They called her Mary Huddleston.
She took a one-way trip
All the way down to the Cape
On a Union Castle ship.
Mary looked for a brand new life
Which finally she found
Some way into the hinterland
On a patch of broken ground.
The day she sailed from Liverpool,
She cried into the rain.
She knew that she would never see
Her family again.
But a new world waited out across
Two thousand ocean leagues;
A world of new horizons,
Of adventures and intrigues.
Through hot and dusty summers
And the freezing winter wind,
When every bluster made her feel
Her face was being skinned,
When fever struck and crops had failed
And famine had arrived,
Still Mary raised a family
And somehow she survived.
They moved her from that patch of land
To leave her dispossessed.
She found another just the same
A few miles to the west.
Whatever they could throw at her,
She took it on the chin.
She was unbowed and yes, was proud
She'd never given in.
The ending came, and as you'd guess
She never made the trip
Back to the port of Liverpool
On a Union Castle ship.
There was a phone call – just the one –
When a frail voice cracked through.
My grandma, in her eighties then,
Said, "Mary, is that you?"
I guess it's always been the same
And evermore will be;
The magic of the one-way trip
That calls humanity.
And should you ever raise your eyes
To the heavens and to Mars,
You might see Mary Huddleston
Out there amongst the stars.