I was aged seven when we moved from #9 Forest Road over to #6 Bifrons Court in Launceston, Tasmania. By moving day, renovations to our new house were still not finished, and so for several weeks between moving out of the old and into the new, I stayed with the Mitchells, Ro stayed with the Stewarts and little Sal stayed with Mum and Dad at Gran’s. We were all within a few minutes’ walk of each other, and Ro’s and my schools.
It was while we were all thus scattered that the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II and The Duke of Edinburgh came to Launceston on the Commonwealth Tour following her coronation the year before. The whole country was abuzz with excitement, and we all knew our relevant part of her itinerary off by heart.
Most exciting of all was the fact that her route from the airport was along High Street, crossing Adelaide Street just 200m from Gran’s house. For days before the big day our excitement rose in step with the timber stands that were constructed along the town sections of the route to allow people to get a good view. On the morning of February 24th , she would fly in to the Launceston airport, travel by open car to the Town Hall for a civic welcome and lunch. In the afternoon at York Park several thousand children would welcome her by performing a musical calisthenics display.
From every school in and around Launceston several children were selected to perform with hoops and maybe bean bags, basket balls and other equipment – I just remember the hoops which were a coming cool thing – I’d never seen them before starting my new school. Calisthenics is a word you don’t hear much these days: The name calisthenics is Greek in origin, a combination of the words ‘beauty’ and ‘strength’. Calisthenics is recommended for general good health, light exercises designed to promote general physical fitness. Such activities were very popular at the time as they still are in some countries on large public scale. Mum used the term ‘physical jerks‘ in a slightly disparaging tone for some reason, I think … Anyway lots of people today would go to thai chi or pilates to do the same kind of activity, producing the same benefit of improved wellbeing and fitness.
10 or 15 girls were chosen from our school to take part. They practised for weeks, and a few days before the big day they staged a dress rehearsal of their routine in front of the whole school. We grade 2’s were thrilled to be walked across to The Big School and sit cross legged on the floor right in front of the stage, so we had a great view of it all.
We had plenty of time for lunch and and a review of the morning’s events in minute detail before settling down in the loungeroom to listen to the broadcast from York Park.
There was still no television in Australia, so we grew up listening to radio accounts of events, or reading them later in newspapers and magazines. Lying on the floor in front of gran’s radio, I listened spellbound, mentally picturing the 2500-3000 other children on the York Park Oval, all moving in well rehearsed time to music. I felt so proud of those girls representing my new school, Broadland House, in the display for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip.
I think it was there that Prue, a daughter of my old kindergarten teacher Mrs Kerr, as a daughter of Legacy, was to present a bouquet to the Queen. A few days before this event she fell out of a tree, as kids do, and broke her arm so was sporting a plaster cast, which the radio commentators thought was ‘such a shame’ – a silly comment when you think about it. I’m sure in her 67+ years on the throne Queen Elizabeth II has been presented many bouquets by children with limbs in plaster.