Memories

I was only just into my teens when she left. Her oldest son had gone out to Australia under the assisted passage scheme some years before and made a life for himself there. He was her favourite and out of the blue he invited her to come out and stay with him. Up until then she had stayed with us. It was funny because she would never go on a boat with us for a sail up the Clyde for a few hours because she was afraid, but she elected to go on the Liner to travel to Australia and that journey took 6 weeks at the time. She could have flown and been there in 2 days...LOL.

There was a time I could have told you exactly what ship she went on Jacki but too many years have passed now and I don’t remember the name. The two ships that seemed to make most of the voyages between Britain and Australia at that time were the SS Oriana and the SS Canberra so I’m thinking it must have been one of them but I couldn't swear to it!
I remember she sent home some of the printed menu’s from the ship and really, they were works of art in themselves and the descriptions of the meals sounded and looked wonderful. I don’t know what happened to them. I suppose my mother eventually disposed of them during one of her clear outs.

My grandmother had a really hard life growing up. Even after she got married. Her husband developed a debilitating illness which meant he could no longer work and she was left having to be the main provider for them and their 6 young children so she had to be strong and resilient to keep going as there was no such thing as social security to fall back on like there is today.

Unfortunately she only got around 2 years in Australia before she died but hopefully they were 2 happy years for her.