READING some of the great novels of the world can often become quite a daunting task.

This is especially the case if they are English translations of the works of great wordsmiths such as Russians Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Leo Tolstoy or Frenchmen Victor Hugo or Marcel Proust.          

But, by persevering one can find any number of gems.      

Among the seven volumes of Proust’s most famous tome – the seven-volume Remembrance of Things Past you will find this jewel: “Time, which changes people, does not alter the image we have retained of them.”

So it is with the memories of some of the great sportsmen and women who captivated a young Malcolm Andrews at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.

Many have since passed on to that great sporting arena in the sky. Those who remain are now quite elderly.          

But in the mind’s eye they are still trim, taut and terrific young athletes in their prime.

Their deeds helped inspire me to pursue a career as a journalist in several different countries and the author of some 30 books – a calling which continues today in the relaxed ambience of Port Macquarie.

I was 12-years-old at the time of the Melbourne Olympics and had won a two-week trip from my home at Cooma in the Snowy Mountains to the Games.

I was one of 50 young Aussies from every state in the country who had entered competitions in a magazine aimed at schoolkids.

In 50 words I had told why I liked milk.

In fact, I couldn’t stand the stuff ever since my time in kindergarten when schoolkids used to get free milk from the government.

The fact that it had stood for several hours in the sun and had curdled mattered not.

Our teachers still forced us to drink it.

My entry about why I liked Coca Cola was thrown to one side – but the makers of Coke paid for 15 kids and sent us more free Coke than most people see in a lifetime. Crate upon crate of it.

The first thrill was travelling in a plane.

In those days, air travel was the domain of only businessmen and the mega-rich.

I flew in an ancient, rattling DC3 to Sydney before transferring to a turbo-prop Vickers Viscount to Melbourne, and felt very important.

The Opening Ceremony was nothing like the extravaganzas of the 21st Century.

It was just athletes marching around the Melbourne Cricket Ground ... and then a young Ron Clarke appearing with the Olympic torch belching out flames (that actually burned much of his right arm).

Clarke was only a promising athlete back then, but he was to go on to become one of the world’s greatest long-distance runners.

At the Games I fell in love from a distance with the lovely Betty Cuthbert (‘The Golden Girl’) who won three athletics gold medals and Marlene Mathews, who was third behind her in the 100m and 200m sprints.

When interviewing them later in life I confessed to my infatuation, over more than a few laughs.

There were also overseas greats such as Ukrainian Vladimir Kuts. After winning both the 5000m and 10,000m, he did a couple of extra laps of the MCG for good measure as he waved to us all.

The 20-year-old American Al Oerter won the discus gold medal.

He successfully defended his Olympic title at Rome (1960), Tokyo (1964) and Mexico City (1968).

Then, after throwing the discus more than 33,000 times, he retired. What a man!

And Englishman Chris Brasher claimed victory in the 3000m steeplechase.

He was disqualified for elbowing his way past a couple of other runners. But on appeal, those he had elbowed gave evidence on his behalf, and his victory was restored.

In the meantime, Brasher had gone out to drown his sorrows and when the delayed medal ceremony took place he was blind drunk.

I ran into Brasher when we were both covering the 1986 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games and he explained: “I was totally blotto. I nearly fell flat on my face as I leaned forward, breathing gin fumes all over the French Olympic official as he tried to hang the gold medal around my neck.”

On every street of the Melbourne CBD there were sportsmen and women in uniform.

We did not know who they were but we grabbed their autographs anyway. And I still have the ones I got until this day.

In my eyes anyone who competes at the Olympics is a champion.

On the second last day of the Games we arrived back in the Dandenongs to find that a bush fire had razed the Olinda Hotel at which we were staying.

That was an excitement of a very different kind.

Sadly, I didn’t have a camera at the Melbourne Olympics – not even a Kodak Box Brownie that most amateurs used in those days.

So I don’t have any photos. Only the vivid memories that still keep flashing before my eyes six decades later.

Proust was certainly right!