Ref. 71828-02A GRANDMOTHER whose girlhood emigration to Australia stalled in Swindon is trying to track down her old friends.

Pat Lewis was nearly 14 when her parents, Harry and Joan Sharpe, said they were planning a new life in Australia.

They planned to take with them the youngest of their 11 children Pat, one brother and three sisters.

Pat told her friends and teachers to write to a forwarding address in Australia, but then learned her aircraft fitter dad had accepted a job at Armstrong Vickers in Swindon instead.

Now she is going back to her home town to try to make contact with the people she knew before the move in 1954.

Pat, 63, of Eastcott Hill in Old Town, said: "For many years I didn't make contact because I was embarrassed.

"I had told everybody I was going to Australia but I didn't leave the country. But as the years have gone by, I have thought about those people such a lot."

Pat has no regrets about making her life in Swindon.

She met the love of her life here, marrying her coppersmith husband, Bill.

The two were together for almost 40 years until his death five years ago.

They had two daughters and a son and four grandchildren.

Pat has also travelled extensively, taking in America, Malaysia, Europe, China, Singapore and Australia.

She went with her sister Nina, one of the sisters she came to Swindon with.

Both felt the urge to go, just to see what it was like.

Pat said: "I grew up in Westcliff-on-Sea and went to St Bernard's Convent School.

"Then our parents said we were emigrating tickets cost £10 then, because Australia wanted extra workers.

"We were given a holding address in Australia for mail to be sent to from England and I told everybody at school to write to me there when I left."

Pat has returned to her hometown only once since, a couple of years ago, and she found her old convent school had closed.

She has made contact with the Westcliff-on-Sea newspaper in advance of her trip and particularly hopes to discover information about four of her old teachers, Miss Brown, Miss Edwards, Miss Johnson and Miss Haynes.

Barrie Hudson