Cirrus@Austlit

'This remarkable short book is the diary of the seven-day migration journey from Amsterdam to Melbourne undertaken in 1954 by Theo and Pia Ligtvoet and their seven children. Originally written in Dutch by Theo, it has been translated by their daughter Dinah. Though primarily of interest to members of the Lightfoot family (the anglicisation of ‘Ligtvoet’) it is a social history document of trans-continental air travel in another era – a time when small children curled up on the floor under the seats of a KLM plane when they were tired, when there was a ‘Crossing the Line’ ceremony on aircraft, when planes had to skirt rather than fly over the top of erupting Indonesian volcanoes, and when passengers were accommodated overnight in first class hotels – until they reached Australia. This is more than ‘family history’.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.