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

Updated 5 April, 12 May and 26 October 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.

From one of Flaavi's daughters, Tatyana Tamm, I now know that those parental given names were misrecorded.  Flaavi's father actually was Feodor while his mother was Leida-Bižarde Kolk.

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 during WWII when 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 in Estonian, but is spelt Galja.

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.

As reported above, 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.  Her first name, Leida, is authentically Estonian too, but Google Search has never come across Bižarde in any nation.  Geni.com, a genealogy Website much used in the Baltic States, can find only Flaavi's mother with with this given name.

Starting with a B as it does, Bižarde is likely to be an import from another language, but from where? Does it help to know that the name transliterates into Бизарде in Cyrillic?  If you know more, dear reader, please feel free to comment below.

A family like her's, living in eastern Estonia as Flaavi's daughter, Tatyana Tamm, has found (specifically, Unipiha village, Nõo parish, Tartu county) would have been exposed to a lot of Russian cultural influences.

Tatyana also has found that Flaavi's Hodunov grandfather, Efim, was born in the village of Tverdyat', which is southeast of Narva and 110 Km distant by road.  Flaavi's great grandfather, Nikolai, was a farmer there.  That's long way from Ukraine, let alone Ukraine's border with Rumania.

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.

Efim was born in 1869, so Nikolai probably was born in the 1840's or 1830's.  It may be that the family was moved to Tverdyat' from elsewhere in the Tsarist Russia when Nikolai was young or even earlier.

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?  Please feel free to comment below if you do, reader.

A later entry on Flaavi, by one of his daughters, Tatyana Tamm is at https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2024/05/more-about-flaavi-hodunov.html.

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 form 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 

An ‘Aussie’ looks at the ‘Balts’ and ‘Reffos’ by John Mannion

The aftermath of WWII in Europe was characterised by devastation and misery, which led to seemingly insoluble problems, one of the most difficult being the Displaced Persons. Millions of people were crowded into the UNRRA camps in Germany, Italy and Austria. There were too many to resettle permanently in Germany, a country in chaos where they had been wronged and lacked means of support. 

Many countries including Australia turned their attention to the Displaced Persons and in 1947 Australia launched the "Australia Scheme" under which, eventually, 180,000 DP's would be accepted to increase the population for national security and economic development. Both sides of Federal Parliament agreed that it was essential to increase the rate of migration as a means of attempting to ensure the security of the country. 

The main hindrance was the shortage of ships, but this was resolved by the International Refugee Organisation, which had ships at its disposal to bring them to Australia. 

Commissioned in 1945 as a US army troop transport, the United States Army Transport, the General Stuart Heintzelman was converted to the DP Operations Germany and Austria at the end of 1946. When she sailed from Bremerhaven, Germany on the 30 October 1947, she was on her fifth DP voyage and her first to Australia.

This sketch of the General Stuart Heintzelman was used on one of the newsletters
published on board during the voyage to Australia

She arrived at Fremantle on 28 November 1947. This shipment of 729 men and 114 women from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia heralded the longest phase of planned migration to Australia since the convict days. 

These young and healthy refugees fleeing Communism were all under 40 and had been screened to ensure they were fit and healthy and free of fascist sympathies. They had agreed to be directed to live anywhere and prepared to work at any job in Australia for two years.* 

The majority were destitute and demanded and expected little. They were fleeing destroyed and war-weary countries and had a gutful of Russians, Germans and the European war where they had lived in camps for several years, to a country where the word democracy was more than a word. In return they would help rebuild Australia's resources which were run down and short of manpower after the war, and lay the foundations for future permanent migration. 

Most of the newcomers were to be sent to country areas where they were put to work on farms, mining and quarrying, railway construction and maintenance, road and bridge building and similar major works, along with timber and saw-mill work and food processing.  Termed the “Balts” or “Reffos”, terms not often heard today, they were later known as Calwell’s "New Australians", Eastern European migrants and many other colloquial names. 

On arrival at Fremantle, the Heintzelman passengers were housed in former army camps for several days and then boarded the HMAS Kanimbla, bound for Port Melbourne where they disembarked at East Princes’ Pier on the 8 December 1947. 

This iconic image shows the Kanimbla at berth at Princes' Pier, Port Melbourne, on 8 December 1947, with one of the two trains taking its passengers to their next home, at Bonegilla

Source: National Archives of Australia

Princes’ Pier’s neighbour, Station Pier was to become the gateway to a New World for more than a million newcomers until the last migrant ship, Australis, docked in 1977. Although Princes’ Pier has been dismantled, Station Pier continues as a cruise ship terminal. These days Station Pier also is regarded as a symbol of the mass migration that has transformed Australia, particularly in the post-war period. Internationally, it should rate as highly as New York's Ellis Island. 

The now 839 newcomers on the Kanimbla were first welcomed to Australia by the Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell, the man who had authorised the program which brought them to Australia.  Then they came down the ship's gangway wearing numbered identification tags and were met by officers of the Department of Immigration. Special trains then took them to Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre in north-eastern Victoria near Albury, NSW. 

The newcomers underwent varying weeks of rest, reception, medical examinations, basic survival-level lessons in English, orientation lectures and job placement. 

Living in a country largely dominated by the eastern states and their capital cities, it was not only Sydney and Melbourne that were influenced by immigration however. South Australia — and we are more than Adelaide — also accepted many Displaced Persons. 

Australians became increasingly aware of the influx of migrants, as did those at Peterborough with migrants numbering 10 per cent of the population of about 4,000 during the ‘60s and '70s. 

To the “outsider” Peterborough was a “railway town” and farmers and graziers generally looked down on "railway people" with suspicion. They even had their own internal Australian Rules Football association — Railways, Towns, Rovers (Catholics) and Terowie — and they played soccer (and so did some of the Aussies) and footy on Sundays! 

But generally the new Australians were accepted “to a man”. Many of them lived and worked in isolated railway settlements along the lines from Port Pirie to Cockburn, Gladstone to Wilmington, and Terowie to Quorn and beyond. 

Port Pirie in the west to Cockburn on the NSW border in the east: by road,
because Google can't find public transport by rail between these two towns;
Gladstone is on the line between Port Pirie and Peterborough,
Wilmington is shown north of Port Pirie, Quorn is north of Wilmington but
Terowie, not shown on this map, is some distance due east of Port Pirie and SSE of Peterborough

Source:  Google Maps © 2024

As time passed however, the Australian people came to realise that these “new Australians” found what they were seeking, the chance to rebuild their lives in their new homeland at a time when Australia was still a colonial country, populated largely by Anglo-Irish migrants. 

Australian society was dominated by “native-born” at the top, with the mentally ill, children (despite the propaganda that babies were the best migrants), Aborigines and migrants generally overlooked. 

A retired Peterborough railway worker once asked me "Where do you reckon Australia would be without the Second World War?" The answer would be very subjective and the man in question did speak with a broad European accent, but there is no doubt that Australia would not be the place it is without the vast number of Europeans who arrived here after WWII. 

For one, we not have the diversity of culture and European family names we now have in our midst, many of which are now accepted “Australian” names, after having married into native-born families. 

The men, women and children identified by these names have several things in common — they came to Australia seeking freedom, and a new start, and they worked for the railways. 

I spoke with one bloke who came from Germany as a four year old, to Peterborough via Bonegilla, Mildura and Woodside camps, with his Polish parents. He doubted if he would or could make the sacrifices his parents made for him and his brother! 

The hundreds of people who contributed to this story did nothing really extraordinary, but they were remarkable people, are proud of their achievements, and deserve to be remembered for making Peterborough and Australia their home, and for their role in the Australian story and our developing culture. 

My interest in post WWII migrants has not waned and I must thank my partner, Helena, for her understanding 20 years ago when I traipsed from one part of the country to the other recording people’s lives. Perhaps it helped that she too is one of those migrants, coming to Australia with her parents and younger brother in 1968 from the Czech Republic. 

In my next blog entries, I will tell you the stories of a couple of the men who I met through the Relaying Our Tracks project. 

* Ann's notes: Arthur Calwell, in a statement to the press and radio, had announced before the arrival of the Heintzelman that all of the Displaced Persons were under 40, but the reality was that 8 were aged 41 to 43. 

Those on the Heintzelman actually had agreed in Germany to one year only of work as directed. The Australian Government changed the requirement to 2 years when it learnt that this was the time expected by Tasmania's Hydro Electric Commission of the former Polish soldiers who had arrived from Britain in October 1947. 

Since this was while the Heintzelman was on the high seas, its passengers were not told about the change until they were in the Bonegilla camp. According to Endrius Jankus, this was not until 20 December and there almost was a riot when the camp Commandant announced the change at an assembly. We have seen already, in relation to Endrius’ story, and will see in some biographies to come that the change continued to prey on the minds of the new arrivals.

Light editing, choice of illustrations and their captions by me.

SOURCE

National Archives of Australia:  Department of Immigration, Central Office; A12111, Immigration Photographic Archive 1946 - Today, 1946-; 1/1947/3/6, Migrant Arrivals - Displaced Persons from Europe - HMAS Kanimbla arrives at Melbourne with the first group of displaced persons (Dec 1947) from where they will join the train bound for Bonegilla Migrant Camp.  They travelled from Europe to Fremantle on the GENERAL HEINTZELMAN and transhipped to the KANIMBLA. CATEGORY: photograph, FORMAT: b&w negative, TYPE: cellulose acetate, STATUS: preservation material, 1947-1947.

The First Peterborough Balts, by John Mannion

Updated 17 April 2024

I grew up on a farm in what is known as the northern agricultural area of South Australia, at Pekina, 25 miles west of Peterborough, which is one of Australia’s former ‘great’ railway towns.  

The location of Peterborough in relation to Broken Hill is as important as its location
 with respect to South Australia's capital, Adelaide, since Broken Hill ore is shipped through Peterborough to Port Pirie WSW on the coast, where it is smelted
to produce ingots for shipment around the world.

Source:  Peterborough SA Website

Back in the early '60s a trip to Peterborough was a big day out for me. It meant a drive across the Yatina plain on a poorly formed dirt road with mum and my brother in the old Holden. (Dad always seemed to be away shearing!). 

A modern Pekina to Peterborough route, through Ororoo; Yatina is below the estimated travel time which, of course, is based on modern road conditions in a modern car; back in the 1960s though,
the Mannion family did not take these roads but travelled through Yatina to Peterborough

Source:  Imagery ©2024 TerraMetrics, Map data ©2024 Google

As we drove into Peterborough from the west there was a cluster of iron buildings on the left and the railway workshops on the right — the largest in the State rail system outside of Adelaide. 

The Peterborough railway yards are in the foreground of this mid-1950's photo
and the migrant hostel is behind them

Source:  John Mannion collection

A rear view of the migrant hostel, toilet block on the left and
local gardener at work on the right

Source: photographer Heuer, John Mannion collection

The Port Pirie to Peterborough railway, built in the 1880s, was to form the principal east-west transport axis of South Australia’s Upper North region, bringing prosperity to all the towns along the line until the 1970s. 

Back in the ‘60s and '70s, Peterborough was a thriving town of between four and five thousand people. Then after what was proclaimed a progressive move — the national rail track standardisation of the ‘60s — “the railways” moved out leaving hardly any jobs and leaving Peterborough with less than half its population. The 2021 Census counted only 1,428 residents. 

Peterborough at its best:
Judging from the cars, the postcard is from about 1960, and
the bottom left photo gives some idea of the size of the railway yards

Source:  John Mannion collection

Nearly 20 years ago now, I was a part-time project officer at Peterborough for an oral history project entitled Relaying Our Tracks. The aim of the project was two-fold. 

Funded by the Federal Government's Department of Family and Community Services, it was designed to “assimilate” newcomers into the former railway town that seemed to have lost its direction after being abandoned by the State and Commonwealth governments in the rationalisation period from 1978 until 1997. 

The town was being populated by city dwellers from Adelaide and interstate who had no affinity with the area and the project was supposed to help build community spirit. In that regard, as predicted, it was somewhat of a failure. 

However, as an historian, I found it invaluable in recording the oral histories of many older established members and former members of the community and their descendants. The interview process also saw many paper-based items, including old South Australian Railways (SAR) Institute Magazines come out of cupboards, drawers and back sheds. 

One article in particular intrigued me and after reading it I realised that it told a virtually forgotten story of local, state, national and international significance. It was the story of our first Commonwealth Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell, and his post-WWII Displaced Persons Scheme. I quote from the article: FLASH BACK in the Railways Institute Magazine, May-June, 1973, ‘Baltic Migrants Arrival at Peterborough, 1948’. 

‘Few people would remember that it is 25 years ago since the first Baltic migrants arrived at Peterborough to be trained for railway work in South Australia, The Balts were the first 'displaced persons' to come to South Australia as migrants and they were accepted almost to a man by the local people because of their youth and their apparent enthusiasm to learn all they could of their new home and join in the activities of their new country. 

‘They were willing employees who were prepared to work long hours and many shifts in order to help them establish themselves financially, but one of their most severe problems was the language barrier. One Fireman could not understand the meaning of the word ‘rest’, and when the crew arrived at its destination to go to barracks, this Fireman would not leave his engine and slept on the footplate. He had been told to work his engine to Wilmington and back, but was not told specifically to go to bed at Wilmington. 

‘With Mr. and Mrs. Allen Ind at the migrant hostel [the cluster of iron buildings I mentioned earlier] established in Peterborough, where these lads were first encamped in tents and later in rooms of more solid construction, it is recalled the young Firemen sitting up late at nights drinking coffee to help keep them awake so that they could pursue their study of the language and the instruction papers necessary to qualify as Firemen and Porters. 

‘Some of the older Enginemen [Australian] found it hard to converse and understand the young migrants and some of the young migrants found it hard to understand just what the Enginemen were thinking, but mostly it was a happy association which extended for many years afterwards and today, we have a lot of those Baltic migrants listed among our senior staff members in the Loco and Traffic Running, and among the Station Masters' ranks. 

‘In the early days most migrants wore gloves on their hands when doing hard and dirty work and the reward for this was apparent when some of them left the Railways and went into other positions, and some into their own businesses. The talented boys were pleased that they had protected their hands and fingers to equip them for delicate work in future life.’ 

Whilst the article did mention that these men were the first 'Displaced Persons' to come to South Australia as migrants, the impact of Arthur Calwell, the first Minister for Immigration in the Australian Government and his post war migration programme did not really register until I started some serious researching. 

Two accompanying photos showed the 17 members of first group of trainee migrant porters and firemen at Peterborough with Lithuanians in the majority — Jonas Bimba, Tadas Bliukys, Jonas Caplikas, Povilas Deimantas, Juozas Donela, Stasys Gricius, Jurgis Guoba, Raimundas Juzulinis, Benediktas Kaminskas and Vladas Simkunas. The photos also include four Latvians (Gunars Brunavs, Nikoljas Dukalskis, Nikoljas Kibilds and Janis Kolesnikovs) and three Estonians (Flaavi Hodunov, Hugo Jakobsen and Artur Klaar).  

While the press initially talked about 18 being selected (for instance in the Times and Northern Advertiser of 27 February 1948), I have noted that it later talked about 17 preparing for their examinations and passing them well (for instance, the Mail, 8 May 1948).

Photos of 17 First Transporters to be trained at Peterborough

from the Railway Institute Magazine, May-June 1973

Source:  John Mannion collection

They were among the first European displaced persons to come to Australia, aboard the chartered troop ship, the United States Army Transport, General Stuart Heintzelman. 

In the Friday, 23 January 1948 edition of the South-Eastern Times, a regional South Australian newspaper printed at Millicent, a rather insignificant one column, seven-line article read: 

Source:  Trove

A little over a month later, a similar article appeared in another country newspaper over 400 miles north of Millicent, at Peterborough. It was the Times and Great Northern Advertiser, of Friday, 27 February 1948. 

Source:  Trove

With a name like Mannion, I have no connection at all with European migration, only a tremendous interest in, and respect for those post-war migrants who made South Australia their home. A ‘baby boomer’ born into a relatively insular and conservative Irish Catholic mixed farming district, I had little exposure to the ‘outside’ world. 

However as a kid, I knew that were German, Czech and Dutch workers and their families living at the railway sidings of Eurelia, Orroroo and Black Rock within 25 miles to the north and west of our farm. These families formed part of the railway gangs involved with rail track maintenance work on the Terowie to Quorn narrow-gauge railway.  [Eurelia and Terowie are at the top and bottom respectively of the Google map above.  Black Rock is just SSW of the travel time pop-up on that map.]

I went to school at Orroroo, about 14 miles from home [see map above], with many of these ‘new Australian’ kids but we were not told anything about who they were, why they were here or where they came from. They were generally stuck in the back of the classroom and ignored. With names like Limback, Fejgl, Methurst, Katts, Kampen and Ehlers, they were often derided because of their names, appearance and social status. 

Little did I realise that in my own back yard, long before the term ‘multiculturalism’ was penned, there was an enclave of Europeans numbering up to 500 people living in the area — an extension of Calwell’s initial plan. These were the successors to the first ‘Balts’ of the ‘Fifth Fleet’. 

In the years that followed February 1948, right up until the ‘70s, hundreds more European migrants and their families made the Peterborough Division of the SAR their home. The majority lived at Peterborough, the largest shopping centre and livestock market town in the district. 

Many have described Calwell’s immigration scheme, ‘as one of the best things that ever happened to Australia and also as the greatest humanitarian act that Australia has ever undertaken.’ 

However, the scheme succeeded because we needed them as much as they needed us. In reality it was a calculated plan (in competition with the US, South America and Canada) to draft workers into Australia without upsetting the local domestic labour and housing situation. 

By the late 1920s, most of the Australian railway systems were well established, and during the 1930s little expansion occurred. During WWII, rail maintenance activity was reduced drastically reduced, as the SAR Islington workshops were adapted to heavy engineering war production. 

Combined with the virtual elimination of rolling stock maintenance and only emergency track maintenance, the railways carried greatly increased tonnages and train movements under the pressure of the national war effort with reduced manpower. At the end of the war the entire Australian railway system was in a crisis state in relation to operating capacity and infrastructure condition. 

Many of these ‘Balts’ were skilled men and women but were used as manual labour and literally dumped in outback railway depots and maintenance camps and regarded as foreigners and cheap labour. 

That Railways Institute Magazine article was written in 1973 and even then it questioned how many would remember the Balts. How many would remember in 2005, the time of my project 32 years later? Fortunately quite a few! 

Determined to follow the fate of these ‘Peterborough Balts’ I went through the Adelaide White Pages telephone directory and found several of the names on the two photographs listed. 

After a few phone calls I found two of the men pictured in the photo living in Adelaide, fit and well, and having stayed with ‘the railways’. I had so many questions to ask Flaavi Hodunov, an Estonian who became known as ‘Freddie’ and Povilas, or Paul, Deimantas from Lithuania. 

Where did they come from? What was the voyage over like? What did they find when they got here? What did they do before, during and after their time at Peterborough? 

Surprisingly, with a little encouragement from their wives, they were interested in what I was doing and gave me some basic background over the phone. I later met up with Flaavi, Paul and several other ‘Lithos’, when they told me their stories. 

I am glad of the continued interest in their stories and the opportunity to now have them published again, in blog entries to follow this one, nearly 20 years later.

FOOTNOTE:  Light editing, choice of illustrations and their captions by Ann.  You can see larger versions of the images by double-clicking on them.

SOURCES

Railways Institute Magazine (1973) 'FLASH BACK ... Baltic Migrants Arrival at Peterborough, 1948, Adelaide, May-June, p 17.

The South Eastern Times (1948) 'The Trains of Tomorrow', Millicent, South Australia, 23 January, p 2, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/201013863 accessed 12 March 2024.

The Times and Northern Advertiser (1948) 'New Arrivals', Peterborough, South Australia, 27 February, p2, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/110548140 accessed 12 March 2024.

The Mail (1948) '17 Balts Learn English to be Railway Men' Adelaide, SA, 8 May, p 6 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55905773 accessed 17 April 2024.