The 1970s were a wonderful time to be living in Adelaide. In retrospect, the decade seems to be a curious age of bad hairstyles and funny fashions. There were cork high-heeled sandals and miniskirts for women, and platform shoes, flares, long socks and shorts for blokes – and there were kaftans for everyone.

South Australia, however, had Don Dunstan, the member for Norwood, as its premier, and that was enough to make life rather wonderful, or at least interesting, depending on your politics and your sense of humour.

As premier Dunstan famously and hilariously caused a furore by wearing pink denim shorts and long socks to work in 1972. He was later “chucked out” of parliament (or at least asked to leave the chamber by opposition members) for wearing a T-shirt bearing the slogan “100 Years of Redleg Football”.

That year, 1978, the Norwood Football Club celebrated its centenary, and pulled off the most unbelievable premiership victory in Australian football history. Having looked like missing the finals early in the season, they not only made the finals but also defeated the undefeated minor premiers Sturt – who had lost only one game all season – by a point. Norwood trailed by 30 points at three-quarter time, hit the lead at the 29-minute mark and led for just three minutes of the game! Dunstan was rightly pleased.

Don Dunstan in his cafe in Adelaide in 1997: ‘To John Nash, Adelaide was about to become the new Sodom, or Gomorrah – or both!’ Photograph: Fairfax Media via Getty Images

In a more simple age, before the internet and Facebook, practical jokes such as the one perpetrated by Adelaide’s This Day Tonight news program on 1 April 1975, actually seemed clever and amusing. The program announced that South Australia was converting to metric time with 100 seconds to the minute, 100 minutes to the hour, and 20-hour days.

Furthermore, seconds would become millidays, minutes would become centidays, and hours would become decidays. The report included an interview with deputy premier Des Corcoran, who had agreed to give credence to the hoax. He praised the new time system and said South Australia was leading the way with so-called “deci-time”.

One viewer wanted to know how he could convert his newly purchased digital clock to metric time.

But the most amazing and amusing event to capture the spirit of the times was the one that never happened – the apocalyptic tidal wave that was to wipe out the City of Churches and end forever the unique Adelaideian lifestyle!

Self-proclaimed clairvoyant John Nash declared he’d had a vision that Adelaide would be destroyed, by a massive earthquake and tidal wave, between 10.30am and noon on 19 January 1976. This prophet of doom was actually a house painter from Melbourne who had moved to Adelaide and become rather distressed at the progressive politics and philosophies that seemed to be taking hold in the historically conservative city.

Adelaide, and therefore the state of South Australia, has always been “different” to the rest of Australia. For a start, it is the only state devoid of any convict history or heritage. South Australians had a reputation for appreciating the finer things – wine, gourmet food, what Barry Humphries called “the yartz”. Adelaide was famous for its churches and a more “cultural”, less “ocker” attitude to life than other Aussie cities. Whether this was an accurate assessment of the way the city’s population thought in the 1970s hardly matters; these things had always been Adelaide’s trademarks and evidently they appealed to the conservative, Old Testament beliefs held by John Nash.

South Australia, led by Dunstan’s Labor party government, was leading the way with social reform, debating Aboriginal rights, challenging the White Australia Policy and, shock horror, legislating to decriminalise homosexuality.



To Nash, this was the beginning of the end of civilisation as he knew it. Adelaide was about to become the new Sodom, or Gomorrah – or both!



Evidently, a quick glance at the Old Testament was enough to convince Nash that his house painting days in Adelaide were numbered; soon there would be no houses left to paint. His recurring vision of a massive vengeful earthquake and tsunami sweeping across Spencer’s Gulf to Glenelg and then engulfing the city was so vivid that he felt compelled to warn the people of Adelaide of their fate, sell his house and move to the relative safety of a small town in New South Wales that, rumour later had it, was soon after hit by a severe flood, in which his house was inundated – but no one seems to have documented evidence of that happening.

Glenelg beach today: after the prediction the premier appeared on the balcony of the Glenelg hotel and said he would turn back the tidal wave like King Canute – if it arrived. Photograph: Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images

And so it was that, in the second and third weeks of January 1976, word spread in the media of Nash’s premonition and Adelaide’s 800,000 citizens were informed that the wrath of the almighty was about to manifest itself and their city was to be obliterated by an earthquake and tidal wave.

Of course, the media had a field day. After all, the second and third weeks of January are part of what the media call “the silly season”, when news is scarce, Australia is on holiday and many regular news services staff are on annual leave. The prophecies of Nash were truly a “godsend”.

There were basically three styles of reaction to the dire warnings. Some media outlets reported that many “new Australians” (as recently arrived migrants whose first language was not English were called backed then) believed the warnings, panicked and fled to higher ground. Some were reported to have sold their houses and moved permanently. This was due, some reports said, to the superstitious nature of people from countries such as Italy, Greece and parts of eastern Europe. More kindly reports declared that immigrants with poor English skills reacted in panic merely because they had misinterpreted the news items as being factual, scientific reports based on some legitimate geological and meteorological evidence.

There were rumours and unsubstantiated media reports of people selling beachfront properties at bargain prices, and beachfront hotels suffered cancellations and a 50% drop in bookings. Some people, it appears, did drive up into the Adelaide Hills with their valuables; and inland caravan parks, as far away as the Riverland centres of Barmera, Renmark and Berri, reported being full the night before the predicted apocalypse, but were almost empty by the end of the following day.

On the other hand, some Adelaide families who had made plans to be away on a school-holiday trip that day revealed that they decided to stay at home so the neighbours wouldn’t think they had believed the prophecy and skipped town! One woman said, years later, that she had been quite ill on the day but went to work only to prevent colleagues from thinking she believed the prophecy.

As it was the silly season and news was scarce, there was much interstate, and even international, media interest in the prediction. The BBC sent a television crew from London and a Sydney radio station sent their morning program staff to do an outside broadcast. One television channel ended their news bulletin the night before the predicted disaster by showing the city clock striking noon with the camera shaking to imitate an earthquake, accompanied by ominous rumbling noises. When the fateful day arrived, it proved to be a typical, pleasant, hot summer’s day in Adelaide and thousands headed to the beach. At Glenelg there was a funny mock “protest march” with banners proclaiming such things as “The end of the world is nigh — Repent your sins”, “Don’t shake at the quake”, “Surf ’s Up” and, my personal favourite, “Fortune Cookies Don’t Lie!”.

Around the city there was a festive air of hilarity and camaraderie, which gave evidence of a united front and a general acceptance of the progressive thinking and sense of fun, which were trademarks of the “Dunstan era”. Many people went to work dressed for the beach and carrying towels. Some of the more painstaking, dedicated office characters turned up wearing wet suits, goggles and flippers. A few even carried surfboards. One office worker recalled that at 11.50am a workmate said to him, “I’m going to the toilet, if the tidal wave doesn’t come I’ll see you in 10 minutes. If it does, I’ll see you on Mount Lofty.”

Don Dunstan appeared on the balcony of the Glenelg Hotel and declared he would turn back the tidal wave like King Canute – if it arrived. He also declared that Nash would not be welcome back in Adelaide.

A countdown began as the final seconds ticked away to noon and thousands cheered as nothing at all happened. Many stayed at the beaches to enjoy the sunshine and swim, and the pubs and restaurants of Adelaide’s seaside western suburbs did a roaring trade all afternoon.

Next morning the Advertiser editorial wrote: “Hopefully, the lesson we should all have learnt from yesterday’s pathetic anti-climax is to rely more on our common sense and less on the silly and unscientific speculation of self-appointed soothsayers.”

Words of wisdom, indeed.

• This is an extract from Australia’s Most Unbelievable True Stories by Jim Haynes, published by Allen & Unwin, $32.99