Chatting with my mum today, I was reminded that tomorrow is the anniversary of her arrival in Australia on the venerable SS Ranchi. On the 12th June, 1949, the reconverted former troop ship sailed into Sydney Harbour and tied up at Woolloomooloo. It was raining and cold and my grandmother (for she was also on board) remarked that they had been told that Australia was always warm and sunny. It being my grandmother's birthday, she probably felt that the elements should have been kinder that day.

These kind of journeys are invariable fateful, in the sense that something of the old way of life will have been changed forever as a result of those pair of tickets bought for a one-way trip to the other side of the world. Life in Australia, as similar as it may have seemed to life in England, meant, however, an entirely different universe of relationships, jobs, children, events and so forth which would inevitably follow. It is a journey that can rarely be 'untaken.' 

The SS Ranchi also had a colourful career.. Built as a liner by P&O in the 1920's, she sailed a scheduled route between England and Bombay, then later to the 'Far East.' She was requisitioned by the Royal Navy in 1939 and served as an armed merchant cruiser, then later as a troop ship. P&O finally got her back in 1947 where she was pressed into service as an 'emigrant ship' between the UK and Australia between 1948 and 1952. Her career ended when she was scrapped in 1953. Quite a career, don't you think?

SS Ranchi in her last iteration, as my mother would have seen her.

Photo courtesy State Library of  Victoria