Balts at Bangham (1948-49), Part 1 by Ann Tündern-Smith

John Mannion has told us already that 17 or 18 men were selected to train in Peterborough, South Australia, as railway cleaners and porters. They were chosen from a group of 62 men sent from Bonegilla to Wolseley, in South Australia, to work for South Australian Railways. The men selected for training in Peterborough had been picked because of their good English language skills.

Led by Girts Broders, the whole group of 62 had been moved rapidly on from the town of Wolseley, on the Adelaide-Melbourne line, to their own camp by the railway line at a rural locality called Bangham. They had left Bonegilla on 13 January 1948, probably reached Bangham on 14 January and were to start work on 15 January (according to the Border Chronicle of that date).

It's likely that Google's suggested bike path from Wolseley to Bangham
follows the railway line, closed to passenger traffic in 1990

Source:  Google Maps

The chosen 17 or 18 reached Peterborough on 23 February.  At a guess, they had left Bangham either early on 23 February or on the previous Friday, 20 February.  Either way, it means that they had experienced more than a month of work and rest in the Bangham camp.

Why were they in Bangham and what life like for these men?

As in other parts of Australia, different interests had built railway lines with different gauges for different purposes. Broader gauges are more expensive to build but provide better running properties of the train, higher load capacities even on poor ground, and higher speeds.

Broad gauge, 5 feet 3 inches or 1600 mm wide, and also known as Irish gauge, was used in Adelaide. Standard gauge, 4 feet 8½ inches or 1435 mm, had been legislated in South Australia in 1847, but the company building the first railway in New South Wales in the early 1850s had decided to use broad gauge. That led to South Australia (and Victoria) also ordering broad gauge trains and rolling stock.

Meanwhile, the original NSW engineer resigned and the new one persuaded all around him to use standard gauge instead. The NSW Parliament passed an Act declaring that standard gauge was the go. It was too late to cancel the South Australian and Victorian orders. Thus began what is now known as Australia’s “gauge muddle”.

Of more importance to us, narrow gauge in Australia is 3 ft 6 in or 1,067 mm. This was the gauge employed when railways were built through the agricultural areas of south-east South Australia. In the long run, this had led to problems, not the least of which was connectivity with the broad gauge chosen for rail in the Adelaide area.

The South Australian Parliament's Broadening of Gauge (South-Eastern Railways) Act , which received the Governor’s assent on 30th November 1944, permitted that “the South Australian Railways Commissioner … alter from three feet six inches to five feet three inches the gauge of the lines of railway between Wolseley and Mount Gambier and between Mount Gambier and Millicent … ”

Portion of a 1910 map showing South Australian railway lines
from Wolseley to Mt Gambier; although not shown on the map,
the line from Wolseley to Melbourne had been opened in 1887;
Bangham is midway between Custon and Frances in the north (top)

Source:  National Library nla.obj-234151847

The massive size of the task was illustrated in a talk given to members of the Mount Gambier Rotary Club by the Engineer in Charge of the project and reported in the Border Watch of 25 September 1948.  The Engineer in Charge was EL Walpole.

His explanation of the use of narrow gauge in Australia was that most narrow gauge lines went a short distance inland from the ports, and it was never conceived that they would eventually link with the broad gauges.  However, that did happen, and many broadening projects had to be carried out.

Rails for the new south-east South Australian line weighed 82 pounds to the yard (37 Kilos to 0.9 metre), twice with the previous weight, he said.  The new track would consist of six lengths of 40 feet welded together, that is 240 feet or 80 yards, each weighing 6560 pounds or 2976 Kg, nearly 3 tonnes.

The rails were made in Newcastle, New South Wales, and shipped to Mile End, in Adelaide, where they were placed on special trains and taken to the re-laying site.  Each train carried 48 of those 6 by 40 feet rail lengths, together weighing more than 140 tons (130 tonnes).  The 130 tonnes was good for two rails on each side of one mile of new track.

Trains were loaded in such a way that after the trans-shipping at Wolseley, the first rail to be laid was on top of the train.  The trans-shipping was quite a simple matter, according to Mr Walpole. Sixteen men with bars slid them across the skid platform.  However, every care had to be taken, as the job could be dangerous.

No wonder Mr Walpole said that the job could be dangerous!  Sixteen men handling a rail weighing nearly 3 tonnes means each man being responsible for 188 kg.  That would be more than twice their own body weight for the Baltic men, who had been starving or near-starving for most of the previous 7 years.

Steel cables, 70 feet or 21 metres in long, were used to unload the rails where they were to be laid, and the system worked so that each rail fell in exactly the right position.

So apparently this was the work to which the 62 men selected at the Bonegilla camp were to be sent. I expect that the nature of the work was not explained in detail beforehand, nor were they given the opportunity to opt out.

However, and as we have heard and read many times before, they were selected because of their physiques and labouring potential, not because of their intelligence or education.

Mr Walpole stressed the need for great care in laying ballast, which we have to hope was the job our 62 were more likely to be doing as it was less dangerous and required less skill. Mr Walpole also stressed correct drainage under the rails as, on the existing line, where there was no drainage, they had found some ballast pushed 14 feet or 4 metres under the track.

Ballast was one of the greatest problems for the track. Each mile needed 2,530 imperial tons or 2,300 tonnes of stone. Obtained from Tantanoola, near Mt Gambier, an extinct volcano, the stone was of first-class quality, and was being taken to the new line in train loads of more than 250 tons or 227 tonnes.

Working six days a week, and 24 hours a day, nine of these train loads were required for one mile of track. Consisting of crushed rock of 2½ inches (6 cm) and under, the ballast was run out in 40-ton (36-tonne) hoppers, and spread with a broad gauge plough, which had been converted to narrow gauge work, and did the work of 1,000 men. Each sleeper was packed with 9 inches (23 cm) of ballast, and at the edge of the drainage shoulder, it was increased to 10 or 10½ inches (25.5-26.7 cm).

(Why the project was using a plough converted from broad to narrow gauge work to build a broad gauge line is beyond modern understanding, but that’s what the reporter for the Border Watch wrote.)

Finalising the spreading the ballast was a job for fettlers, who had to ensure that the track was in “fine fettle” before the sleepers and rails were laid. We have to hope that the men from Bonegilla were employed in this less skilled and less dangerous work.

When relaying the gauge, the existing track was jacked up, the sleepers were knocked off, and the broad gauge sleepers slipped in. The broad gauge rails were then lowered. It took anything up to an hour to place a length of 80-pound (36-Kg) rail.

During cool weather, long lengths could be run out and left until the ballast packing could be done. In warm weather, the rails would tighten up, so they could not be left exposed for very long. It was found on one new line being laid in another area that rails left over the weekend without the ballast pack had moved 10 feet (300 cm) out of alignment.

Sleepers came from Western Australia and were mainly jarrah. They weighed 200 tons (181 tonnes) to the mile, which was heavier than the rails. It took 2130 sleepers to lay a mile, and they went roughly 11 to the ton (or roughly 12 to the metric tonne).

The authorities hoped that the line would reach Naracoorte sometime in 1949, and Mount Gambier possibly two years beyond that.

As an example of the time it took to plan and carry out the work, Mr Walpole said that on the Adelaide-Perth line, planning commenced in September 1923 and the work was completed on 1 August 1927. "There were 960 men on that job, but we are working with 180, including staff. Of these 70 are Balts, and they are very fine men," concluded Mr Walpole.

Seventy men clearly is more than the original 62. While 17 or 18 had been moved on to Peterborough, and Girts Broders probably had left for Canberra, more would have been sent from Bonegilla.

One month after Mr Walpole addressed the Rotarians, the Minister for Railways was telling the Parliament in October 1948 that 30 miles (48 Km) of earthworks, 25 miles (40 Km) of bridges and culverts and a further 20 miles (32 Km) of track were ready on the 48 miles (77 Km) between Wolseley and Naracoorte. Three station yards had been completed and another two were progressing well. The Wolseley to Naracoorte section could be completed in only another 10 months, if only the Minister could get an extra 250 men.

CR Cameron was at the other extreme of the industrial relations curve from the Engineer in Charge, but he too argued that the “men appeared to be fine types and are in good physical condition”. You may remember Clyde Cameron’s name from his time as a Minister in the Whitlam Government, including as Minister for Labor and Immigration in 1974-75.

Clyde Cameron in 1960

Source:  National Archives of Australia

When he wrote this comment in the national newspaper of the Australian Workers Union (AWU), the Australian Worker, he was the Union’s South Australian State President/Secretary and a federal Vice-President. The AWU also is regarded as having been Australia’s most powerful union at the time, perhaps for all time. His views should have carried some weight.

To further assuage the concerns of unionists, Clyde added that “the Balts who have settled in Australia during past years proved themselves to be good unionists, and it can, therefore, be assumed that the new arrivals can be relied upon to uphold the traditions of Australian Trade Unionism.”

Indeed, on both 7 April and 5 May 1948, the Australian Worker reported that G. Broders had paid cash to the South Australian Branch of the AWU: the large sum of £39/15/- ($79.50) in the first instance. Both payments would have been Union membership fees collected from the other First Transporters.

Next: What were conditions like for these unionised refugees at the Bangham camp?

Sources

Advertiser (1948) 'Broadening S.-E. Rail Gauge, Labour shortage delays work' Adelaide, SA, 14 October, p1 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article43786966 accessed 19 April 2024.

Australian Worker (1948) 'Baltic Workers for S.A. Employed on A.W.U. Jobs' Sydney, 21 January p 8 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/146246762 accessed 19 April 2024.

Australian Worker (1948) 'Cash Received', Sydney, 7 April, p 10 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/146243770 accessed 19 April 2024.

Australian Worker (1948) 'Cash Received', Sydney, 5 May, p 11 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/146245052 accessed 19 April 2024.

Border Chronicle (1948), '62 Balts at Bangham, to help broaden rail gauge', Bordertown, SA, 15 January, p 1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/212918125 accessed 19 April 2024.

Border Watch (1948) ‘Broad Gauge Engineer Gives Amazing Facts Of Huge Undertaking’ Mount Gambier, SA, 25 September, p 6, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/78591298 accessed 19 April 2024.

Broadening of Gauge (South-Eastern Railways) Act (No 15 of 1944), https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdb/au/legis/sa/num_act/bogra15o1944454/ accessed 15 April 2024.

Guy, Bill (2008) ‘Clyde Robert Cameron (1913–2008)’, Labour Australia, https://labouraustralia.anu.edu.au/biography/cameron-clyde-robert-32947 accessed 17 April 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Australian News and Information Bureau, Canberra; A1200, Black and white photographic negatives and prints, single number series with 'L' [Library] prefix, 1911-1971;  L36210, TITLE: Personalities - Clyde R Cameron MP (WA) CATEGORY: photograph FORMAT: b&w negative TYPE: cellulose acetate STATUS: preservation material, 1960-1960; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/DetailsReports/PhotoDetail.aspx?Barcode=11223331 accessed 19 April 2024.

Wikipedia, ‘Clyde Cameron' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_Cameron, accessed 17 April 2024.

Wikipedia 'Melbourne–Adelaide rail corridor' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne%E2%80%93Adelaide_rail_corridor, accessed 19 April 2024.

Wikipedia 'Narrow Gauge Railways in Australia' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrow-gauge_railways_in_Australia accessed 19 April 2024.

Wikipedia 'Rail Transport in New South Wales' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_New_South_Wales accessed 19 April 2024.

Wikipedia 'Rail Transport in South Australia' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_South_Australia accessed 19 April 2024.

Flaavi Hodunov (1927–2023): SAR Train Driver, by John Mannion

Updated 5 April 2024.

Estonian-born Flaavi Hodunov was another of the 18 with good English selected at the Bangham camp to be sent to be Peterborough. My three previous blog entries, on Australia's post-WWII displaced persons' program, Peterborough in general and Paul Deimantas in particular, refer. 

Flaavi's ID photo taken in Germany before departure to Australia --

Source:  Tatyana Tamm collection

Flaavi Hodunov's ID photo from his Bonegilla card
clearly a mistake has occurred!

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Flaavi was a keen railway man and eager to learn. He recalls the ‘Roundhouse Rat’, a V-class steam shunting engine that was fired with big lumps of coal thrown into the firebox by hand.

'The little engine that could', the Roundhouse Rat, is on the left of this photo;
built in 1877, it was already at least 70 years old when the First Transporters met it
for the first time; it is now on display in a Naracoorte park

Source:  State Library of South Australia

He spent over three years at Peterborough and celebrated his 21st birthday at the Railway Institute. Eventually he moved to Adelaide and built his own home. 

He recalled that a few weeks after the arrival of the ‘very first’ Balts at Peterborough, another group arrived, followed by many more. Many families were separated as a result of the work contract and accommodation. 

Flaavi and another Estonian, Artur Klaar, moved out of the hostel and found private board with the Linke family, through the Lutheran Church, on a dairy farm at Peterborough West. 

Two Baltic boarders, standing and kneeling on the left, with the Linke family

Source:  John Mannion Collection

The first means of transport for the Balts was on foot, push-bike and motor-bike. 

The push bikes could be used for recreation too;
here we have Juozas or 'Joe' Donela on the left with friends

Source:  John Mannion collection

It was difficult at first but these men later recalled the acceptance they received from Peterborough railway men including Ray Schell, Dave Rosser, the Brennan brothers, Lionel Noble, Peter Smallacombe and many others. 

Flaavi's girlfriend, Walya [Wasylisa Proszko], came to Australia with her parents and sister [on the Wooster Victory, in May 1949]. They too stayed at Bonegilla. She had to wait until Flaavi found her a job as a domestic with the Casey family on a farm east of Peterborough. 

Walya's Bonegilla card, with that assignment to the Casey family

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Walya recalls that, while she was at Bonegilla, some of the locals came to see what these Balts look like, just out of curiosity. The general opinion was that they ‘looked just like us!’ 

Walya remembered being given clothing, in particular a bright pink raincoat. ‘When you don't have much, you remember things like that’ she told me. 

Men and women were in separate accommodation at Bonegilla. 

Everybody had to work for two years so, in order for the couple to marry, the authorities agreed for Walya working near Flaavi. According to Flaavi, when they married, Walya's contract was cancelled. 

Walya's family were reunited after they came over from Sydney for the wedding at Peterborough Lutheran Church [on 26 December 1949] and found work in Adelaide. 

Walya recalls the trip from Bonegilla to Peterborough well. She was given a packed lunch of sandwiches and a couple of eggs. ‘All I had was a suitcase and a handful of papers. I was unable to speak a word of English’. She reckoned that she has never waited so long for a train. 

On arrival at Adelaide station, she could not ask questions, but a Lutheran priest advised her in German how to get to Peterborough. Walya remembered that the train trip to Peterborough was in the dark, so she couldn't see where she was going, but when she did arrive, there was no platform. This was unheard of in Europe. 

The Peterborough Railway station, 1974, still without a raised platform

Source:  Lionel Noble collection

‘I expected a street with houses and shops on both sides of the street but found a very, very poor street, very scary, with one big hotel dominating the long Main Street’. 

The Hotel Peterborough would have dominated Walya's first view of
Peterborough's Main Street

Source:  John Mannion collection

Peterborough's Main Street, with
a hotel in the distant centre, around 1950

Source:  Lionel Noble photographer, John Mannion collection

Many of the migrants, including Walya, didn't like country life, but Flaavi reckons he would still be in the bush if not for Walya. 

According to the men I spoke with, Heini Koch, a descendant of the original Petersburg settlers, did a lot of work for the ‘lads who could not speak very well English’. 

Before they married, Walya would visit Linke's on weekends. As a married couple, the Hodunov's rented a little tin house that Flaavi had renovated for the new bride, near the hostel on Telford Avenue. They eventually rented a railway cottage. 

Flaavi found out that it was very hard to get transferred to city, but once he did, he excelled on the job and was the first 'Balt' to graduate as an SAR driver at Mile End.

Flaavi's achievement of locomotive driver status was celebrated in the New Australian,
a monthly publication for migrants from the Department of Immigration, in its August 1952 issue; the fettler work actually was when he was based at Bangham, near Wolseley,
the cleaning job was after redeployment to Peterborough and initial training there

Source:  New Australian, August 1952

Flaavi (right) on the job as a fireman, before his 1952 promotion to driver

Source:  John Mannion collection

He liked his job in the railways and worked freight trains back to Peterborough after the broad gauge was extended from Terowie to Peterborough in 1970. 

He spent 37 years on the job, 37 years of shift work, and agreed that it was not easy for the women being alone when men away on shift work.

Flaavi and Walya in 2003

Source:  John Mannion collection

Flaavi was born in Estonia's easternmost coastal city of Narva on 21 September 1927, so was 20 years old on arrival in Australia.  He died in Adelaide very recently, on 27 November 2023, aged a hearty 96.  Walya predeceased him, in March 2014, just after her 84th birthday.

POSTSCRIPT by Ann  

Flaavi's life before his voyage to Australia is encapsulated in the document below, a DP Registration Record created in the American Zone of occupied Germany.  In addition to confirming his place and date of birth, it tells us that his parents were Teodor Hodunov and Liidia Kolk, that his usual occupation when the record was created in maybe 1945 was motor-car locksmith, and that his first choice for resettlement was Canada.

Flaavi's name has intrigued me since I first saw it on the Heintzelman passenger list 25 years ago.  Although his Estonian birthplace means that he had Estonian nationality until the time early after the War then that no longer had practical meaning, the name is not Estonian.

The -ov ending of Hodunov indicates clearly a Slavic family name.  The most likely source of Slavic names in Estonia is Russia, but a Russian would spell this name with an initial G, as in Mussorgsky's opera, Boris Godunov, about an early Tsar of Russia.  A Ukrainian friend has confirmed that this is indeed a Ukrainian spelling of the name, where the initial G gets transliterated as an initial H.  It happens with many Slavic names.  An example is the female first name Halina, diminutive Halya, in Ukrainian, which become Galina and Galya in Russian.  I've used this example because I can tell you that this name sounds just the same, but is spelt Galja in Estonian.

Flaavi, my friend said, absolutely was not Ukrainian, so more research was required.  I found that Flavi is known to be a first name used in Rumania, derived from the Latin name Flavius, meaning 'golden'.  Rumania still has many links in its language to the Roman occupation some 2,000 years ago, starting with the name of this nation-state being derived from Rome (or Roma in Latin and Italian).

Flaavi with two a's is a typically Estonian spelling, lengthening the initial vowel sound in Flavi and adding to the normal stress on the first syllable of Estonian words.  The name turns out to be quite multicultural, even before this concept was invented by the Canadians.

Enlarging the digitised document shows that Flaavi's mother's family name was Kolk, which translates from Estonian into English as an out-of-the-way place or, a dangling piece of wood.  Regardless of the reason for its application to his mother's family in the 1830's, when Estonians first got family names, it is authentically Estonian.  The spelling of her first name, Liidia, is Estonian too, although the name has a Slavic origin.  A family like her's, probably living in or near Narva next to where the Russians lived, would have been exposed to a lot of Russian cultural influences.

My conclusion is that Flaavi's mother's family was Estonian, while his father's family probably originated from the part of Europe now divided by the border between Rumania and Ukraine.  Mixing ethnic groups up by translocation was a deliberate policy of the Soviet Union, in an attempt to reduce nationalism developing, but it occurred as well in Tsarist Russia, probably for economic reasons.

Marrying someone who claimed nothing but Ukrainian heritage tends to support the idea that the Hodunovs originated somewhere near the border of Ukraine with Rumania.

As for the motor car locksmith trade, another of the First Transporters, a Lithuanian, called himself an 'engine locksmith' when interviewed by the Australian press in December 1947.  Did motor car and engines (perhaps pulling trains) have different locks to houses in the 1940s and earlier?  Who knows about this?

American Expeditionary Forces Displaced Persons Registration Record
for Flaavi Hodunov in Germany

Source:  Arolsen Archives

SOURCES

Arolsen Archives, 'Folder DP1475, names from HODIONENKO, ANNA to HOFFEINS, Marija (2)'

https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/67368899?s=hodunov&t=2738137&p=0, accessed 20 March 2024.

'Lionel Noble Photo Collection, Peterborough Station', https://lionelnoble.com/station/ accessed 20 March 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla] 1947–1956; HODUNOV, Flaavi : Year of Birth - 1927 : Nationality - ESTONIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number - 920, 1947–1948.

National Archives of Australia, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla] 1947–1956; PROSZKO, Wasylisa : Year of Birth - 1930 : Nationality - UKRAINIAN : Travelled per - WOOSTER VICTORY : Number - 85482, 1949 –1949.

'Railway transport: Locomotives and rolling stock 3'6" narrow gauge [B58892/492]', photograph, State Library of South Australia, https://collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/resource/B+58892/492, accessed 20 March 2024.

Tamm, Tatyana (2024) Personal correspondence.

'V 9, The oldest steam loco in South Australia', http://www.australiansteam.com/V%209.htm, accessed 19 March 2024.

Povilas Deimantas (1917-2009): A Peterborough Balt, by John Mannion

Born in Lithuania, Povilas Deimantas was already 30 years old when he boarded the General Stuart Heintzelman for the longest trip of his lifetime, from Germany to Australia. 

Povilas (Paul) Deimantas in 1947,
ID photo from his Bonegilla card
Source:  National Archives of Australia

He was a subject of the newspaper reports I told you about in my first blog entry.

He recalls that after several weeks at the Bangham camp, 18 were selected to transfer in the South Australian Railways (SAR) system to Peterborough, midway between Adelaide and Broken Hill. He had no bloody idea where Peterborough was! 

Those selected had a good grasp of the English language and were largely self-motivated with the prospect of becoming engine drivers in 'loco' or as station staff in 'traffic'. Paul explained to me that these were the fortunate ones and that he planned to become ‘a big man’ in the railways! 

Back to the Balts: when Deimantas disembarked from the Heintzelman at Fremantle in November 1947, his first impression of Australia was one of disappointment — it was so ugly! The first things he noticed were the dry yellow grass and the dead trees — nothing like Lithuania (which was green and densely forested) — the public drinking and the Italian migrants. 

He didn't find Bonegilla in north-east Victoria much better — he disliked the intense summer heat as well as peeling potatoes, which he had to do in the camp for two weeks. 

At Bangham on the Wolseley to Mount Gambier railway line, the 62 workers slept in tents and water was in short supply.  At Peterborough, the men first lived in tents and later Nissen huts and other 'prefab' buildings which were relocated from Loveday Internment [WWII] Camp in the Riverland. 

Then a migrant hostel was built on Telford Avenue adjacent the railway workshops and ‘loco’.  Initially designed to house only single men, in the 1950s with the influx of German and Polish migrants, families were admitted.  Up to 200 people at as time lived at there.  The hostel operated on and off  from 1948 until 1972. 

Peterborough migrant hostel in 1952, in its quiet location next to the railway yards;
the still-standing Nissen hut is on the left of the buildings

Source:  John Mannion collection

In 1975 the hostel was demolished and removed by tender. Very little is known of who bought it and where the buildings went. Now the only remaining building left on the site is a Nissen hut that served as a recreation room. 

Despite only staying at Peterborough for four years, Povilas and his colleagues are still remembered by many in Peterborough for their manners, behaviour and appearance, particularly by the young girls of the 1950s. By now, Povilas would have been using the English fom of his name, Paul. 

Paul Deimantas (centre) and friends
at the Peterborough Town Hall about 1949

Source:  John Mannion Collection

Although there was general acceptance, life was often difficult for these and other new Australians at Peterborough or other locations within the Peterborough Division of the SAR. At times they had to put up with some racial discrimination, the most common being called a 'Bloody Balt' or told to 'Speak English you bastard'. 

However, it is surprising that despite the influx of over 300 European migrants into a country town where Australians had heard virtually no foreign languages on their streets, there was little prejudice. This is attributed to the fact that Peterborough was a working class town with a very transient population. 

There was some fear of these 'strangers’ however, particularly among the youngsters. A 15-year-old girl who moved from Marree to Peterborough for schooling and lived with her grandparents in 1950 recalls that although she had been exposed to Afghans and Aborigines, she did not know what to make of the 'Balts' with their long pushed-back hair. She would not go near them, convinced they ‘would take me away’. 

Another girl who grew up at Peterborough during the ‘Balt’ era relates how they would not even leave the pegs on the line in case the ‘Balts’ stole them. 

It has been said that friendships were difficult to establish at Peterborough, as ‘you didn't know where your mate might be next week’. This did not detract from some firm friendships however, with quite a few long-term railway families staying in the town. 

Paul relates a story about the time at Bangham when the ganger phoned the railway storeman at Mt Gambier for a bag of fish-plate bolts to be sent up, only to be told ‘You've already got 60 bloody Balts up there, isn't that enough?’ 

Learning English was not always easy: from whom were they supposed to learn English? Was it the Scots, the Welsh, the Irish, the English or Australians? The other difficulty in learning English was that they were often put to work in track maintenance gangs with a number of their own countrymen, thus making it easier to communicate with each other, but not the ganger in charge. 

However, those who wanted to ‘get on' watched, listened, asked questions, carried notebooks and learned. Paul was curious as to what a ‘water bag’ was — he had heard of a water tank and water bottle, but could not picture a ‘bag of water’. 

A canvas water bag from about 1950,
Collection of the Kiewa Valley Historical Society

Source:  Victorian Collections

A young migrant railway worker heads for the Peterborough hostel with
 a) a tucker box at the left and b) a water bag on the right

Source:  Harry Piers/John Mannion collection

The other thing was the dust. Paul felt that it took him five years to get used to the heat, dust and flies. 

After shifting to Mile End in 1952, Paul met and married his Australian-born wife June. He clearly was more than acceptable to at least one Australian now.

Paul died on 13 November 2009, at the respectable age of 92, having been born on 6 October 1917.  June, having been born in Adelaide on 25 November 1931, died on 29 July 2018, also at a respectable age, 86.  They have been buried together in the Dudley Park Cemetery, Adelaide.

SOURCES

Dudley Park Cemetery Search Records, https://search.dudleyparkcemetery.com.au/ accessed 17 March 2024.

National Archives of Australia,National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla] 1947–1956; DREIMANTAS [sic], Povilas : Year of Birth - 1919 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 911, 1947–1948, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203662951

Victorian Collections, From the Collection of the Kiewa Valley Historical Society, Bag Canvas Water Circa 1950, https://victoriancollections.net.au/items/507df2be2162ef014495f50f