CLEANEVENT COMMUNITY CORNER

The 2000 Sydney Olympic Games are approaching us all so quickly that it seems it will all be over before we know it. It will have touched each one of us in a different way and we will all have our very own distinct memories of where we were when…. or I was there when….and do you remember when….!!

In this edition of Cleanevent Community Corner, we are taking a slightly different approach to our regular profile of one of our organisations characters or stars. For those of you who are old enough to remember, I’m sure the following story will bring back some memories and for those of you who weren’t around then, it certainly will show you how much things have changed in the last forty-four years.

Enjoy the following insight into the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games through the eyes of our very own Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre’s (MSAC) Jim McCrum.

With the Olympics at Sydney drawing nearer, many of us at MSAC are thinking about what is going on at the Sydney Aquatic Centre. Our boss Georgia seems to be spending most of her time involved in the Olympic Swimming Events, not swimming herself, but competing for gold for our company and its team in Sydney. So when I was asked to write a few lines about the 1956 Olympics here in Melbourne I wondered where to start, so I will try to give you an outlook that describes Melbourne just before, during and after the Games.

Melbourne before the Olympics was a very Victorian city, and indeed the whole state was very conservative. Shops closed at 5.30pm, 12.00 noon on Saturdays, there was no Sunday trading at all and no picture shows. All hotels shut at 6pm, and to get a drink after then you had to have a hot meal served at your table, there was no bar trade at all. Bread, greengroceries, (fruit and vegetables) and milk, were all delivered, usually by horse and cart and the iceman came with his blocks of ice three times a week, and always on Saturday morning to make sure the beer was cold and the weekends supply of meat didn’t go off. Lots of people didn’t own a fridge, they cost about one hundred and sixty pounds, which in those days was about 16 weeks wages.

To go for a Sunday drive to the "bush" was to go to Ferntree Gully, Werribee, Broadmeadows, Altona, or the open plains where Caroline Springs now is. Then came the huge effort to prepare for the games. Massive construction at the MCG (the Olympic Stand), Olympic Park athletic track and stands, the new swimming pool (the Glasshouse) with no pillars to block your view and a huge false floor to go over the pool.

The Olympic Village was constructed out at Heidelberg. This land was all paddocks, and market gardens. Suddenly roads were being made, electricity and gas were connected and then the latest in houses were placed on-site, the houses of the future made from prefabricated concrete, a marvel all pre-built at Holmesglen and delivered on-site ready to erect. A popular spot for a Sunday drive to see what was going on for about half of Melbourne.

It was soon realised that the village was not big enough to hold the athletes and officials from 64 countries so athletes and officials were boarded out in the suburbs by volunteers at no expense to the Olympic Committee, imagine that that happening today! Remember this was 1956 white Australia - no street cafes, where every man wore a hat to work and a suit and hat to the pictures, and where women went shopping in gloves, best suit or dress, hat and fur stole or coat.

So all the people who were willing to host a competitor or official were given an information kit. You filled in your details and went into a ballot to host our visitors, I remember we were lucky enough to have an Indian high jumper stay with us.

Public transport was to run all day and night. The queue of buses to take the competitor’s from the Olympic village to an informal gathering at the Richmond Football Ground to meet the Australian organisers and team was over two kilometres long and required 160 buses. To ensure that the athletes and officials could get from venue to venue volunteers were called for, (providing their own car and petrol), and there was no shortage.

In this Olympic year the miracle of television had arrived, and those who couldn’t get tickets to the Games could watch them on TV. Most electrical shops had working sets in their windows with the speaker outside and crowds of people stood in wonder and watched TV. I can’t remember how much a set cost then, but finally Mum and Dad gave in to my begging and whining and bought a HMV 17" black and white TV. I was told that it was only to watch the Olympics on and I still had to go to bed at 7.30pm (I was 12 years old.)

To get into the Olympic spirit I decided to go and watch Herb Elliott train at Wattletree Road Park in East Malvern, only to be asked along with several other paper boys to pace him on our bikes with no security, just people standing in the park cheering him on. Didn’t we feel proud.

Then came the big day Thursday 22 November, the Opening Ceremony at the MCG. Dad had paid three times his weekly wage to buy two adult and two children’s tickets to go to the opening ceremony. One hundred and ten thousand people travelled by tram, train and bus to the MCG, (no car parking) to be part of this famous event. So two rows back from the fence in the Ponsford Stand, cut lunch in a brown paper bag, the friendly games were about to start for my family.

The Olympic flame was coming from Geelong and huge crowds of people lined the highway to cheer along the flame. The crowds were so large at Footscray that extra police had to be called for crowd control, two vans and four motorcycles, just a sign of how well we behaved in those days. Young Ron Clarke ran into the arena with the flame held high and even to this day the thrill is still remembered.

Melbourne was a city reborn. Cafes stayed open until 11pm, shops were full of international visitors, espresso coffee and strange meals like pasta, noodles and Indian curries started to appear on cafe menus, and the wonder of wonders the Hamburger were all tried by the people of Melbourne. Our one and only drive in picture show opened on the hill in Tooronga, and Melbourne likened itself to the cosmopolitan cities of Europe.

The closing ceremony when the athletes broke away from their formal grouping and merged with the other athletes, sang each others national songs, then walked to the fence and shook hands with the crowd was never heard of before and set the standard for future games. When the games finished, Melbourne tried to revert to its former self, but some people saw into the future and refused to let that happen. Heidelberg Olympic Village Pool was opened to the public, Olympic Park slowly became the greyhound racing headquarters, the St Kilda Town Hall, used to host the fencing (sword fighting) became a famous or infamous dance venue and some of the drivers who drove around athletes and officials took up the offer by the government to take Taxi plates for free as a thank-you from Melbourne.

Well that’s all, but let me say that from then on the thrill of that time has lived in my mind as Melbourne broke free of it’s staid, straight laced attitude and rushed headlong into a bright new style of living that is envied today by our many visitors from interstate and overseas.