Paris is one of the nearest overseas Olympic host cities for us here in Great Britain (GB), but 68 years ago Melbourne was probably the most distant. The multi-leg journey of several days that the 1956 GB team undertook from London to Australia could not have been more different from catching the Eurostar to Paris! It was undoubtedly a different world then but their journey sounds like an incredible experience.
These reminiscences come from 1956 GB Olympic hockey team member John Strover.
“We had been kitted up by the Olympic movement with our uniform – Panama hat, blazer, tie, shirts, white and grey trousers, shoes and suitcase – and the Hockey Association added to that all our hockey playing gear including a bundle of sticks. I picked these up in London before going back to Lawford [Essex] to say goodbye to my parents. I needn’t have done that as they insisted on coming to Heathrow to see us off. We had a delay before taking off as John Conroy collapsed on the tarmac just as we were entering the aircraft. It was an emotional upheaval for him as he would be emigrating to Canada after the Games and now was leaving the country for the last time. He wasn’t in a state to board so we had to leave without him being reassured that he would come on later and rejoin us in Australia.
The aircraft was full of Olympic athletes. In our cabin I remember was Terry Spinks who was to win a gold medal for boxing; also Alan Jay who had been at Cheltenham with me and won bronze for fencing. There were a number of swimmers whom we were to befriend in Melbourne and on the way home later. The first leg of the journey was to New York where we booked into a luxury hotel in Manhattan. It was Presidential Election Day in the US and in the hotel bedroom, which I shared with David Thomas, we watched the results coming in on all thirteen channels. Adlai Stevenson conceded to General Eisenhower in the early hours of the morning so we were able to get some sleep and the next morning we flew on to Denver, Colorado to refuel before arriving in San Francisco where we had two nights. During our whole day there we went by coach to Berkeley University crossing the Golden Gate Bridge – ‘the longest bridge in the world over navigable water’, we were told by our driver – and later ‘the second longest bridge in the world over navigable water’, he proudly informed us.
At Berkeley we had a game of ‘field hockey’ with all of us taking part in it together with a few volunteers from the University. There was a large open air swimming pool heated by the natural resources of Californian sun which we enjoyed after the match. On the next day we flew on to Hawaii where we were greeted by Hula Hula dancers in grass skirts and given Leis to hang round our necks. A fleet of limos whisked us off to Waikiki beach where we spent the day learning to surf in the lagoon protected from sharks by an enormous coral reef. Overnight we flew on to Fiji to refuel just as the sun was rising over the distant mountains – an unforgettably beautiful experience. And so we arrived in Sydney where we had a night before moving on to Melbourne.”
Great Britain’s John Strover in action against Pakistan during the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia.
