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A few more things about Mary

It has been an untroubled ascent so far for the girl from Hobart about to become a bona fide princess, writes Andrew Darby.

Once upon a time on the island of Tasmania, far, far away at the bottom of the world, was born a girl who would become European royalty.

The birth notice of February 5, 1972 in a Hobart newspaper was brief: "Donaldson. At QAH to John and Etta, a daughter (Mary Elizabeth)."

On that day, too, a 115-year-old shipwreck was found off Tasmania's west coast. A trade union official called Brian Harradine was in trouble with the ALP again. And the Eastside drive-in offered "pagan worship and virgin sacrifice" in When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth.

Auspiciously for the Aquarian newborn, it was also the first day of the Royal Hobart Regatta, a water sports carnival tightly bound to the imperial past.

Thirty-two years later Senator Brian Harradine remains an enigma, but the regatta is much reduced in prestige, the drive-in gone, the shipwreck forgotten. And Mary Elizabeth's star has risen.

On May 14 in an afternoon ceremony she will marry Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark. Ahead of the wedding of the first Australian-born woman to stand in line to be queen, here are 10 things to know about Mary:

 She won't be Tasmania's first princess. The kindly Pauline Curran of Hobart in 1926 married Prince Maximilian Melikoff, of the Romanoffs, the exiled Russian royal family. Princess Melikoff died in 1988, bequeathing a substantial legacy to save "the whales and the baby seals".

 Like many Tasmanians, Donaldson learnt to travel early and make new friends in strange places. When she first went to preschool it was in Houston, Texas, where her mathematician father was teaching.

 Back in her birthplace soon after, she joined the same public education ladder of many solid middle-class Hobart families who either were not wealthy, or rejected the private system. Sandy Bay Infants School, Waimea Heights Primary (motto: Ever Onward), and Taroona High School are all small institutions with great outlooks over the Derwent, open to a world beyond their grounds.

 When education got serious, she didn't stray far from her solid brick suburban home. Mary stayed in the state system at Hobart Matriculation College, and then at the University of Tasmania, each nearby in safe Sandy Bay.

 She had a bit of physical hardness to her. Small and wiry in build, her best remembered sports were hockey and horse-riding. Women hockey players take no prisoners in Hobart. On horseback she took on the gruelling combination of dressage and jumps in one-day eventing.

 She has had boyfriends, but they haven't talked, and neither have her two sisters who still live here. Sandy Bay's pubs and clubs have been well trawled. The only memories to appear are vague and complimentary, along the lines of: "You knew when she walked into a room that she was something special. Not Nicole Kidman sexy. More Jackie [Kennedy]."

 One other person can rival her for colourful Danish-Tasmanian history. In the 19th century Jorgen Jorgensen helped colonise Hobart, took part in an Anglo-Danish war, spied for England, led an overthrow of Danish rule in Iceland, and returned to Hobart a convict.

 Her marriage will link Mary to most royal households of Europe. They will have the good fortune to be tied to at least one dinkum Australian tradesman. Her sister Patricia, a nurse, recently married a Hobart plasterer, Scott Bailey.

 Frederick appears to have had one early win. Mary put her foot down against sailing when they were in Hobart last. Their wedding will be preceded by a match race in Copenhagen in which she will sail against her husband.

 Her wedding dress may not be the only costume of curiosity to the Danish. If her father follows his recent Hobart precedent, he'll wear a kilt.

Posted by thinkum at April 23, 2004 12:43 PM