The Duke of Edinburgh was on his way to the Olympics. He entered Australia via Darwin. On his first day here, he spent 40 minutes “talking to 200 brawny, shirtless warfies” who gave him a resounding cheer as he left. He then spent two hours at the far-away uranium mine at Rum Jungle, and drove slowly through the dusty red streets of Batchelor, the local township…

That night he went crocodile shooting. He killed a 6-foot croc with a singles hot from a .303 rifle. The skin will be tanned and sent to Buckingham Palace. Next day, he was in Alice Springs, where he survived the 107-degree heat, and spent hours talking to stockmen and watched the bull-dogging of cattle in their normal working day. It was reported that he bears the flies better than any other members of his party…

Two days later he appeared in Canberra, dressed in the uniform of Marshal of the Royal Australian Air Force. At a parade and public reception, he met diplomats, service chiefs, cabinet ministers and politicians, many of them dressed in morning dress and top hats. He, as usual, took all this formality, but many in the press commented that he looked more at home in the sales-ring in Alice.

All seats have been sold for the Olympics, so now scalpers are active. This apparently surprised the Sunday Telegraph, which ran the front-page story on it on November 18th.

The Olympic torch landed in the fair city of Cairns, and had made its way down to Sydney by November 18th. As it came through the northern suburbs, 400,000 people turned out to cheer it on, and another 200,000 people saw it into the Sydney CBD. Alderman Pat Hills, the Lord Mayor, accepted it, and passed it on to the next set of bearers who will head towards Melbourne…

The number of spectators is quite extraordinary, just to catch a glimpse of the torch. Of course, it was a once-in-a-lifetime event. It just showed how much the Olympics had caught the imagination of the Australian public.

November 22^nd. The Games opened today. Before we get swept away with excitement, it is well to notice that over the last four days, there has been scarcely any mention of Suez or Hungary on the first three pages of our daily papers.

So, here it is. The opening of the Games. The Duke in a sailor suit, lots of marching girls and boys in pretty uniforms, a torch and a vat of oil, a crowd of 103,000 in a stadium basking in bright sunshine, fanfares of trumpets, and 5,000 pigeons free at last…

There were cheers for all teams, especially the Australians, and big cheers for Russia and other Soviet block nations. USA also got a big cheer. The Hungarians received a huge ovation of sympathy. In all, it was a great spectacle, there were no riots or thrown dim sims.

Over the next fays, records were broken, medal tallies were kept, tears of joys and disappointment were shed, a few angry athletes said they were robbed, Australians were lionised here, and a jolly good time was had by all.

This is an excerpt taken from Ron Williams’ book Born in 1956? What else happened? Ron has researched and compiled 30 books covering three decades of Australian social history. From minor incidents to major catastrophes, Ron’s Born in… series is an important celebration of all things Australian.

For more information about Ron’s fantastic range of books, please visit www.boombooks.com.au