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FRED BARTLETT -Born 18/2/1913 At Margate England.  

    My father was a Constable in the Margate Borough Police Force. At home we discussed what work we would do after we left school, and it was suggested we migrate to Australia under the Big Brother Movement. We first heard about the scheme from another young chap at our school who duly shipped out to Clunes in Victoria . A visit to Australia House in the Strand London clinched the deal and I and two brothers duly left London by train to Southampton and the Docks on the 25th January 1928. This was the last time ever that I saw my Father and I was 15 years and 11 months old. My Mother had died on January 6^th 1927. 

    We sailed on the "S S Largs Bay" one of five "Bays" ships of the Aberdeen and Commonwealth Line on the 25/1/29 via Suez Canal-Colombo-Freemantle-Adelaide and Melbourne duly arriving on 28/2/29. I think the basis of the B.B.M. was to settle on the land and to assist from the Australian end - provide prominent Aussie Business Men to act as guides-philosophers and friends to us as we settled in.

     A younger brother and I entrained on 5/3/29 for our destination to Tallygaroopna duly arriving by steam train about midday. We then left for Katandra West and I was employed by Arthur Chaney and Eric to Bill Potter. Our elder brother went to Macorna in the Pyramid Hill-Cohuna district and was there for about three years before he too came to Katandra. Well! Our working life had begun 15/- and keep per week. One early recognition of us was when the newly formed and in those days infant Country Womens Association of Victoria invited us Little Brothers to a dinner and reception in the Katandra West Hall. Memory is a little vague now but I have always thought about 80 of us L.B's sat at that meal that night. The C.W.A. Ladies were the wives of settlers both Pommie and Australian and here I must pay tribute to the quality of our bush womenfolk and their cooking prowess, not to mention their abilities on the land. Katandra District has always been a leading farming and sporting community over the 60 years of my residence in the Goulburn Valley .

    However going back to those early years from 1929 to about 1936 the first - in my time - of the world-wide depressions set in we found that there was only 4 or 5 Little Brothers left in this area. It is hard to recall names now but some come to mind. Jim Farmer joined the Vic Police Force; Arthur Everett became my brother-in-law and in due course returned to England . Ken Ellery married Gwen Blakey and Arthur Capp was accidentally killed while at work. 

    Other memories are of the Old Vic Steam Trains now scrapped and modernised with diesels and nice clean and painted rolling stock - the wheat bag stacks in the rail yards - now in concrete silos. The electrifying of the district by the S.E.C. the mouse plague and locust plague - modern bulk milk transports and the stock losses from various diseases and lastly the vast improvements in farming generally.

    I do not know if the B.B. Movement is alive today, but of course there is another depression rampant so until World Economies improve I guess we will just have to "tagalong." As my days are closing now I am satisfied I have seen many wonderful things occur and have many first class friends whom I will be sorry to lose when the day comes.

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