With the funeral for Queen Elizabeth II fast approaching, Greater Shepparton residents remember helping prepare for the Queen’s visit to the region more than half a century before.
Royal events are mammoth operations and the logistics behind the upcoming funeral of Queen Elizabeth II will rival any in recent memory.
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However, smaller public events still require extensive preparation, and it was no different for when the Queen and her husband, Prince Philip, visited Greater Shepparton in 1954.
Kevin Whelan remembers the tour well. He was the fireman on the train that took the royal couple from Melbourne through the Goulburn Valley.
Aged only 24 at the time, Mr Whelan was filled with great pride at the responsibility.
“It was quite an honour, absolutely,” Mr Whelan said.
The tour took the royal couple from Melbourne to Benalla, to Goorambat, back to Benella, to Shepparton and then Tatura before visiting Echuca, Bendigo, Castlemaine, Maryborough, Ballarat, Geelong and Warburton.
The train then returned to Melbourne.
Despite the length of the tour, Mr Whelan didn’t see much of the royal couple.
“Apart from us meeting them after the tour was finished, it was about all we saw of them really,” he said.
Though looking simple on paper, the actual logistics of the journey were a little more complicated in practice.
The royal couple had to disembark from the train in Benella and then drive to Shepparton and then Tatura, as there was no passenger line.
Instead, during the royal couple’s time in Shepparton and Tatura, Mr Whelan and the train’s driver, Frank Myers, had to take the train to Mangalore before switching tracks in order to drive the train to Tatura, where the royal couple re-boarded.
Even the journey to the different towns was fraught with complications.
“Travelling along, people came from everywhere and they were right up against the line. The driver had to slow down,” Mr Whelan said.
Logistical challenges also confronted 28-year-old Arthur Knee, who worked as the engineer in charge of civil infrastructure in the town of Tatura.
Looking back, Mr Knee remembers the period as quite hectic.
“It was rather peculiar. In those days we were in trouble with floods and broken roads and when the news came, everyone thought it would be a small affair,” Mr Knee said.
Mr Knee and the authorities of the town soon realised it was to be no small affair.
“We were given a couple of months’ preparation notice. However, it was only in the last couple of weeks that we realised how big the operation would be,” Mr Knee said.
From a crowd of roughly 200 that Mr Knee thought would be there for the visit he was told to expect over 10,000.
And as such, plans had to be changed.
“Initially we thought it will a case of just clearing up the town. Filling in potholes in the road and cutting the grass,” Mr Knee said.
Instead, steel pickets were bought and installed along the route that the royal couple were to take.
Officials from Canberra also forced a change of plans.
On a visit prior to the event, the officials determined that the main entrance to the train station platform was too narrow for the royal couple and their entourage to go through.
“They said it would be like herding sheep,” Mr Knee said.
It also didn’t help that the railway station at Tatura had just been partly destroyed by a runaway car colliding into it.
Nonetheless, the visit had to go on and Mr Knee and his team had to come up with solutions quickly.
“The Railways Construction Departments were magnificent, and had a completely new building erected,” Mr Knee said.
As for the entrance problem, a solution came in the form of a side entrance normally used by goods trucks.
However, though wide enough, the new route to the train offered no proper access to the station’s platform.
So Mr Knee and his team had to construct a temporary ramp that would reach the platform’s height.
Using old wooden sleepers, they built the ramp structure, which they then filled in with sand.
Red and white bunting covered the ramp and a red carpet borrowed from the local church finished off the temporary structure, giving it a more regal look.
Outside the station and throughout the royal route, volunteers under the supervision of Mr Knee built temporary archways bedecked with flowers and decorated the town’s prominent buildings.
As if he wasn’t busy enough overseeing all the civil work, Mr Knee was also obliged to accompany security personnel on a tour of the roofs running along the route of the tour in order to help them better position their colleagues.
As far as everyone was concerned, everything had to be perfect.
But not everything went according to plan.
On the day of the visit, as the Queen was making her way to the station to leave Tatura, the red carpet installed on the makeshift ramp blew away.
Luckily it was retrieved and secured back into place mere minutes before the royal arrival.
Unlike Mr Whelan, who was lucky enough to meet the Queen and her husband, Mr Knee had no such luck.
Instead his role meant he was out of sight.
However, in recognition of his part in ensuring the event’s success, he was later given a formal dinner and a mantel clock by grateful town officials.