On Wednesday June 1, 1960, amid much fanfare, ticket number 3932 was drawn out of a huge barrel at the State Lottery Office in Barrack Street in the heart of Sydney. It was the winning number of the 10th Opera House Lottery, so named as the proceeds were used to help pay for the construction of what was to become one of the world's most recognized landmarks, the Sydney Opera House situated on the shores of Sydney Harbour at Bennelong Point.
First prize was worth 100,000 pounds, not a bad windfall when you consider that in today's money it would have converted to around $5 million in Australian currency or $2.5 million in U.S. money. At three pounds a ticket, or about 20% of the average weekly wage of the time, it took quite a while for the lottery to fill and ticket-holders eagerly awaited its draw.
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| Bazil Thorne holding the lucky ticket |
The lucky owner of ticket number 3932 was traveling salesman Bazil Thorne who was in the northwest of New South Wales, the state of which Sydney is the capital, when news of his good fortune reached him. He was so elated he cut his business trip short and drove home immediately to savor the moment with his wife and young family.
Bazil and Freda Thorne and their two children, Graeme, eight, and Belinda, three, lived in a two-bedroom, ground floor apartment in Edward Street, Bondi, only a couple of minutes walk to another famous Australian landmark, Bondi Beach.
The money changed little in their lifestyle. Although the Thorne's were what Aussies referred to as "battlers" — a young couple with a young family living on a single income — they persisted in their daily routine as if nothing had happened, although they could now pay cash for a house and car, take an extended trip around the world and have plenty left over.
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| Graeme Thorne |
In a business partnership with his father, thirty-seven-year-old Bazil Thorne had worked hard enough to send their son Graeme to nearby Scots College, one of Sydney's more expensive schools with an outstanding reputation for exemplary education and sports. A lad who loved the beach, football and riding his bike, the fortune his parents had won made little difference to young Graeme. At 8:30 each weekday morning he walked up the street in his gray school uniform, turned right into Wellington Street and sat on his school case on the corner of O'Brien Street where Mrs. Phyllis Smith, a friend of the Thorne's, would pull up at the curb and Graeme would hop in the back seat with her two sons who were also students at Scots.
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