George Gives Insight into His Family’s Amazing Migration Story
BY DI SNEDDON
George Souris AM was Singleton’s special Australia Day guest. Predominantly, he was invited to speak given his parliamentary history.
Mr Souris was the Member for Upper Hunter for the National Party from 1988 to 2015, Nationals Deputy Leader from 1993 to 1999 and leader from 1999 to 2003.
In 2016 he was awarded an AM for his significant contribution to the people of the Upper Hunter.
While his parliamentary career is certainly impressive, Mr Souris reflected more on his family’s move to Australia from Greece, commenting that it is the citizenship ceremony he believes is the most important aspect of Australia Day.
It is a day when he reflects on the stories of his own family and that of his wife, Vassy. Both of Greek descent, their family stories of migration indeed deserve reflection.
Mr Souris’ father, Theodore Souris, arrived in Australia in 1937 to make preparations for the remainder of his family to also migrate but that soon took an unexpected twist. World War II inflicted an 11-year separation for the family until Australia re-opened immigration and allowed Mr Souris’s mother, Kanella, to arrive on Australian shores with her two children, Peter and Anastasia.
“It is unimaginable my mother and her two children (Mr Souris’ older brother and sister) endured a worldwide depression on the Greek Island of Kythera and the torment of being under enemy occupation during World War II,” George said.
Back in Australia, Theodore enlisted in the Australian Army in 1942 and was in the 113th Heavy Aircraft Mobile Workshop until the end of the war.
Finally together, the family eventually found themselves in Gunnedah where Mr Souris’ father and uncle had established the Acropolis and White Rose Cafes and it was Gunnedah where Mr Souris and his younger brother, Stephen, were born.
Mr Souris attended Gunnedah Primary School but says he must have been a bit of a problem child because in 1961 he was ‘banished’ to boarding school in Armidale. A few weeks after his parents made their first visit and this new little boarder greeted them in school uniform with polished shoes and a hat.
“I raised my hat to greet them and my mother fainted, I don’t think she had any idea a reformation of such magnitude in so little time was humanly possible,” Mr Souris said.
Meanwhile wife Vassy’s family migrated together to Australia in 1957 from Corinth, Greece, as part of the assisted passage program where the requirement was to be of good character and pass a TB chest x-ray. Their first abode was in the Greta Migrant Camp until father Aristides was employed by BHP in Wollongong and gained his welding certificate soon after.
Vassy’s father and brothers later operated the McDougal’s Hill Caltex Roadhouse just outside Singleton (near Bunnings).
All amazing stories but it is that of Mr Souris’ uncles, Mick and Spiro, that captures the imagination of all these incredible stories of migration.
Mick and Spiro migrated to Australia in 1927, on their own at the ages of just 11 and 13. They got off a ship at Woolloomooloo and found their way to Central Railway Station where they boarded the overnight North West Mail bound for Quirindi.
“It is astonishing, they alighted and found their way to a café operated by a relative and were put to work in the kitchen where their contact with Australians would be minimal so they wouldn’t learn to speak English too quickly and depart to make their own fortune,” George said.
“They soon spoke English, by necessity, and were on their way and established a take-away food business in Tamworth,” he said.
“These little boys, my parents and in-laws, were all lucky their sea tickets took them to Australia.”
He says it is up to everyone to make the most of their citizenship and says he hopes his example is but one proof of where life can take you in Australia.