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Research in Other Countries => Other Countries => Topic started by: maxidog on Wednesday 20 October 21 22:54 BST (UK)
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I have today received more information about my father who died in New Zealand in 1966.
I got a copy of the Australian Government's Incoming Passenger Card -aircraft - giving information about my father's journey to Australia, arriving there 29/10/1956.
He arrived in Australia from Singapore but it gave the country of his last permanent residence as Brunei. It indicated that he must have lived there for a period of at least 12 months for that information to be included.
This is information that has completely perplexed me as I had never heard of him going to live/work there. He was a telecommunications engineer.
Is there anyway that I can find more information about his time in Brunei?
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Does his Passenger Card give an address in Brunei?
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There's is absolutely nothing there only that he had lived there for at least 12 months before he left for Australia in 1956.
It took me 5 or 6 years to actually find he had died in New Zealand when Elmyr fami,y had been led to believe he had died in Australia
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Have you searched for him in UK Passenger lists going to Singapore or Brunei? If you find a record, it might provide a clue as to what he was doing in Brunei.
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I had a quick look at this report about British Colonies, which includes the time frame of your father's travels from Brunei to Australia (via Singapore). Singapore was the usual stopover from the UK to Australia, so presumably Singapore was a hub.
You will see Chapter 4 mentions telecommunications needing upgrading and Australia needing upgrades after Brunei (Borneo).
https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/33551/1/11010310.pdf
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He left Brunei to take up a job in Sydney at the post office there as a telecommunications engineer. I should imagine that his airfare was paid for by the Australian government and he flew from Brunei via Singapore in October 1956.
He couldn't have been in Brunei many years as he married in the U.K. In 1954. His death certificate said he was separated! He arrived alone in Australia.
I should imagine that he was working in telecommunications in Brunei as he had little money to sustain himself otherwise.
This has come as a huge surprise to me as Brunei had never come into the reckoning all the years I have been trying to find out about his life after my mother divorced him for cruelty in 1949
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Brunei was very busy (war situation with British troops involved) in the mid sixties and conceivably would have needed phone installation. UK was their close ally..
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Thanks for that snippet of news.
As you say they probably employed him for his tecommunication skills. I now shall have to try and find a means of getting more specific information about his time there- when he arrived and about his employment there.
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Good luck in finding intimate details about his time in Brunei, which was a BRITISH PROTECTORATE. and you will find an outline of this in Britannica. This country was rich in oil and we assisted the Sultan of Brunei in running his country; especially after World War II when telecommunications had come on in leaps and bounds, thus modernisation was needed.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Brunei/History
My late Other Half was a member of H.M. Forces in the 1950s-1960s and was stationed in Brunei for a short period of time, but I have no idea why or precisely when.
As for your father's visit to Australia. The report in my other posting shows Australia needed his telecommunications expertise. Circa 1960 one of my cousins worked at the British Space Station in Woomera, Australia. Maybe that was why he was required to visit Australia??
You've possibly visited the National Archives webpage to see if his name is amongst their records. In case you have not made a visit, below is the url:
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
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To answer some of the replies I have had in the past day or two about the time my father was in Brunei- I do not have any idea of where to start when checking passenger lists to find out when and how he got to Brunei and where from. He flew from Brunei via Singapore to Sydney so I should imaging he flew to Brunei.
Some of the replies I had stated that there was a demand in Brunei and Australia for telecommunication engineers. I should imagine the post office in Sydney laid for his airfare from Brunei so maybe his fare to Brunei was also paid for by the telecommunications place of work and so maybe he flew to Brunei rather than by ship.
I am going to have to contact each of the telephone companies that have developed in Sydney since 1956, when he arrived there, to find if they hold the records at the time he was employed thee- a bit of an arduous process but would have been easier if there was only the one as in 1956.
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I have been going round in circles on a number of counts but most recent, today, trying to get information from Australian archives regarding my father's time in Australia. Someone on RootsChat kindly found the record for incoming passengers that I had been hoping to find when I first started searching for information about him, and sent me a copy of the actual card showing he had lived in Brunei and left via Singapore to go to Sydney as a telecommunications engineer for Sydney Post Office. Despite entering the information when using Australian Archives I get a reply saying no records found regarding his arrival. Frustrating. I want to find out where he lived when there and how long he lasted in the job but again unable to access the information. The archives gave me links which when I went them and entered the asked for information got a negative response.
I have had no progress whatsoever with any enquiries directly to companies, organisations etc in Brunei- so disappointing. Finally after being given a hint that I may have a half sister and following up that lead I ordered her birth certificate just to confirm that my information was correct, and using the index given on the county birth records only to have a reply today saying they cannot find any records even though I sent a screen shot of the actual records I had found.
I am not sure what I am doing wrong.😏🙁