Anthem trivia and protocol
ABC has been showing the classic “Carry On” movies in the wee hours, and Juliet’s been video taping them. That’s my unlikely introduction to this piece about anthems.
I commented to Juliet and the big kids yesterday that when I was a boy the TV used to shut down at 11pm and play the national anthem, which until the late 1970s was “God Save the Queen”.
Juliet said it was the same in South Africa (different anthem though) and TV used to close for the night even earlier. In fact, they didn’t get TV there until the late 1970s!
I recall that Gough Whitlam changed the anthem to Advance Australia Fair in 1974. Malcolm Fraser changed it back to God Save the Queen before holding a national plebiscite in 1977.
For a few years afterwards, God Save the Queen continued to be played on vice-regal occasions (when the Governor or Governor-General was present). I was in the school band at St Paul’s College and remember playing the Royal Anthem for Sir Brian Murray when he was Governor of Victoria.
That practice ceased in 1984 and Advance Australia Fair became the sole anthem, except for royal occasions. According to this government web site, God Save the Queen will be played jointly with Advance Australia Fair in the presence of Her Majesty.
If the Queen opens the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne next year, protocol will require that the Royal Anthem be played. That will get up the nose of a few republicans!
I'm a 41-year-old father of four working as a newspaper editor at Mount Gambier in South Australia.
June 5th, 2005 at 7:40 am
This reminds me of television when I was younger. Probably about 1972 maybe as late as 1975. The stations used to shut down around midnight or 1. They’d play the National Anthem and they may have put a test pattern up until the start of the next day (every test pattern I’ve ever seen has a Native American at the center of it … I’ve always wondered why.)
One of the Cincinnati stations would play movies through the night, at least on Saturdays. The movies were sponsered by one of the Cincy breweries and they had a live host. It is said the host would drink through the night so that by the time the last movie was on he was pretty much three sheets to the wind.