It has been unseasonably warm in southern Australia recently. I haven’t really looked into the Bureau of Meteorology’s historical data, but my memory of November is of a month of bright sunny days, followed by rain, followed by wind, then more sun, then lots of cloud cover, etc, etc. Anyway, this current hot patch has had everyone talking about summer. Summer of course means flies. Great. Flies always remind me of a great Australian science story. It’s tale of science, of people and of times past. It’s true, its old and everyone should know about it.

It was a big deal when Queen Elizabeth visited Australia in 1963. The tour was scheduled between 18 February and 27 March – summer and peak fly season.

CSIRO’s Doug Waterhouse had a plan. In fact he had more than a plan – he had a formula. Doug had been studying insects (and insect repellents) for years and was a respected authority in the area. He had developed a new formula and had convinced one of the Queen’s aides to use the product on Her Majesty before she attended a garden party at Yarralumla in Canberra. Apparently the aid wimped out at the last moment and either did not sue the repellent at all, or used it from such a distance that not enough of the spray actually made it onto the Queen. I’m sure she acted with the utmost grace, but – like everybody else – the Queen was bothered by the flies and it seemed that the opportunity was lost.

However if you are seeking to raise the profile of a new product (or probably anything) there is possibly an even better advocate than celebrity (or royalty) – journalists. The day after the garden party, staff from Government House, some members of the Royal entourage and some journalists had planned a golf day. The Government House staff were more than happy to wear Doug’s new formula and it worked like a charm. The journalists noticed and the word spread. Various newspapers picked up the story of CSIRO’s new fly repellent and Doug received phone call from a representative of Mortein – makers of insect repellents – asking for information about his new product. As was the way in those days, Doug freely provided details of the formula. To cut a long story short, Mortein set to work on the new repellent and about a year later, they released Aerogard.

By way of thanks, Moretin sent Doug Waterhouse a dozen cans of the stuff for Christmas. And that’s how CSIRO helped ensure Australians can “Avagoodweekend”.