“May this town, and its people, prosper and develop in the years to come,” Queen Elizabeth II told South Australians in 1963. She was visiting the new city of Elizabeth, built to lure ten-pound Poms over the ocean to work, and named in her honour.
Elizabeth was billed as the “city of tomorrow”, a modern metropolis just 27km from Adelaide.
The premier at the time, Thomas Playford, had cannily negotiated with carmaker General Motors Holden to build a new factory on farmland. The Housing Trust of SA bought 3,000 acres of land, built houses and infrastructure, and the Philip Highway was diverted so it would be more convenient for the factory.
Playford promised the workers would come, and they did. Thousands came from Britain and beyond to work on the assembly lines.
But, for many, it was not the utopia that had been promised.
Decades later, Australian rocker Jimmy Barnes – who spent his childhood in Elizabeth – described a place with roaming gangs, violence, and nothing to do.
Some migrants complained of the isolation, and the distance to the beach that had featured in the advertising material.
And then, in 2013, Holden announced that it would close.
“They’re shutting down our town,” Barnes wrote in his 2019 song Shutting Down Our Town.
“They’re tearing out its heart. It wasn’t much to look at from the very early start.”
But, despite Holden’s departure and high levels of disadvantage in the area, there are many who are fiercely loyal to the flat, suburban sprawl, and to the monarch for whom it was named.
Marilyn Baker has lived in Elizabeth since 1958. She’s a former mayor, and still on council (Elizabeth is in what is now the City of Playford).
She said the effect of Holden’s closure wasn’t as bad as people had feared, because of the gradual reduction of staff over several years, and because the business park that sprung up in its wake has helped people into different jobs.
There’s a strong sense of community in the planned city, she says.
“It’s got a real heart, there are people fiercely loyal to the city. I love the place,” she says. She also remembers lining up to see Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh on that 1963 tour.
“We were at school, all the young kids were out with their flags. They drove past Mum and Dad’s house, then she came here and opened the fountain,” Baker points to the fountain, where mourners have been leaving flowers since the Queen’s death on Friday morning.
In the library behind that fountain, people have been gathering to write condolences to the royal family.
“Your dogs and horse will miss you,” one reads.
“May one rest in eternal peace,” says another.
Local resident Sandra Draper brought her daughter Stacey to sign the condolence book.
“We just wanted to write ‘with our greatest sympathy at this difficult time’,” she says.
“The Queen has been a constant my entire life. It was a bit of a shock because when we saw her shaking hands with the new prime minister, she was frail but OK.”
Draper also has fond memories of lining up along the Elizabeth streets to wave flags as the Queen drove by.
“She was just always there,” Sharon McPherson, says, as she waits to sign the book.
“I’m sad she’s gone. I’ve known her since I was little.”
Teresa Huggett is visiting from Whyalla.
“I thought she would have lived till she was 100,” she says.
“I was shocked when I read … that she’d passed away. I just said ‘may you rest in peace, your duty is done’.”
A queue is forming by the time Baker goes back inside to sign the book, although there are fewer people than there are at the calisthenics concert in the next room.
Baker says she woke up at 3am on the day the Queen died, and heard the news on the radio.
“It’s the end of an era,” she says.
