Tasos Kolokotronis of Nea Magnisia (Thessaly) recounts his migration to Australia with disarming humour and honesty. Moments fit for laughter, others for tears, and many where quick wits flipped hardship into possibility. His story, excerpted from his book “Migrant to Australia”, is among the highlights of this year’s Antipodes annual.
Kolokotronis’ departure was set for 20 November 1954. The decision meant leaving behind an ailing mother, a beloved shop, and a village he adored. On Saturday 13 November, he embraced his bedridden mother, holding back tears so as not to burden her; once outside the room, the sobs came in waves. Two days into his journey he woke from a vivid dream of her funeral, an image so clear he fixed the date in his mind. In Athens, amid the endless queues at the DEME offices near Omonia, he met fellow migrants, including Filotas Farmakis and Leonidas Karakatsanis.
The ship Kyrenia carried mostly young men, 18–30 years old, more than six hundred by his reckoning, “a suitcase of hand-stitched clothes, hopes and dreams” between them. After Port Said, where the dazzling “beautiful Eleni” boarded with her family, Melbourne’s first impression was bleak, small tin-roof houses and smoking chimneys, while Sydney sparkled at night as the ship sailed in.
From the docks, a train took them to Greta Migrant Camp. Morning light revealed a vast, militarised barracks for civilians, thousands of men, women and children lining up for meals, washrooms and toilets, or wandering with no destination. News soon confirmed what his dream had foretold: his mother had passed away 24 hours after his departure.
Determined to find better prospects than those offered at Greta, Tasos and friends slipped out after dark, caught a taxi to Maitland station and made for Sydney. Money vanished fast: Tasos sold a gold sovereign, his mother’s “for emergencies”, to pay the rent; Filotas lugged a bright red woollen blanket door-to-door under a 35°C January sun while Tasos tried to sell his watch to unimpressed jewellers. A lifeline arrived via Thomas Mandamas from Diavata, who lent them £20, nearly three weeks’ wages, so they could reach Melbourne.
In Melbourne, a network of compatriots took shape: boarding houses near Sydney Road, Brunswick, then a room with Efthymis and Machi Stamoulis. Work came at Australian Plaster Industries, where constant dust turned workers unrecognisable within minutes and a Maltese foreman’s shouted “come on, hurry” was misheard by Leonidas as being called “Harry,” prompting a spectacular punch and a swift sacking. Tasos, dressed in his army-tailored suit and his late father’s shoes, landed a job the next day at Queens Bridge Motors.
With the first earnings, they repaid debts, sent cheques home, both to help and to proudly show they were “doing well in Australia” and bought a shared ASTOR radiogram with a single Greek record they played nightly, much to Kyr Thymios’ nerves. Saturdays were for riding the Myer escalators, Sundays for the “Orfeas” community hall and Greek café, and strolls along Lonsdale Street to Nikakis’ beer hall and the “Piraeus” restaurant, long before Melbourne’s Greek precinct took shape as we know it.
One common dilemma for the 1953–55 arrivals, Tasos notes, was the scarcity of Greek women. Some dated Australians; others waited a year or two for arranged introductions, only to find shipboard romances had changed plans by the time the vessel docked.
The big decision: chasing the sugarcane myth
Rumours swirled that cutting sugarcane earned £50+ a week, not £9–10. Tasos led a pact with Lazaros Tyres, George Albanis, Leonidas Karakatsanis and Stefanos Grountas to try their luck. On 15 May 1955, they set off in a rattling Austin packed with suitcases and a leaky canvas roof, creeping through Gippsland in rain and cold. “Look,” George joked at each creek sign, “they all say ‘Greek’, we should be proud!” In the end, advice along the way turned them from cane fields to railway work near Babinda, outside Cairns, alongside Aboriginal crews, another unexpected turn in a continent-spanning odyssey.
Returning to Melbourne, their room with the Stamoulis family had been let, and fate led them to Corsair Street, Richmond, where the landlord’s niece Miss Christina Tzenga lived. She was the first Greek woman Tasos met in seven months in Australia. In time, she became his wife.
“We set out with a suitcase of our mothers’ hand-sewn clothes, hopes and dreams, seeking a new homeland when our own could no longer hold us.” Tasos KolokotronisThe story is featured in Antipodes Magazine. The 2025 annual is dedicated to the mass Greek migration to Australia in the 1950s–60s, featuring personal histories like Kolokotronis’, period cinema, fashion, domestic objects, and photographs that bring the era to life.
What: Launch of Antipodes (Vol. 71, 2025) by the Greek–Australian Cultural League
When: Sunday 19 October, 3pm
Where: Panarkadian Association, 570 Victoria St, North Melbourne
RSVP: infogaclm@gmail.com or Cathy Alexopoulos 0428 968 715
Admission: Free. All welcome.
