When Marjorie Chant was a girl in the 1950s, she had the run of Melbourne’s Royal Show. While her parents, Bill and Grace Webb, sold dolls at their stall, Marjorie was doted on by show workers. They gave her show bags and let her go on rides at the Melbourne Showgrounds in Ascot Vale.
We are family: Marjorie Chant, holding baby great-granddaughter Honey, with son Chippa Chant (back, far left) and their family at Melbourne Royal Show. Credit: Joe Armao “I loved it. Everyone knew me,” she said.
Now Marjorie’s great-granddaughters – Frankie, 7, Cherry, 20 months, and Honey, five months – are the ones about to be doted on. The 2024 Melbourne Royal Show kicks off on Thursday, and Marjorie, 76, will work all 11 days of it. She will be a ticket box supervisor for some of the family’s rides because she loves being at the event and feels she belongs.
“It’s in my blood,” she said. “This is my heritage. I treat this show as my home ground.
” Marjorie Chant as a toddler at 1950 Melbourne Royal Show with balloon seller Digger McCarthy. The family link goes back 100 years: Marjorie’s father and his two brothers started selling dolls and running games at the show in the early 1920s. There’s a photo of Marjorie as a toddler in 1950 with war veteran Digger McCarthy, who worked at her parents’ balloon stand.
She remembers as a child that the Royal Melbourne Show – as it was known then – had fewer rides and they were more basic. But there were more old-fashioned.
