Free Lina at the Games by Sally Rippin

than ever that sports fields and swimming pools were places where peace, friendship and harmony could grow and flourish.

Australian Girls at the Games

    As these pages from a 1956 edition of Women’s Weekly show us, female athletes were the heroes of the Melbourne Olympics! Even though only 46 of the 325 Australian athletes were women, the Australian girls shone. Dawn Fraser, Betty Cuthbert and Shirley Strickland were big stars, but lots more Australian girls competed and won medals – as well as respect. ‘Thank heaven Australia’s got a women’s team at the Games,’ said NSW runner Jim Bailey!





Here’s a sneak peek at Meet Grace
    I T must be the longest day this winter, Grace thought, and all I’ve found are a few bits of coal and a piece of rope.
    Grace waded towards the riverbank, wiggling her toes into the mud, feeling for anything that had washed in with the tide or fallen from a boat or barge to put in her kettle. That was her job as a mudlark – to search the bottom of the Thames for things to sell. She shivered.
    A dirty fog hung over the water, draping everything in grey. The other mudlarks looked like shadows as they waded through the river. Grace felt the water cold against her legs – the tide was on its way in and her dress floated around her like a tent. She knew that soon she would have to get out of the river, but her kettle was only half full.
    â€˜Please let there be something more,’ she said to herself, her teeth chattering, ‘some copper nails or a piece of driftwood.’
    Grace looked across the river at a forest of masts. It was the same view she saw every day. Sails of every size billowed beneath the winter clouds. Barges filled with coal and iron held anchor, ready to be unloaded on the shore. Longboats cut slowly through the water carrying fruit and meat to distant parts of London, and busy workboats ferried people up and down the river.
    Ouch! Grace gasped when she felt a sharp pain in the bottom of her foot. She bent down and searched around in the mud until she touched something that felt like metal – cold and smooth. She pulled it up. Grace wiped it clean with a corner of her dress and turned it over in her hand, unable to believe it was real. It was an iron hammer, with no rust on its head, and no chips in its sturdy wooden handle. It was the most valuable thing she had ever found – worth as much on the street as a silver watch, she was sure.
    â€˜A hammer – a fine hammer,’ she whispered. ‘Uncle Ord will be so pleased.’
    â€˜Oi! What you find?’ Someone shouted at Grace and she quickly dropped her hands beneath the water.
    A figure waded towards her through the fog. It was Joe Bean. He was no older than Grace, but he was the leader of a gang of mudlarks that lived under Blackfriar’s Bridge. Grace had always been good at staying out of their way; she kept her head down so she wouldn’t be noticed, or she worked in the parts of the river where Joe and his boys didn’t often go. They were thieves, and they didn’t think twice about stealing from the barges and from the other mudlarks who worked on their own. If any of the mudlarks ever had money from things they’d sold, Joe Bean would try to take it from them. And Grace knew that if he saw the hammer, he would snatch it from her and take it straight to the marine shop to sell for himself.
    â€˜I got nothing!’ Grace shouted back.
    â€˜I saw something in your hand just then – something shiny. Give me a look what you got!’
    Grace’s heart pounded; she couldn’t let Joe see her prize. With a hammer like this to sell, maybe Uncle Ord would be happy with her, instead of angry. He would be proud that she was clever enough to find something so valuable. They could keep the coal Grace had found and light a fire in the hearth – she imagined warming her numb toes and heating up a cinnamon bun on the end of a