Peter Sutton

Ship name / Flight number: Castel Felice

Arrival date: 14/01/1965

I was born in Darlington, in the north of England, on 8 June 1947. My older sister still lives there, in the same street she was born in. My family were Quakers and I was taught never to swear or fight or raise my voice. This meant that I sometimes got bullied at school as I wouldn’t fight back. I chose to migrate to Australia with the BBM in 1964, when I was 18 years old. My dad was supportive, but my mother felt like she was losing her son. I sailed into Sydney Harbour on the Castel Felice in February 1965 wearing my winter clothes. It was 40 degrees Celcius.

The next shock to my system was arriving at the BBM training farm in Bonnyrigg and discovering that I had to do my own washing! My mother did that for me in England. There wasn’t even a washing machine on the farm – we had to boil everything in a copper. The farm was very run down in 1965. Mr Mansell came out to inspect it and, after seeing how diseased the 100 cattle were and the state of the place, he had a big argument with the two men who were supposed to be running it and sacked them.

Tom Vickery and his wife and son were appointed to take over. Instead of going to a farm in NSW, I was assigned to work on the BBM farm. My Vickery sent the existing herd to the abattoir and bought about 100 new Holstein Friesian and Jersey cows. I made sure that he bought two washing machines too! Even though I didn’t grow up on a farm, I found myself running one. I was supposed to share the load with David, Mr Vickery’s son, but he left soon after I started. I was working 16-hour days and getting heartily sick of it. I told Mr Vickery that I was going to leave if I didn’t get some support. Nothing changed, so I kept my promise. Unfortunately, I left a big ship’s box of my things at the farm, including my family bible. I’ve often wondered if it’s still there.

I went to Sydney in February 1966 and linked up with Michael, another ‘Little Brother’. Together, we ran a small petrol station in Milson’s Point, above Luna Park. It was an affluent area and men would drive up in their Rolls Royces and Jaguars and hand over a ten pound note expecting to get their change in decimal currency, and not realising that the pound was worth twice as much as the dollar.

I was homesick and wrote to my parents asking them to ‘sell the fattened pig’ and buy me out of my contract with the BBM. My Dad replied that the pig was dead and I could buy myself out!

Later that year, I travelled to Melbourne on the Southern Aurora, an express train that no longer operates. I found a job at Redbook Carpets in Tottenham, Melbourne. One day, a young girl came into the factory passing the hat around for someone who was leaving. I said to her: “I’ll put $2 in the hat if you’ll marry me.” I’d never spoken to her before, but it felt so right. She agreed and we got engaged that day! Fifty-seven years later (in 2024), we are still married.

Helen had already made arrangements to travel back to Scotland in November, but I couldn’t join her as I needed to stay in Australia for two years to meet the requirements of my contract with the BBM. I sailed as soon as I could, ironically, on the Castel Felice. We were married in Bannockburn, at the Scottish United Free Church in February 1967. Both our families came. The Scottish minister knew I was English, and said to me (in a reference to the bloody Battle of Bannockburn in 1314), ‘there’s many a Sassenach who wished they’d never come to Bannockburn!’, but I wasn’t one of them.

Above: Helen and Peter on their wedding day, 1967.

We lived with my parents after we married and our first child, Sheena was born. We decided that there were more opportunities for us back in Australia, so we crossed the ocean again on the Australis and settled in Melbourne.

Above: Peter, Sheena and Helen in England, 1968

We rented a house in Deer Park and I got a job with Nylex making plastic goods. In 1969, the Melbourne airport was being built, and I saw a sign for the Qantas Employment Office. I went in and asked if they had any jobs. ‘Yes!’, I was told, ‘When can you start?’ After passing my medical, I started working for Qantas in October 1969 and I stayed with them for the next 20 years. In those days, Qantas was like a family business. I had a wide variety of jobs, from ground staff to catering manager to flight operations. I did whatever they offered me, especially if it paid more! Working for Qantas gave us access to cheap flights – Helen has been around the world 54 times! I got to fly on the Concorde, not once, but twice! Unfortunately, I also developed tinnitus from working at Qantas and am now partially deaf in both ears.

I was able to pay for my parents to fly to Australia using the staff travel program. They decided to migrate and arrived just before the processing fee was increased from £10 to £75 in 1973. My dad loved Australia. He loved sitting in the sun. He died in Melbourne in 1981 and my mum died about ten years later. My sister never came to Australia, but I’ve been to visit her a number of times. She’s 85 years old now, and I don’t think I’ll get to see her again.

Above: Peter (back) at Qantas, c.1982

In the late 1980s, I transferred to Perth with Qantas and started working at the new international terminal. However, there really wasn’t enough work for me there, so I ended up leaving. I found other work – driving buses and doing whatever came along to support my family. We now had three children; Coreen and Peter were born in Melbourne. We decided to move to west because I was getting terrible migraines in Melbourne, and my doctor thought it might be connected to the weather, particularly the low pressure systems that are always forming around Melbourne. Perth has a much drier climate and my migraines have diminished.

In 2002, I said to Helen that I’d like a quieter job. I went to an employment agency and the recruiter looked at my CV and said: ‘I’ve got just the job for you.’ I could hardly believe it when he took me out to Perth airport! I worked for Qantas as a sub-contractor doing Fleet Presentation but within four years I was back on their books as an employee. I stayed with Qantas until 2015 when I had to retire due to a workplace injury. I was a Leading Hand in Fleet Presentation and I was working on a 737 one night when I fell down the metal stairs at the front door. I woke up on the tarmac with a broken hip, broken right knee, and spinal injury. Qantas did an odd thing and transferred my employment contract to Alliance, their insurer. They took so long to organise my surgery that it hindered my recovery and I never worked again. I was 68 years old, but at least I qualified for a pension.

In 2020 Helen and I decided to do the Grey Nomad thing and take our caravan around Australia. We sold our house and headed north but hadn’t gone far when our car was damaged, so we had to go back to Perth to get it repaired. We set off again but then COVID struck and we couldn’t get back to Perth or continue our road trip. We spent two years living in Green Head, a small coastal town 250km north of Perth, waiting for the rules to change so we could travel again. When we could finally move again, we decided to come back to Perth and bought a large two-bedroom apartment in Roleystone, east of Perth.

Coming to Australia with the BBM over 60 years ago was a good decision. It wasn’t always easy, but it was worth it.

Above: Helen and Peter in their Scottish tartans, c. 2020

Above: Peter Sutton – third from left at the WA reunion, 2019

 

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