Chapter Three
A New World
Australia · Melbourne · 1955 · A Ten-Pound Passage
Why Australia?
By early 1955, Alec and Pat had been talking long into winter evenings about emigrating. His parents and brother Keith had already settled in Melbourne. One bitterly cold January morning in 1955, the brakes on his car froze solid overnight, and he thought to himself: "Why the hell am I putting up with this?" He secured a letter of introduction from the Australian Trade Commissioner and arranged passage for a family of four.
SS Strathaird, July 1955
The MacKelden family — Alec, Pat, Ian (11) and Nicole (8) — sailed from Tilbury in July 1955 aboard the P&O liner SS Strathaird, a ten-pound assisted passage for adults, children free. Their old army friend Peter Sherwood, now an executive with P&O, arranged them a private four-berth cabin on D deck at the Staff Captain's table. The voyage took them via Gibraltar, Port Said, Colombo and Fremantle to Port Melbourne — a journey of several weeks that Alec described as "the most luxurious holiday we could have at that time imagined."
Welcome to the MacKelden Family
When the SS Strathaird docked at Port Melbourne, a large banner was unfurled in the crowd on the wharf: "WELCOME TO THE MACKELDEN FAMILY." His parents and brother Keith stood openly weeping in the throng. "My mother," he recalled, "as it were as its cutting blade, would have swept all resistance aside." Australia was to be home for the rest of his life.
"In that vast throng stood my dear mother and father and brother openly weeping — and waving a welcome so warm that my heart leapt into my throat and I, too, found it difficult to suppress a tear."— Alec MacKelden
Finding His Feet
The family initially settled in Melbourne, living in Prahran before renting a house in Moonee Ponds. Alec quickly adapted to Australian business culture, joining Kelvinator before seizing the opportunity that would define his Australian career. Within months he had been appointed marketing and sales manager at Trufood Australia, tasked by Deputy Chairman Robert Weir with rebuilding the company's domestic market. He later wrote that he arrived in Australia with about £800 in savings — and within a year had a good job, a new car, and a home of their own.
Next Chapter
Business Career — A Pioneer of the Australian Food Industry