Argue, Patricia Dawn

BORN PATRICIA DAWN LONGDEN, in Melbourne in 1931, the only daughter of Mrs B Levier of Elsternwick. [461] She started skating when she was 13 years-old and became a professional instructor at St Moritz St Kilda when she was 18. She did not start at age 5, nor compete for international titles, but she was a well-known Victorian skater who went to work as an international ice show pro when she was still a teenager, and succeeded without the medals. One of 6 Australian skaters in the Adelaide season of Armand Perren's Ice Follies of 1950 at the Theatre Royal, she joined Armand Perren's International Ice Revue touring Australia and New Zealand. [460] Also on tour was Graham Argue (1929 – 1993), her newlywed husband whom she had first met when she was 16 years-old. Argue was an ice hockey player with the VIHA Pirates and a 1951 Goodall Cup champion representing Victoria. The couple married at Christ Church St Kilda in 1952. [461] Pat Gregory joined the cast during 1952 and a second season commenced in Brisbane on Boxing Day of that year. The Follies tour ran for almost three years. Over 1,000 performances were seen by more than 2 million people in Australia and New Zealand, breaking all previous Australian entertainment records.

Back home the Argues decided to tour again, influenced by their friends, Pat Gregory and Hal Downey. They arrived in London with just 10 pounds between them, but enough good fortune to be offered parts in White Horse Inn on Ice touring the Moss Empire No 1 theatre circuit in 1954. They skated in Sonja Henie's European Holiday On Ice show touring Europe for 3 years, then South Africa for 6 months. [460] Pat returned home expecting her first baby while Graham fulfilled his contract with the South America tour, Henie's last. The Argues raised their family in Elwood while Pat skated live on ABC television from St Moritz St Kilda in ice ballets devised by Nancy Burley between 1957 and 1963. Pat Argue danced on ice as golden bird with Shirley Taylor, Enid Campbell, Gerda Goddard, and Marilyn Wright in the 1963 production ofThe Enchanted Lake. Burley and Frank Parsons skated as spirits of the lake. Wayne Caldwell, William Cherell and Max Isaacs were fireflies. [463] Argue also performed at the Lido Theatre Restaurant, Her Majesty's and the Tivoli in Frosty Frolics and Ecstasy on Ice with Pat Gregory.

In 1970, the Argues formed the company that built the Olympic Ice Skating Centre in the Melbourne suburb of Oakleigh South. This rink was still operating 43 years later, but it was there that Pat Argue directed and choreographed thirteen ice revues with world champions, such as olympians Donald Jackson, Scott Hamilton, Dianne de Leeuw, and a cast of two hundred skaters. For ten years Argue also directed and choreographed a mobile ice show for the Moomba Fesitival and staged promotions at shopping centres Australia-wide, the GMH Motor show in Sydney and Melbourne, the Adelaide Festival Theatre, and Perth Entertainment Centre. [460]

They sold their interest in the Oakleigh rink in the 1980s, and produced ice skating for 3 years at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne for the Victorian Arts Centre. Their productions there included Teddy Bears Picnic on Ice for Free Entertainment in the Parks (FEIP), Rock Concert on Ice for Melbourne City Council, Young Talent Time Christmas Special and the Telecom Media Launch for mobile phones on national television. The Argues also initiated a teaching program there and a skating school for the Council of Adult Education before selling the business to the Victorian Arts Centre. They then operated a rink at Mount Buller for a season. [460]

In the early 1980s, Victorians watched helplessly as their flagship St Moritz collapsed like a house of cards, with three more rinks folding in the ensuing 6 years, leaving just Oakleigh in Melbourne, a distant Bendigo, and a pattern repeating. We will never know whether ice sports there could have survived without the Argue's Oakleigh rink. But it does seem unlikely they could have lasted even until the 1980s collapse without the interest and patronage rekindled by the Argue's many private enterprises during the 1960s and '70s.