Noel Brache and his daughter Olwyn Brache Stringer. He has no regrets over the 18-month voyage his family took to seek a new life in Australia. ‘It certainly was an adventure,’ he said. (Picture by Adrian Miller, 0601231)
THE aim was simple, but daring. In 1938, one Guernsey family had the dream of a new life in Australia and set sail in a fifty-foot fishing boat to make it happen.
Noel Brache, now 82, was born in Guernsey and grew up in the shadow of St Sampson’s power station. In the summer of 1938, at the age of 11, he, his sister Anne and parents, Henry and Mildred, embarked on the trip of a lifetime.
They set sail on the Queen of Brittany, a secondhand, 20-year-old, 50ft French fishing boat, which his father had bought in St Malo for the trip. A trip which was destined to take them to a new life in Australia.
‘At the time, some people said it was a foolish thing to do, to go all that way in a little boat, but it turned out to be the right thing to do, getting away from here,’ said Mr Brache. ‘We were in Tahiti when the Occupation was announced.’
It was second time lucky for the travellers: bad weather in the Bay of Biscay had forced their return the previous summer.
They stayed in Falmouth over the winter before returning to Guernsey to make their second attempt.
The family finally landed in Sydney, Australia, 18 months after setting off in December 1939.
By that time, Mr Brache was old enough to work and started an apprenticeship as a coppersmith.
‘I worked there right through the war years,’ he said.
The company made tanks and undertook pipe repairs for warships throughout the Second World War.
After completing a five-year apprenticeship, he worked for the Sydney Water Board.
He married in 1958 and had three children. His wife passed away earlier this year.
In 1972, Mr Brache and his family moved to Taree, a town on the mid north-east coast, and bought two dairy farms with over 500 acres.
He only recently retired and bought his dream property on the Manning River.
It was over 40 years before Mr Brache first returned to Guernsey.
‘There was still some of the previous generation left and there wasn’t a great deal of change in the island,’ he said.
But when he returned eight years later, he noticed a big change and even more so during this recent trip.
One of his old friends who waved him off as young man over 70 years ago was Annie Hopkins, whom he was staying with this time.
His daughter Olwyn suggested he made the month-long trip back to Guernsey and joined him for two weeks of the holiday.
‘There’s a big change now to the island I grew up in. There are too many motor cars now for a start,’ said Mr Brache.
The house he grew up in may still be standing but the Guernsey he knew is very different – yet Mr Brache has no regrets about the trip he and his family made over 70 years ago.
‘It certainly was an adventure,’ he said.
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