australian story...

My dear old Dad turned seventy-five last week !!!
He came out to Australia from Yorkshire in 1952, crammed into the hold of a leaky Greek deathtrap called ‘The Patris’, arriving in Sydney alone with the balance of his starting kitty as a ‘ten pound POM’.
Dad quickly found work as an apprentice carpenter, earning the princely sum of eleven pounds a week, out of which he had to house, clothe, feed and entertain himself…while at the same time save a deposit for a house some day.

Over the next 5 years, he scrimped and saved every penny until he had almost 300 pounds, which, combined with a 2500 pound loan from The Commonwealth Bank, enabled him to purchase a tiny hovel in the working-class suburb of Petersham.
He would complete his 12-hour day at work, come home to a dinner of fried kippers and chips, then spend at least 6 hours using his newly-acquired carpentry skills renovating his hovel in the evening. After three years he sold the place for 3700 pounds and with his capital appreciation bought a dump in Newtown.
By now a fully licensed tradesman and earning 18 pounds a week, he continued to work hard, eat his kippers and renovate by candlelight into the wee hours of the night. Over the next 4 years Dad found time to meet my Mom, marry her, have Me…and replace virtually every fixture and fitting in our little dump, eventually selling it for 5000 pounds and a small profit in 1964.
My parents used this money to buy a run-down terrace in Surry Hills, still both working 11 hour days to pay the bills for our soon-to-be-growing family, as well as finance the improvements Dad would again make to our house. He would come home exhausted, Mom would have his kippers and chips ready, then he would retire to some un-renovated part of the house and hammer and saw and sand and scrape and paint away the best years of his life…
The following year my sister was born, further adding to the financial strain, however both my parents continued to work the standard blue-collar day, after which Mom would look after her children while Dad transformed the terrace into a livable home. They had modest plans to sell the terrace and use the money to buy a semi, starting the whole process all over again in what was then unfashionable Bondi…
However in 1966, my Grandfather won the Opera House lottery and gave my parents $50K, so we fucked off the renovating crap, moved to a big house in The Eastern Suburbs with a pool, tennis court, two cars and lived happily ever after…although Dad still eats kippers.
Happy Birthday Dad…