General News
24 October, 2025
The story of a Dutch migrant — 70 years in
Anne Doran (Putman) — born January 31, 1941, during World War 2, in Tilburg (Noord Braband) — Holland (now the Netherlands). A city between Eindhoven and the Belgian border.
I vividly remember the constant blare of the air raid sirens, and after the war ended in 1945, how the American tanks rolled into our street. My mum billeted several English soldiers for several months.
As the years passed I attended kindergarten and primary school, then moved to tertiary education to the grammar school with the Catholic nuns at the Oude Dijk, studying Dutch, English, French, German, typing, Pitman shorthand, bookkeeping mathematics, algebra, history, geography, biology and drama. English, history and geography were always my best loved subjects, and studied Esperanto — a world communication language.
In summer, it was swimming in the nearby lake, roller skating and gymnastics. In winter, the lake would freeze over, and it was good fun skating on the frozen ice.
My mum said the war years had been terrible, and the time had come to look at other future options. My dad was a builder, specialising in tiling and fancy brickworks. Mum had been a housekeeper for families in Harlem and Amsterdam. My elder brother was a turner and fitter and worked on locomotives at the railways. My younger brother, also a turner and fitter who was employed at Phillips Industries manufacturing precision tools.
At this time, 1955, I was 14- years-old, and all we knew about Australia was that Canberra was the capital. We had heard of Sydney and Melbourne, and the Indigenous people made up most of the population.
We heard how Australian Arthur Calwell, Minister for Immigration 1945-1949, was now calling for skilled western European migrants to come to Australia — as his catch cry was — “Populate or Perish”! Australia is a very big country.
It was then a large influx of immigration began, when the Snowy Mountain Hydro Electric Scheme was built with skilled migrant technology.
So my parents decided to immigrate to Australia. We had to go to Amsterdam for our passports, and checked for health — so we were disease free. Had no criminal records, and my dad could provide a living for his family.
September 13, 1955 arrived.
It was a very emotional day as we said our goodbyes to family and friends at Rotterdam. We boarded our ship — Sibajak, which was built in 1927 for the Dutch East Indies trade, then became a troopship during the war, and was refitted as a migrant ship in 1954. Its final voyage in 1959 — Sibajak left Rotterdam on its final voyage to Australia, bound for Hong Kong and was handed over to ship breakers.
The Sibajak was owned by the Rotterdam Lloyd. Its crew was Dutch, but cabin crew and eating arrangements were carried out by Javanese staff. There were 400 children on board. The first couple of days, many people suffered sea sickness. From Rotterdam, we sailed out into the North Atlantic ocean around the wild Bay of Biscay past France and Portugal, through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean, past Malta on to Port Said in Egypt, through the Suez Canal, which was closed in 1959. We sailed through the Red Sea to Aden, on to the India Ocean, past the bottom tip of India to Australia.
We arrived at Fremantle on October 16, 1955. A day all passengers were allowed out to roam the city streets of Fremantle. I was so impressed by the old historic buildings, and the big pumpkins and big packets of corn flakes we saw in some of the shops.
Then it was back onto our ship, now bound for Melbourne. We arrived at Station Pier — Port Melbourne. Later we were driven to Spencer Street railway station, where we caught the train to the Dutch Migrant Hostel in Daylesford. There were already other Dutch migrant families living there. My family and I stayed at the hostel for two months during which time I was sent to the Catholic school, while my mum became a cook at the nearby boarding school. My dad found work as a bricklayer at Phelan’s Building Industries at Carisbrook. In November 1955, there was a big snow storm in Daylesford.
During the Christmas period, my parents and I moved to Maryborough, and lived in a miner’s cottage in Burke Street. My dad had already built a double garage on the same building site for Cliff Phelan. I was 14-years-old, going on 15, when I was enrolled at the Maryborough Technical school. My mum became the Home Help for Grandma Phelan, who lived on the back of our quaint cottage. Mum also helped Mrs Bill Phelan and Mrs Cliff Phelan. The young children called my mum Mrs. Sputnik. Population in Maryborough was 8000 in 1956.
At the Tech school, I followed the commercial course bookkeeping, English, for sports I played hockey, softball and swimming and gymnastics.
I loved the pool, and would be there three times a day, before and after school, and during my lunch break. I was selected for a swimming team to represent Maryborough at the Olympic pool in Melbourne, winning the breaststroke category for the house of Stevens.
In 1956, the Tech school took us students to the Olympic Games in Melbourne, and watched Betty Cuthbert win gold in 100 and 200 metre sprints.
I had to learn the imperial system in mathematics — all about pounds, shillings and pence. It was a big turn around from the metric system. I learned science, social studies (which was history and geography combined), English, mathematics, bookkeeping, typing and shorthand and graduated with the Intermediate Certificate. At night class I learned dress making.
My first job as a junior was in the office at the Maryborough Flour mill with Willersdorf & Forbes. A year later I worked in the office of the Maryborough Knitting Mill. I was a comptometrist (person who operates a type of key-driven adding machine, a predecessor to an electronic calculator). It was a pool of around 12-16 girls. I really enjoyed working there. Then came the “credit squeeze”, and several girls lost their job, including me.
At this time, my parents found a block of land they bought from a local horse breeder in Gertrude Street. We were then known as ‘migrants in the bush’, and possibly one of the first migrant families to come to Maryborough.
My dad had poured a solid block of concrete on the site, and placed metal brick forms for brick making. While my dad worked during the week at Phelan’s, mum and I would get on our bikes after school and head to our block. Here we would meet our German friend Werner, whom mum had met at English class at night school at the Tech school. Werner mixed the cement, while mum and I filled the metal forms with concrete. We paddled our bikes most days during the week, so we had sufficient numbers of bricks ready each week, for dad to build our new house on weekends.