The family of an aspiring Olympic athlete is hoping a long-forgotten memento from the 1956 Melbourne Olympics will be a lucky charm at the summer games in Paris this year.

It comes in the form of a delicate silk scarf made to commemorate the Melbourne Games.

The fine fabric is printed with images of three Olympic torches over a map of Australia, surrounded by colourful rings, a laurel wreath and Australian flags.

The scarf is in perfect condition after 68 years because it was never worn, simply wrapped in tissue paper and packed away for decades.

The memento was collected by Lex and Heather Bartram, a young couple volunteering their medical services to Australian athletes.

Their granddaughter Jocelyn Bartram plays for the Australian women's hockey team, based in Perth.

She will have the memento with her through the final selection process in Europe — and hopefully to the Paris Games — as a goalkeeper for the Hockeyroos.

Jocelyn's father Michael, a doctor who resides in Broome, says "it's a continuation of a passion that's been shared through generations".

"It's lovely that we can have this little and very beautiful keepsake to mark the occasion."

Michael recalls his parents, both doctors who passed away in 1998, being proud of their volunteer contribution to the Melbourne Olympics.

"My father was quite a sprinter in his time and his brother (John) was an Olympian a few years before at London in 1948."

Sparing the legs between the sticks

Jocelyn's mother Ann said her daughter played a range of sports as a child.

"I played hockey, so it was convenient for her to play hockey, at the grand age of eight," she said.

Ann explained that Jocelyn was 11 when she chose the hockey goalkeeper position because it did not involve running and she could minimise leg soreness caused by growing pains.

"She didn't want to let down a team she'd agreed to play for, an under-16s team, running short," she said.

"She decided to be in goals. The team didn't win a game the entire season.

"She got lots of practice and went on to make state (NSW) selection that year, having only taken up goalkeeping a few months before."

Celebrating a century

Jocelyn went from the Wombats Club in Albury to win an Institute of Sport scholarship in 2016, which necessitated a move to Perth to train with the national women's team.

She debuted for the Hockeyroos in 2016, won silver at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, and recently played her 100th game for the team in April.

"I just feel so grateful for every game I've got to play, to finally reach a hundred is something amazing," Jocelyn told Hockey Australia after the winning match.

As for the silk scarf, Ann and Michael are thankful extended family discovered the 1956 Olympic memento and thought to pass it on to Jocelyn.

"I was flabbergasted when I opened the post. I didn't know it existed," Ann, who will give the scarf to Jocelyn in Europe, said.

And Ann has high hopes about where the scarf will be in August.

"On the podium getting a gold medal!"

"I think her grandparents would be proud," Michael said.