By Laura Michell
Wednesday, March 5, 1986, is an incredibly special day for Caroline Springs’ Maryann Zerafa.
The then 20-year-old made her way to Melbourne Airport with her older brother to await The Queen’s arrival in Melbourne. She was armed with a life-size drawing of the monarch that had taken about one month to complete.
She recalls a security guard helped her and her brother to hold up the poster, which Ms Zerafa estimates was six foot, as The Queen disembarked her plane and made her way towards to the waiting crowd with then Premier John Cain.
“[The Queen] said, ‘did you do that?’,” Ms Zerafa recalled.
“I said, ‘I did’, and she said it was very well done.
“I was over the moon.
“I remember thinking my mum is going to be so proud.”
Ms Zerafa’s brief encounter with The Queen earned her a spot in newspapers in the days that follows, with footage of her conversation with Her Majesty replayed on television news.
“The next couple of weeks … I went to my local Milk bar in Albion, Perth Avenue, and to my surprise there was a Royal Tour magazine with an A4 size photo of me holding my drawing with The Queen and Mr Cain right beside her,” she recalled.
“You could not imagine how I felt!”
Ms Zerafa still has the drawing as well as clippings of the news articles and recordings of the TV news bulletins she appeared on.
She said that when she heard The Queen had died on Thursday, September 8, she was in disbelief.
She said her first thought was for her 86-year-old mum, Antoinette, who inspired her love for the Royal Family.
“I thought, ‘my poor mum is going to be devastated’,” she said.
“I was devastated … you just think she is always going to be there.”
