After launch there was the question of how to fill the days at sea.
“In my case, you eat,” says Larter. “Honestly, I’ve never had, either before or since, such a sustained spell of magnificent eating.
“The stewards loved us. They’d bring these great trolleys of wonderful food, and they knew we’d eat it.”
With copious amounts of food available and an Ashes series to prepare for, the players had to keep fit.
“We’d have an exercise session in the morning, then there were badminton courts netted off for us. We’d shove weights about, and jump up and down and things like that,” says Larter.
The England management wanted to take things a stage further.
By chance, Dexter found that British athlete Gordon Pirie was on board. Pirie won 5,000m silver at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne.
“He was invited to organise us,” says Larter. “He turned up with his shorts on and decided the best exercise would be running around the boat.
“It’s quite a long way around one of those big boats, but I did what I was told.”
Not everyone in the touring party was as agreeable as Larter. Trueman, never shy of speaking his mind, had just bowled more than 1,100 overs in the English summer.
“Fred voiced an opinion which meant in no way was he running around,” says Larter. “That just wasn’t what we did to get fit. To get fit, we played cricket.
“Fred said he’d just bowled all those overs in the season, and he wasn’t going to run around a boat for anyone. The Gordon Pirie thing died off after that.”
For Larter, the trip was not just a first England tour, but a first time out of the country. On the upper deck he mixed with the wealthy travellers, lower down he encountered the Poms emigrating to a new life down under.
“We found the greatest reception came downstairs,” he says. “There were people emigrating or moving for all sorts of reasons. A lot of them were young, out to make new lives. It was interesting to meet them. There were more than a couple of decent bars and you could have a quiet pint.”
The journey was not a straight passage to Perth. Remarkably, England tuned up for a tour of Australia by hopping off in Sri Lanka to play a game in Colombo.
“We walked out on to the field and Ted Dexter said I would be opening the bowling,” says Larter.
“I marked out a run, ran in, and fell flat on my face. A real sprawler. I picked myself up, went back, came in again and did the same thing.
“I’d lost my land legs. They weren’t going where I wanted, because I’d been on the boat.
“Ted came across and said ‘what’s wrong?’. I said they don’t work! He took me off. Barry Knight had to finish the over.
“We were entertained and looked after by the British Army. They put on a big barbecue on the beach for us. How do you get to that from a small town in Suffolk? On the beach in Sri Lanka with all of these nice people. It was an eye-opener, just being there.”
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