Councilors Andrew Gale and Stephen Tancred were in Council Chambers this week reflecting on the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. They discovered they had both crossed her path on the same day in October 1982 at the Brisbane Commonwealth Games.
It was the day Tracey Wickham won the 400m freestyle and had the gold medal presented to her by the Queen. Cr Tancred was a uni student working as a volunteer and was in charge of a boom gate in the car park and was told there would be a ‘special guest’ that afternoon. He diligently lifted his boom when two police bikes led the Queen in the Governor’s car through. As it slowed to pass him he didn’t really know what to do, so he and his offsider decided to stand to attention and salute! I’m sure the Queen took a bit of comfort that even in the back blocks of a Brisbane car park there were long-haired uni students who respected her.
That night an 11-year-old Cr Gale was attending the cycling with his family and as they left and walked across the car park in the dark the Queen drove by and waved. “She looked and waved directly at me,” said Cr Gale remembering the incident clearly nearly exactly 40 years later. His dad managed to snap a photo of the Queens waving to him.
The portrait in the Chambers of the Queen in her sixties looks down on all Council matters and it will be interesting to see what style of photo the new King Charles III chooses as his official portrait.
“It won’t just be the pictures being changed,” said Cr Gale. “It’ll be the coins, stamps, police badges et cetera”.
Cr Gale recalls being sworn in as a nineteen-year-old policeman and pledging allegiance to the Queen. It meant something to him then and he still has his badge with the prominent Queen’s crown.
Cr Tancred pointed out that local government is defined in the Queensland constitution and administered by the Legislative Assembly which the Governor summons or forms in the Sovereign’s name, “so as local Councillors we are ultimately granted our authority by the reigning monarch – in this case QE2 and now KC3.”
“It’s a serious role and we take it seriously”.
Cr Tancred has another link to Elizabeth, as she was known in 1927 when his grandfather nursed her as a one-year-old. At that stage, she was not in direct line to the throne but was the granddaughter of King George V. Cr Tancred’s grandfather Jim was playing rugby on tour in England and the team had several royal receptions and outings. Family folklore is that he burped the Queen to be.
Cr Gale was fortunate enough to have shaken hands with the now King when Prince Charles did a street walk in Wollongong in 1979.
“He picked up my little sister then shook my hand,” he said. “I feel very privileged now that he is the new King.”
