1934 –
Arrived on the Tablelands 1995.
The first time I met Andy Csorba, we were sailing on Lake Tinaroo. We were with a small gathering of mutual friends that meet weekly at the lake to do a bit of sailing, relax, and enjoy each other’s company. There can be up to three or four sail boats that take to the water depending on the number of people.
On this Friday afternoon, Andy and I were sailing on the same boat. I had known about his interesting background for some time and had been waiting for the opportunity to meet him. As the boat moved out onto the lake, I joined Andy at the bow where we chatted with ease. He didn’t look or move like an 81-year-old man. He was fit, youthful and good humoured. We hit it off and after chatting, he agreed to be a part of my photographic project.
Several months later I arrived at Andy’s doorstep, where he and his wife Joan had just finished preparing the last batch of their homemade rosella jam. Their cottage industry was relatively new and going very well.
Andy showed me around his well-tended property before we settled down with a cup of coffee and began to talk about his time in Hungary, the country of his birth. Andy was a young boy when the Russians took control of Hungary at the end of WWll. In 1954 he was conscripted into the Hungarian Army for two years’ service as required by the Russians.
Having completed a college education, he qualified for non-commissioned officers’ training school where he was taught to train new recruits and graduated as a sergeant in radio communications, specialising in Morse code.
At the age of 21, Andy became a tank commander and a training instructor of 35 recruits. He was to instruct them in basic training and tank communication. Initiating a softer style approach to training, Andy achieved exceptional results from his trainees who won every competition and march and mastered every movement.
In 1956, Andy had finished his two years’ service and was in the act of handing in his uniform, when, in Andy’s words, “All hell broke loose”. A student uprising that led to The Hungarian Revolution had started at the university in Budapest. All termination of service was cancelled. Orders were given to prepare their tanks for active service.
A week later, tanks were ordered to mobilise and move into Budapest to crush the rebellion. However, in a surprise speech, the tank corps commander ordered his men to assist the Hungarian students and freedom fighters in their fight against the Russians and not to attack them. Thirty-six fully armed tanks with support vehicles made their way to Budapest. Andy, with three tanks under his command, was assigned to protect the administrative headquarters of the freedom fighters. After the fighting had stopped, the Hungarians celebrated for two or three days when the sound of Russian tanks could be heard entering the city and intense fighting resumed. Andy and his men were captured by the Russians and incarcerated in one of the government offices. A day later they escaped under the cover of darkness as the battle intensified. In a few days, the Russians had reclaimed Budapest.
Andy and his men decided that they had a better chance of survival by splitting up. Andy had made his way back to his parent’s house but knew he had to leave the country. The Russians were on the search for anyone involved in the uprisings. The tank Corp commander was found and shot. The Russian secret police were swarming everywhere, and Andy knew that if he was caught he would be finished.
Escaping to Austria was his only hope. Border security had been tightened, so he made a daring journey through land-mined territory. He was placed in a refugee camp in a small town in Austria. Eventually he was moved to an Italian refugee camp before taking up an offer by the Australian Government to migrate to Australia. Andy arrived in Darwin in 1957 and was flown to the Bonegilla Migrant camp.
Weeks later Andy was free to move into Australian society. Initially he found work as a labourer, but was then selected out of 100 applicants by the Mount Stromlo Observatory to search for the best location for the new Anglo-Australian Telescope. He knew nothing about astronomy and even less about the Australian bush.
The job description was to act as a mobile observatory and weather station, testing the atmosphere at predetermined sites for dust, cloud cover, rain, and humidity.
In 1960, after completing six months of intensive training at the observatory and learning the practical aspects of astronomy, Andy set off on his own. For two years he travelled across a lonely, desolate strip of land stretching from the east coast, north of Sydney, to the west coast, north of Perth.
He was given a 4WD Land Rover filled with camping gear and various instruments including a telescope. The details of Andy’s mission became well known in the outback community and he was welcomed by station owners where celebratory parties were held for him. Andy also gained a deep respect and admiration for the outback Aborigines who welcomed and helped him.
After selecting the site in 1962 he was asked to stay on to assist with the setting up of the telescope and to become the manager of the site. Andy turned down the offer, moved back to Canberra where he married Joan and became proficient as a repairman in the fledgling computer industry.
Andy and Joan eventually moved to Cairns when the city was no more than a dot on the remote tropical east coast of Australia. Andy landed on his feet by assisting with the building of the first water slide in Cairns and then managing it. Seven years later it was sold. He purchased a screen-printing business and formed a team with some of the well-known Cairns artists creating high demand screen printed artwork. It was another success story for Andy.
In 1995, Andy and his family settled on the Atherton Tablelands. Instead of buying furniture for the home he and Joan had built, Andy taught himself furniture making. Using local timbers, he became proficient in making wooden furniture and before long developed a little sideline retirement occupation before starting a cottage jam industry with his wife Joan. They produce five kinds of jam made from the fruit they harvest off their own trees.
To ensure that boredom does not creep in through the cracks, Andy teaches woodworking at the local men’s shed one morning a week. Andy has never been unemployed, loves work, challenges and Australia.
Lou Rios Life Story Photography creates inspiring, beautiful portraits and stories of people from Atherton Tablelands, Far North Queensland. There is a spirit captured through the lens in every photograph and every story told of people and characters from Atherton Tablelands, Queensland.
Lou Rios Art Photography connects people to the Atherton Tablelands community. It creates a visual, social, and local migrant history of people from Atherton Tablelands, Far North Queensland. Lou Rios Life Story Photography shares with community life stories, hardships, triumphs, achievements and for some, how they overcame seemingly impossible life situations.
