Hi All, I am new to this list and I am trying to break down a brick wall that has had me stumped for many years. The story goes like this, My father Henry HARLEY was born in 1906 in South Shields Co. Durham and at the ripe old age of 18 (1924) set sail for Australia on a Merchant ship as a cabin boy departing South Shields in late 1923 or early 1924 for Newcastle (NSW Australia). When he arrived in Australia via South Africa and India he so liked Australia that he "Jumped Ship" and became an illegal Immigrant and worked as a Charlie Chaplin impersonator at a small theatre in Newcastle (Australia) for some time before he met and married my mother. When he died I was helping my mother clean out his writing desk where I came across his "ships papers" that gave the name of the ship and its date of arrival in Australia but my mother made me BURN these papers as "My father was an illegal immigrant". I have searched the National Archives crew lists of all British ships from South Shields that arrived in Newcastle for about 12 months before the first known date of his arrival but found many ships from South Shields but nothing on my father. As he worked as a Charlie Chaplin impersonator in Australia I wondered if he may have been doing the same in South Shields before he left the UK. Where may I be able to find if there are any records left of small theatres in South Shields around 1923/1924. Thanking you all, Michael Harley, in Brisbane Australia.