work colleagues. I had my school friends. But Mum had nobody. She had made some attempts at making friends with other migrants but these were seldom successful. Most of the migrants she met were miserable and felt they had made a mistake coming to Australia. This Mum found depressing and so did not pursue these friendships. It was hard enough staying cheerful without being dragged down by others. 1967 was a year of crisis for our family. Mum’s health suffered and Dad was not able to give her much emotional support. With the intense nature of his job, this created problems between them and there was really nobody they could turn to. Because I was the oldest I became much more involved in things than is healthy for a rebellious teenager who is struggling to find her own identity. I could not see beyond my own needs. The world was beckoning with love and laughter and song. After all this was the 60’s and flowerpower and LOVE were all the rage. At home there was only hardship and sadness. And when my parents occasionally unburdened themselves I began to think that I was part of their problem. If I was not there, they would have to help each other. And then I fell in LOVE. And it was wonderful. Suddenly I had someone who could listen to me and who made me feel like the centre of the Universe…HIS universe. He was much older than me (7 years is a lot for a 16 year old girl) and he was Australian. My parents were rightly very nervous because they did not know anything about him and had not met any of his family. In Germany we lived in a small community. Everyone knew everyone else. The sense of community did not exist here for us. And there were complications in his life that Dad would not have approved of. And when push came to shove I chose LOVE over family! I carefully planned my escape. I had already managed to get a job which I had told Dad was a holiday job but in reality I had left school and accepted a permanent job.( Another long story). I visited a lawyer and asked if I was legally old enough to leave home. I was told that at 17 I could leave as long as I could demonstrate that I was supporting myself and not being “kept” by a man. This bit of advise I even paid for! I found a room to let. I chose an evening when I thought both Mum and Dad had gone to the theatre. However unbeknowns to me, Mum had stayed home and was asleep in bed. My packed bags were stored under my bed already for quite a while. I enlisted the help of my boyfriend (threatened to hire a cab and disappear if he didn’t help me). We had to do several trips up the stairs to pick up my bags and on the last trip down we disturbed Mum and so she woke up. This turned into quite an ugly scene which I had hoped to avoid by leaving a letter on my bed. It is funny how some small things in a big event can end up causing more hurt than the event itself. The saddest thing about that day – something I only found out many years later, was that on my flight out of the house, away from Mum who was screaming out at us, I dropped a pair of shoes. Mum had bought these for me recently on my 17^th birthday. Thinking back now - that must have been a big expense to her. Most clothing Mum managed to get for us at opshops very cheaply. All very good quality things – my clothes were the envy of all my friends!  But these shoes were new shoes. I found out later that Mum thought that in my rage, I had come back and thrown them at the door! In fact the only emotion I was feeling during my flight was FEAR! And I looked everywhere for those shoes afterwards! And I wasn’t mad at Mum! All my rage was pivoted on Dad. I tried to tell her that in those terrible few minutes when we confronted each other. But ever loyal she pointed out how hard Dad worked to provide for us!

My intention at first was to lie low for a few weeks and then to contact Mum. However things didn’t quite work out. Despite the precaution I took, Dad managed very quickly to track down where I was working via the employment agency who got me the job. I returned one day from lunch and the receptionist informed me that my father was on his way over. Well that made me panick. I thought he would beat the living daylights out of me (not that I had been often beaten up..in fact only once that I can remember – but he was a formidable strong character that had us kids well bluffed). So I made a snap decision. I was going back to Sydney. Took me the rest of the afternoon to convince my boyfriend to drive me. He was totally anti everything. First my leaving home. Secondly leaving his job with practically no notice. Thirdly quitting school – he had recently returned to school to complete his education. And fourthly driving his beatup old jalope to Sydney. But I was determined. And when I threatened to catch the train he obliged. We packed our stuff into the car and took off. We drove all night. The petrol cost us $9.00 and we had about that much left when we arrived in Sydney. I lived in total fear and had many nightmares that Dad was hot on my heals and would catch up with me. So it was a long time before I had the courage to write home - something I am definitely not proud about. Of course all my life I have had time to regret the pain I must have caused my parents and my family. And I lived in sheer panick that my kids would attempt the same!

And that is how I found myself back in Sydney, with practically no money between us, no jobs, no work experience, no references, no friends, nowhere to live and 1000km between me and my family! I know now that there was definitely someone looking after me. Life was not as dangerous then as it is now. But looking back with the eyes of an adult I shudder at the many things that could have gone badly wrong. We are protected by our own naivity – had I known how dangerous life can be I would never have had the courage to attempt such a foolish thing! In reality, I had lived a very sheltered life despite our experiences as a family, leaving our home and making a new home in a foreign country. Never in my childhood did I experience hunger or lack. So there was no reason to think that life could be difficult. It was only when I was finally standing on my own two feet that I began to appreciate how hard my parents must have worked to provide for us children a home that satisfied all our needs!