My Dad, Henk, my Mom (sic), Riek, which is short for Henrika or something, both in their earl 50’s, plus their eight children; Agnes 20, Gerda 18, Gerald 16, (he turned 17 during the trip), Joke (pronounced Yoka) 14, myself Tony 12, Greg 10, Alf 8 and Robbie 3, migrated to Australia from Holland in 1955 on the Converted Navy Ship “The Sibajak”.
My memory of the journey halfway around the world was not a particularly pleasant one. Apart from being seasick quite often, it was a dreadfully boring trip because it not being a pleasure cruiser there were no deck activities or a swimming pool, things that you would normally expect to find on a boat that size.
The one thing I did enter into was a chess competition and that was quite a funny episode.
I had been given a chess set for my eighth birthday, so that by the time we embarked on our sojourne to Australia, at 12 years of age, I was already a reaonable chess player. Prospective competitors had to enter their name on the form stapled onto the general notice board and report in the saloon bar at a given time some days later.
The time arrived for the gathering of chess competitors and chess being a bit of an elite game in Holland, most of the guys were middle aged (or so they seemed to me at the time) and without fail they all wore a suit, white shirt and a tie.
Formalities were the order of the day and one by one each name was ticked off after answering the call of Mister This or Mister That. “Mister B”, called the “Master of Ceremonies” and when I managed only a “Yes, Sir” in a pipsqueeky voice all eyes were on me and I could hear a lot of ill-conceived chuckling. To cut a long story short, to my own surprise, I managed to reach the semi-final which of course was a little bit of an embarrassment to most of the other participants.
Apart from the traditional king neptune dunking, the sea-ports of Port Said, Cairo and Aden and the endless school of dolphins following in the wake of the boat, that was probably the only memorable highlight of our trip across to the “promised land”.