Family, work and Nazis: Life so far for Horsham's Bill Deeleuw

Now he's spent the time to put pen to paper and document a full and varied life and written a book - Life so Far.

"I wanted to write my story for my grandkids," Mr Deleew said.

"With me coming from the Netherlands, a different country altogether and settling in Australia when I was 18.

"I wanted them to know their background."

It's a project that has taken a couple of years.

"I wrote a first version, which was about half as long, and (one of my sons) said 'you haven't got enough detail dad', so I went over it," Mr Deleew said.

Mr Deleeuw said his family's reaction to the book had been "on the whole, pretty good".

"Some were intrigued, they didn't quite believe it all," he said.

Mr Deleeuw also passed copies to his extended family.

"One of (my nieces) made a special effort to catch up with me and talk to me about it," he said.

Mr Deleeuw's sister Doris never knew why she had such an Anglo name - but Mr Deleeuw's book provided the answer.

It was, like many things, due to the war.

"My dad was in the Dutch navy, on a submarine," Mr Deleeuw explained.

"As soon as the war started they went across to Scotland... that's what most of the Dutch navy did, they went across to Britain."

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Mr Deleeuw's father boarded with a woman named Doris in Scotland, and when he returned from the war the family's next child was named Doris.

The Second World War forced a young Mr Deleeuw and his family out of their home.

"We lived in a naval city named Den Helder, it had a big naval base," he said.

"The Germans, when they came they bombed us pretty heavily."

The family found refuge with family members and ended up luckier than some. .

"My uncle Nick killed a lot of sheep on the black market, but he had to sell it quickly," Mr Deleeuw said.

"Otherwise he would have gone broke because he had to pay a fair bit for these sheep and he had to get rid of them."

Mr Deleeuw's mother would often be the one who smuggled the meat to Amsterdam, leaving Mr Deleeuw in charge of his sisters.

She would ride to Amsterdam on a pushbike with makeshift tires made from a garden hose, making trips that impacted her nerves as she ventured past German guard posts.

Mr Deleeuw said that they just did what they could to survive.

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"She's on her own with three young kids; that's probably why I became fairly independent at a young age because she relied on me a lot in lots of ways," he said.

"When she had gone to Amsterdam to deliver the meat, I had to look after my two younger sisters and things like that.

"You do it. You have to do it."

In his book, Mr Deleeuw writes of travelling down one of the Netherlands canals after the chaotic collapse of the Nazi regime and seeing dead animals floating in the water.

They were livestock that could have been eaten - a cruel irony after the starvation of the occupation, when meat was hard to come by.

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"My sister Nelly suffered the most of us kids," Mr Deleeuw told the Mail-Times in 2005 in a series on migrants to the Wimmera.

"Towards the end of the war she was starting to vomit up blood, one of the signs of starvation."

After the war Mr Deleeuw spent his time working during the day and attending an agricultural course at night, riding his bicycle for miles back and forth.

He was already working full-time at the age of 14 in 1951.

"I wouldn't get home until 11 and a half," Mr Deleeuw recalled.

"The course finished at about 10, but it was a fairly long way home, particularly in the winter months when it was really cold and there was snow."

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Nonetheless, Mr Deleeuw finished the course and kept working, until his uncle convinced him to come to Australia.

"I'd wanted to go to Canada, because I like snow and ice and skis," Mr Deleeuw recalled.

"But he said 'no! Come to Australia, the people are great, the climate's great and there's plenty of work.'"

Uncle Nick had a job lined up for Mr Deleeuw working in a quarry in Apollo Bay.

It was hard, back-breaking work, splitting stones all day but Mr Deleeuw was up for the task.

"I've always worked in Holland, so it didn't worry me," he said.

Mr Deleeuw settled in, and a girl who worked at the chemist helped him learn English.

"A couple of nights a week we used to get together," he said.

"She said she wanted to become a schoolteacher... she helped me particularly with pronunciation and spelling.

"It made a hell of a difference."

Mr Deleeuw also made use of a correspondence course the Australian government offered to all recent migrants.

So much so that it surprised some other recent immigrants that he worked with at the quarry.

"About three or four months later we had a day in the quarry where we were all sitting around and I picked up a Reader's DIgest," he said.

"I was just reading a bit of a story and this gentleman said 'how come you keep looking at that page?' I said I was just reading the story.

"He said 'you can't read, you've just come out here!' and I said 'well,. I'm trying'."

"The boss told me to give him the book and asked me what I was reading, so I explained what I thought I was reading and he said 'No, he can read!' and it amazed the other three - two Italians and a German."

Being a quick learner was especially helpful when, after Mr Deeleuw had been in Australia for a year, the rest of the family followed him out.

"I was down on the pier and my sisters and mum and dad were on the boat and they were waving at me and I was waving back," he recalled.

"Then this wharfie said 'mate, who are you waving at?' I said 'my family, they've just come over from Holland'.

"He said why don't I go and join them? And smuggled me up on the goods lift and I got on the boat.

"That way I was even able to help them through customs... they thought I was part of the family and complimented me on my English for a newcomer to the country.

"Because I could speak to people, I could sit and negotiate and help them on their way."

Mr Deleeuw said he'd made preparations for their arrival.

"I'd rented them a house for them before Christmas, I'd been paying rent on this place so they'd have a place to go," he said.

"They all came in one taxi; six people and four suitcases.

"It was better than staying in Melbourne and catching the bus."

However the drive to Apollo Bay was still a memorable one.

"The day they arrived was Guy Fawkes Day," Mr Deeleuw recalled.

"Along the way we went through all these places... and there were all these bloody bangers going off.

"My mother was a bit frightened, she asked why they kept shooting and I explained there was nothing to worry about.

"My coming out early really was a good thing, in that regard because I could talk to people."

Mr Deeleuw said his ability to talk to people was a big part of his life, from making friends on the boat to Australia to being a successful insurance agent.

"I've always found it pretty easy to talk to people," he said.

"People just take to me, I can talk to them on their level and I think that's important in life."

Mr Deleeuw didn't stay in Apollo Bay for long however, and made his way to Gippsland working for a pulp company.

"I worked in the bush, thinning bushfire areas, cutting the crooked trees down and then we'd cut them up," he said.

Eventually, he ended up in the Wimmera - settling first at Rupanyup and then Horsham.

Mr Deleeuw said arriving in the Wimmera wasn't as much of a culture shock for him as it was for other immigrants from Europe.

"I had a little bit going for me because I worked in the fields in Holland," he said.

"I was used to a bit of open space... but a lot of people had trouble because they lived in cities... in Holland all the houses are stacked on top of each other.

"If I'd come straight to Horsham I would have noticed the difference a lot more."

Mr Deleeuw has now spent most of his life in the Wimmera, but by writing this book offers a glimpse into a past including many different jobs, Nazi occupation, travelling halfway across the world and more.

"I've had a pretty fortunate life," Mr Deeleuw concluded.

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