1965
NEW YEAR'S EVE CELEBRATIONS!
Thousands of Scouts, wildly banging kettles and plates
together, dancing
round the çampfire in single file and play all types of musical
instruments, gave the New Year a rip-roaring welcome this morning.
Radio Station 3AW sent us a special New Year cheerio and then as the
midnight time signal announced the arrival of 1965, hats flew into
the air, cheers rang out and the strains of Auld Land Syne echoed around
the camp. Then it was really on !
The singing, chanting, shouting and
clanging went on until about 1 a.m. Then at long last . . . bed.
The
New Year had really arrived.
(Note: The Campfire was held in the Main Arena)
CONCERT
While seeing out the last two hours
of 1964, the scouts and large sections of the public listened to a
concert, with the star performers from international contingents. During
the concert, they saw the mild-mannered Fijian contingent turn into
fearsome warriors as they gave their war-cry and then a display of folk
dancing. The contingent from Malaysia gave a display of stick dancing
and waved red and white stakes to tape-recorded drum beats. The
scouts from New Zealand sang Maori songs and the boys from Papua-New
Guinea sang native songs and danced. The Japanese boys gave a
display of dancing and brought cheers from the crowd as they twirled
their hats during the dance. The Aboriginal scouts from the Northern
Territory gave the concert an Australian touch as they played a
didjeridoo as accompaniment to a corroborée.
SATURDAY JANUARY 2 AND SUNDAY
JANUARY 3 1965 - "VISITORS' DAYS"
The size of the Jamboree more than doubled over the
weekend as 42,000 people streamed through the gates and swarmed over the
camp site.
On Saturday — Cub Day — 8000
cubs with Cub Masters invaded the camp while 16,000 paying customers in
summer clothes wandered through the camp's highways and byways.
Yesterday, from the time the camp opened to the public until it was time
for all visitors to leave, 18,000 people came through the gate.
For
most of the visitors it was a leg-wearying visit. The car park at the
main gate filled quickly on Saturday morning and some of the visitors
had to park their cars more than two miles from the main gate. For all you
old hands at the camp, it is not hard to realise how many miles they
trudged from the main gate all round the site. The car parks filled just
as quickly yesterday and security men had
a busy time re-directing traffic. As the visitors began to leave, the
traffic became a real headache. At 4.30 yesterday afternoon, Security
closed the main gate to incoming traffic and re-directed this traffic to
the Bradfield Road gate.
As the traffic began to leave the car parks
and the little niches along the road, it was enough to test the patience
of any driver. Although Brady Road was converted into a two-way road
for outbound traffic, the cars banked up from the main gate to Stud
Road — almost two miles of cars, bumper to bumper, in two lanes. The
bank-up of cars on Saturday lasted two hours until 6.30 p.m. until the
traffic began to thin out.
The same situation repeated itself yesterday. Patience Security officers praised the patience
of the
drivers and the visitors inside and outride the camp. "The drivers
co-operated extremely well with the boys on the gate and it was a pretty
good effort to get the hundreds of cars out during the hectic two
hours, both yesterday and Saturday," one Security officer said.
Among
the visitors yesterday were parents of the scouts. Some of the things
they saw amazed them. They saw their sons, who turn a deadly white at
home when they are asked to wipe-up, scrubbing pots and plates with the
best of them. They saw neat and tidy tents — a striking contrast to some
of the bedrooms they find at home. Most of the parents who sampled the
camp food were a little surprised that in six days, their sons had
turned out to be reasonable cooks.
