This is the story of Will and his two friends who sailed to England in 1967 to see the world. Aerogrammes. letters, diaries and postcards help to tell of their adventures in this A to Z.
“I've Just Got to Get a Message to You” Bee Gees •. 1968
I've just got to get a message to you
Hold on, hold on
One more hour and my life will be through
Hold on, hold on
Extract from Diary
Monday 9th September 1968
Back to school class 2C. 33 in class, good kids, a few staff changes.
Tuesday 10th
Staying with Italian family in Cricklewood, comfy accommodation £1 per night bed and breaky.
Wednesday 11th
Played squash
Thursday 12th Saw movie “Wait until Dark”. Gripping. Great!
Saturday 14th To Southampton with Osterley playing second grade for Magpies. Lost 22-3 Played Trojans.
Sunday 15th Saw “The Graduate” again- a very good film.
Tuesday 17th Moved into flat 29 B Jeffries St Camden Town. Unpacked.
Basement flat (below street level) in Camden Town Recent picture from Apple Maps
29B Jeffreys St,Camden Town,London, NW1 06/10/1968
My biggest problem at the moment is that I’m aching from A-hole to breakfast time from yesterday’s game of Rugby, so much so it’s difficult to write. It just shows how out of condition I really am, even after all the squash and one previous game of rugger. We will start training seriously this week though, at the Swiss Cottage gymnasium, so should be fit soon as it was our first game with a new club (Hampstead).
We played down at Greenwich (0° longitude) but our home grounds will be Regents Park and Highgate where Dick Whittington turned and came back to London.
Have just come back from the cinema where we saw “Girl on a Motorcycle” with Marianne Faithful which to say the least was “broad minded”. Last week saw the film “Nobody Runs Forever” with Rod Taylor, which is about the Australian High Commissioner in London who is to be arrested by an Australian detective (Taylor). It’s a very good show and Taylor does a perfect Australian accent but a lot of the Pom’s missed some of the comments.
Cilla has finished at Essendine and starts next year as an Air Hostess with B.O.A.C. Meanwhile she is teaching English in Venice and Paris to fill in time.
Flat here is OK and we could fix it up into a great bachelor pad if we were staying but alas I suppose I must leave swinging London someday. Pleased to hear about everyone resigning from the NSW Education Department and the strike might make those silly apes up in Bridge St start treating teachers like human beings. School is all right here and I’m enjoying work. Have a good class and we’re very busy with the project at the moment called “Man, How You’ve Changed’.
Wouldn’t mind joining you in New Guinea, Dad, for the sailing. It’s supposed to be an interesting place to visit too.
29B Jeffreys St,Camden Town,London, NW1. 12/10/1968
Ringing home with kid’s artwork on the wall behind
Well it’s 12:30 am on Saturday morning and 35 minutes ago (Friday night 11:55 pm) I rang you up, Mum and it was absolutely great to talk to you even if for only three minutes. It only took me about 45 minutes to get through and when I heard your phone ringing and you saying hello I was very excited. The line was very clear and it’s amazing to think someone 12,000 miles away could come through so clearly. I can remember the conversation quite well but imagine taking you by surprise like that startled you a bit. I asked you what time it was over there. 9:00 am Saturday morning was it? and how you were but didn’t get a reply. Suppose the surprise was a bit much. Reckon I’d have been the same if you’d have got through here earlier in the week. What’s this about me losing my Australian accent? Not true. I didn’t have any trouble recognising you over the phone.
Extract from Diary
Rang mum in Australia £1 per minute 12:00 pm here and 9:00 am Saturday morning in Wollongong. Really great to hear mum again. Hard to convince her it was me.
It’s a bit hard imagining Dad going sailing again over there especially since every day gets just a bit more chilly here. Autumn has at last arrived and the leaves are flooding the foot paths now although it’s still not cold enough by any means to wear a coat outside.
Today Phil and I play “rugger” with the 5th grade side. We play Footscray in Kent which sounds a long way away but is only about 20 miles. England’s a pretty small place. The team we play for at Hampstead are a very enthusiastic lot being a reformed club with well over 100 players. They were first formed just over 100 years ago. They supply us with new jerseys and shorts from next week.
All’s well otherwise over here in Swinging London but reckon on writing to Canada for a job beginning in the new year. Six months only over there should be enough. Had a letter from Keith who has bought a Ford van and is touring the US at Christmas. Don’t know very clearly what he’s up to after that. He seems a bit rapt in some Canadian bird, Miss Port Alberni, he reckons she is, but we should set him pretty straight when we see him.
29B Jeffreys St,Camden Town,London, NW1. 14/11/1968
Thursday night here and I’m just getting a chance to reply to your letter. I was supposed to be going to rugby training tonight at the gym but caught up on some sleep instead. Should have trained I suppose as I got promoted this week to the “A” team third grade side and as we have eight sides plus reserves now the competition is very keen. Played at Luton 30 miles north last week for the 5ths and were beaten 15-3. I had numb toes all the game as it was a pretty cold day. An Aussie played for us who had just flown over from Brisbane. Great to hear that unadulterated, broad drawl again. The cold weather was a bit of a shock to him. Phil is still playing first grade and going very well from all reports.
The news report just said Miss Australia won the Miss World Title – something of a surprise! It was live on TV. Imagine! Everyone dashed up after training to see it at the pub. Have been out a few times this week. Took the birds to a play called “The Secretary Bird” starring Kenneth Moore (Douglas Bader) which was a really hilariously good play. An Aussie bird played the title role.
I just discovered that the pub, the Old Bull and Bush about which the song was written is one of our locals, a nice old pub at Hampstead which is a lovely part of London on the hill near a large heath with old houses, shops and pubs but pretty expensive. On Sunday we drove out of London. Car is still running well and inexpensively down to Southend on Sea (Sarfend) for the afternoon and had dinner at the girls’ flat. They sure know how to cook ! Chicken cooked in wine with mushrooms plus three other courses and French wine! Not bad.
Bobbies certainly are a polite breed here. Pulled up outside the bank in the strand on Saturday in a “No Standing” area and the constable said, “Leave it there while you go into the bank, Sir. I’ll keep an eye on it for you”. Makes you want to co-operate with the police.
I did hear of Wollongong’s bushfires. There was a small paragraph in the papers here and a little more about it in the Australian newsletter. Must have been pretty terrible. I wouldn’t mind some Australian magazines, Women’s Weekly and even some Daily Telegraphs. Could you send them seamail? They’re sent reasonably cheaply this way.
Have been to see a few good new films lately and at the theatre saw a new play called “40 Years On” which was quite good, starring Sir John Gielgud who was very convincing. I saw the film “Till Death Us Do Part” and since I hadn’t seen any of the TV series I quite enjoyed it. Alf Garnett certainly got some publicity in the local papers over here over the Marrickville incident. The way it was reported here it made a lot of people round that way seem a bit prudish or something.
It’s the last time I’ll play Alf says Warren
Sydney Wednesday – Warren Mitchell said goodbye to Australia and Alf Garnett in his farewell appearance at Chequers Nightclub. Mitchell, the 43-year-old television star who has been the centre of a controversy following his use of four letter words at the Marrickville Returned Servicemen’s Leagues Club over the weekend finished his last show in Australia with three encores from a packed house at the downtown Sydney nightclub.
In a curtain speech he toasted the citizens of Marrickville and announced to the audience that it was the last time he would play the cynical cockney Alf Garnett. Mitchell was close to tears as he said that he wanted to forget the Marrickville incident in which he was barred from completing his contract of four days because of the language he used. Surrounded by admirers in his dressing room after his last show in Australia he said that he was sick and tired of being confused with the irascible Garnett.
“Alf Garnett is a character that I have portrayed in television. I wish to God that they could forget Alf. Tell them I am a character actor.”
He was greatly disturbed that the Marrickville incident had been reported to London. “My bloody wife read about the story in Knightsbridge!”
Hope those prints I sent arrived. The other lot looked like they’re lost. I wonder how many letters etc I’ve sent that never arrived? Suppose the Australian Post Office would blame it on that sorting machine which chews up the letters. Well, better get some Bo Peep so that I’ll be fit for school tomorrow.
29B Jeffreys St,Camden Town,London, NW1. 17/11/1968
Tonight I’m “sort of” babysitting. Sort of because I haven’t heard or seen “him” since I arrived with instructions to drink up, so have had a few camparis, gin and tonics, Scotch and tonics and rang up Jean to come around as well. There are some good shows on TV so have been very contentedly relaxing. I’m minding Fred for a young English couple who are friends of ours. They have a Georgian style home with very modern furnishings and very well set up. It’s their au pair’s night off so I don’t mind doing them a favour and enjoying myself too. This should be the last letter you’ll get before Christmas. Received your Aussie Christmas card yesterday. Very nice.
We have the Rugby Club Christmas party on Friday and Rugby on Saturday and Sunday to recover and Monday shopping and on Tuesday Christmas Eve we’re going to St Helens for Christmas with Jean and Beth. Will be up there for a few days and a guided tour of Lancashire and may go to Scotland though have to be back for the rugger. Played last week against Port of London Authority on a frozen rock hard ground – pools of solid ice – absolute punishment if you got tackled. We won 15-3. I scored two tries.
Saw “Hair” last night. What a great show! The best thing that’s happened since Corn Flakes. Saw three films at Australia House. One on the 18 footers on the Harbour was tremendous and won a prize at Edinburgh Film Festival. They looked great on a screaming plane.
Extract from Diary
Tuesday 26th November 1968
Record and taping session in flat. Bought “Hair” (36/9).
29B Jeffreys St,Camden Town,London, NW1 28/11/1968
Phil and I have been taking out two girls from a flat up the road. I have been taking out an English bird from school called Jean and Phil is dating her flatmate Beth. As well we have invites up to their place for the hols. They come from Saint Helens up near Liverpool (rugby league district) so we may go up for a few days if we get a few things done on the car tomorrow.
The car’s going quite well really hasn’t cost us anything yet in the 5000 plus miles it’s done apart from the water pump in Spain. Do you know they still make and sell Morris 1000’s the same as ours over here? Stopped making them five years ago in Aussie didn’t they? We went to the 1968 Motor Show the other evening with the girls and we saved 7/6 by getting in as overseas visitors using our passports (the girls had to pay). The man looked very suspicious at the stamp date of arrival February ’67.
The central heating in our flat is great. Waking up in a warm flat, driving to school in a heated car and working in a centrally heated school is so good you don’t even need an overcoat. You may have the wrong idea from what I said earlier that the teaching standard here is low. It’s just that there’s more freedom from a lot of the window dressing and hypocrisy that goes on in Australian schools so that there’s more time to get on with a bit of work. I don’t really think they’re much better off in Canada for all the extra work. A few people we’ve spoken to have been quite disillusioned with the high cost of living and lack of social life etc there so if and when I get there next year I don’t figure on teaching. It will just be a short visit and if I ever teach there it will be after I’ve been back to Australia. Keith seems to be existing but isn’t too enthusiastic and he’s going to tour Mexico etc at Christmas to miss the winter. Anyway, apparently he’s sending a roneoed sheet out with his Christmas cards so you should get all his news direct.
Went to a party down in a studio in Baker Street the other night run by Anthony Greenwood’s daughter. He’s the Minister for Housing. What a party – a full rock band, psychedelic lighting, go go dancers, all the birds and the bods in Carnaby St gear but the police arrived half an hour after it started at 11:30 pm and very politely asked if the music could be turned down as the walls and us were vibrating with sound and the neighbours were complaining.
We saw this play “Hair” which is without doubt the most amazing and important show I’ve ever seen. It’s an American musical happening and one of the first since all stage censorship has been removed. They took the establishment and tore it apart, politics, sex, religion, race, hate, war, drugs… An amazing show! I’ve bought the LP record and we’ve booked to see it again running to packed audiences and booked out for weeks in advance.
The Curry Apple Orchard 