Sitting on the deck of the SS Mooltan, between wide open skies and the deep blue ocean, Dennis Halton wrote a letter to the girl he had last seen at Bingley Railway Station, waving him off as he left for a new life on the other side of the world.

Nearly 60 years later, Dennis is trying to find out what happened to “the girl who said goodbye”.

Dennis was 16 when he set sail from the Port of Tilbury, London, on June 11, 1952. He was with 20 boys travelling to Australia with the Big Brother Movement, a migration programme enabling British young men aged 16 to 21 to settle and work down under.

After the movement was established in 1925, thousands of young migrants went to Australia on board the SS Mooltan.

Dennis kept a diary of his six-week voyage, recording every meal he ate on board. “Rationing was still going, so three square meals a day meant a lot to a growing lad,” he recalls.

The steamer passed Gibraltar, Algiers and Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) – places Dennis had only read about. One diary entry provides a flavour of sights and sounds greeting him at a stop in Columbo: “Very warm. Looked around Victoria Park. Walked a fair way. English cars, a few old trams, banana trees, pineapples and coconuts sixpence each, wooden elephants, chew red stuff and spit out, dirty side streets, weird music, Brooke Bond tea, rickshaws, men sleeping on the road, bullock carts, picture houses, green trees. Police dress in khaki shirts and shorts. No truncheons. Not a bad place.”

The journey was full of interest for a group of boys who’d never left British shores before.

There were visits to the captain, film screenings, PT classes and, when the boat stopped at various ports in Australia, trips to parts of the country that would become their new home.

Dennis recalls an eventful trip to Waterfall Gully, South Australia. Walking up a pool-side hill, he and some other boys found an open safe. “It’d been blown open; documents, cheques, keys, a ledger and money boxes were strewn around,” he recalls.

The boys took the items to a nearby hotel and Dennis later led two detectives to the safe, and was given a ride back in a police car.

Early on Monday, July 21, Dennis went on deck and saw the Sydney Harbour Bridge. When the steamer docked, he and the other boys travelled to the Big Brother Movement’s 500-acre farm, 25 miles from Sydney.

Dennis’s first impression was the cold winter weather. “Everyone said Australia would be sunny, but it was pelting with rain and freezing cold,” he says.

Two weeks later he moved to a hostel. “It was mainly for boys taking on work related to the city, such as business and trades, until they found a job and lodgings.

It was a haven for farm boys who’d been out in the bush. Some were over-worked by farmers, although others were treated well.

“I was the first lad on the scheme who wanted to do horticulture – I don’t think they knew what to do with me.”

Dennis spent six weeks preparing a three-quarter acre garden for the official opening of the hostel by the Governor General of New South Wales.

“When the Governor arrived I was ill, so he came to my sick bed to tell me I’d done a good job. I hid my sick bucket under the bed,” smiles Dennis.

In October 1952, he started work in a plant nursery and went to night school, gaining an honours certificate in horticulture. He went on to be superintendent of a Sydney golf course, and later became a municipal parks and gardens superintendent.

“I’ve been luck. I worked outdoors for 50 years,” says Dennis. “My father was a professional gardener in Bingley – I had it in my blood. As a child I grew chrysthemums and kept bees.”

An idyllic childhood in Gilstead, splashing in streams, climbing trees and cycling on moorland, gave Dennis a lifelong love of nature. He recalls long walks with Pat, a fellow Bingley Grammar School pupil, to the Prince of Wales Park, St Ives, Five Rise Locks, Myrtle Park and Beckfoot Bridge, a place Dennis remains fond of. An oil painting of it hangs in his home at Carlingford, near Sydney.

“Pat was a good-natured girl,” says Dennis. “Before I left, she gave me her favourite silver-coloured brooch as a keepsake, which I still have.”

The morning he left for Australia, Dennis was with his father and a pal, David, on Bingley station platform, when Pat appeared.

“I can vividly remember her dashing down the stairs, calling my name, her school jumper in her hand. The train arrived – a last kiss, a fond farewell, and we waved to each other until out of sight,” he recalls.

He and Pat wrote to each other, but in December 1953 they lost contact. Now happily settled in Australia – he met his Scottish wife, Isabel, in 1967 on a ship to Australia, following his first trip back to Britain, and the couple have four children and four grandchildren – he still thinks of Bingley and wonders what happened to his old friend.

“I’d love to thank Pat for those letters – they kept me going through tough times,” says Dennis. “I also treasure letters from my family and other friends. My mother sent T&A cuttings about me.”

A careers talk at Bingley Grammar introduced Dennis to the Big Brother Movement. He applied after a spell as an apprentice draughtsman at Hepworth and Grandage, West Bowling. “I was an only child – a quiet boy – but I’ve always been someone who gets notions and follows them through,” says Dennis.

“I was quite independent – aged 14 I went cycling alone across North Wales – and going to Australia didn’t scare me. There was no argument with my parents about it, although my mother in particular missed me.

“Some boys went for the excitement. There was a real cross-section, from Eton pupils to working-class lads, and there was lots of socialising.

“I looked after myself – I’m the same weight now, 9st 12, as when I came out here – and worked hard. In my first job, I slept on an old lounger with springs sticking out!”

Boys were allocated a ‘Big Brother’ mentor to advise on jobs and accommodation. “We were known as the ‘Little Brothers’,” says Dennis. “It was a great scheme. It provided opportunities boys like me wouldn’t otherwise have had.”

Today the Big Brother movement is a youth award scheme. Dennis has attended reunions at the old farm, now a visitor attraction.

Last summer Dennis returned to Bingley and tried to trace Pat. “She got married at 18, I don’t know if she stayed in the area. I believe her sister, Eileen, might still be around,” he says.

“I stayed in Gilstead and did lots of walking, it was lovely being back in places I’d known so well as a boy. I have fond memories of Bradford. I was in the T&A NigNog Club and Bingley Mornington Road Methodist Junior Choir. We once sang in the interval at the Alhambra panto. They were happy days.”

l Anyone who has information about Pat Carter is asked to contact Dennis at 25manorrd@gmail.com.