Following the first Eurovision transmission on June 6th 1954 (a floral festival from the Swiss town Montreaux) the members of the recentlyly formed E.B.U. (European Broadcasting Union) an association of national broadcasters, set up a special committee tasked with investigating ways of bringing the television viewers of Europe together through a light entertainment show. 

In Monte Carlo in late January 1955 this committee, chaired by Marcel Bezençon (left), the Director General of Swiss Television, came up with the idea of creating a song contest, inspired by the very popular San Remo Festival which had run successfully in the Italian resort since 1950, becoming the most popular event in the Italian musical calendar. 

The idea of a song contest was finally approved by the E.B.U General Assembly meeting held in Rome on 19th October 1955 and it was decided that the first "Eurovision Grand Prix" would take place in the spring  of 1956 in Lugano, in the Italian speaking area of Switzerland. As for the financing of the contest, participating broadcasters paid their own expenses and the host country bore the whole cost of organizing the event.

Only seven countries made it to Lugano, along with the hosts, Switzerland, the six countries that were simultaneously working together on greater economic co-operation; Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. A year later these six countries would join together as the E.E.C. (European Economic Community), a fore-runner to today's European Union.   

Tree other countries; Austria, Denmark and the United Kingdom registered their interest in participating in the song contest after the official deadline and were therefore not allowed to compete. 

By then the rules of the contest were established, and with only seven countries in competition, it was decided that each would be allowed to enter two songs. It was up to each country if they wished to use one singer to sing both their songs, or use a different singer for each. It was also recommended that the songs would be selected at a televised national final involving the participation of the public, to render the contest as popular as possible. 

Establishing a trend that would continue for over forty years, Italy used the San Remo festival as the basis for its Eurovision selection and was the first country to choose its songs on March 11th. By contrast, the German selection took place on May 1st, just over three weeks before the Eurovision Song Contest. The German selection ended up choosing only one entrant, and a second entry was chosen separately.  

The rules of the first Eurovision contest stated that songs could not have been published, recorded or performed before being submitted to the national final. While all the songs were sung in the national language of the competing countries, there was no rule on language and each participant was entitled to choose the language in which they wished to sing. There was also no restriction on the number of performers on stage, although the lead performance had to be a soloist, and each country could use its own conductor if it wished. All songs had to be sung live with the backing of a live 24 piece orchestra. There was also a rule on the amount of time allowed and no performance could exceed three and a half minutes. The order of appearance was decided by drawing lots, but the participants could choose which of their two songs they wanted to perform first. 

The jury was made up of two delegates from each participating country, from which one president and two scrutineers were appointed by secret ballot of the members to collect and count the votes and draw up the final rankings of the songs at the end of performances. When the tiny Luxembourg delegation arrived in Lugano, they did not have two people to act as jurors and the Swiss jury members also acted as the Luxembourg jury. 

In order to replicate the experience of European television viewers, the jury judged the contest from a small television screen and each jury member awarded a mark for each song, ranging from 1 to 10 in ascending order of merit. The song obtaining the most points was awarded the "1956 Grand Prix of the Eurovision Song Contest". In 1956 there was no rule against members of the jury voting for their own country, and no material awards were attached to the contest. Only the winner was announced, and it is believed that the voting papers were destroyed on the night of the show, meaning that we are never likely to know the full result.

"Refrain" was the second of two Swiss entries in 1956, both of which were performed by Lys Assia, the stage name of Rosa Mina Schärer, who was born in Lenzburg,  Switzerland in 1926. As a young girl she was a dancer, but stood in for a female singer in 1940. People who heard her singing liked it, so she changed from dancing to singing.

In 1950 Lys had a huge European hit with the German song " O Mein Papa", which was later to become a British and American chat-topper for both Eddie Calvert and Eddie Fisher. 

In 1956 Lys competed in the first Swiss Eurovision selection and was chosen to sings both of the host country's entries in Lugano. Interestingly just a few days later she also competed in the first German Eurovision selection and while it remains unconfirmed there is a belief that she was also selected to sing of of the two German entries. While there was nothing in the rules which expressly ruled this out, Germany ended up choosing a different singer and song as their second choice to go to Lugano.

Following its Eurovision victory "Refrain" was also recorded and released in German and English, but failed to become a major hit. Lys went on to represent Switzerland at Eurovision in 1957 and 1958, establishing a Eurovision record which has not been surpassed. In 1957 she finished 8th with "L'enfant que j'étais" (The child that I was) and in 1958 she finished 2nd with "Giorgio" she she sang in Italian, making her the only solo artist to perform songs in three different languages at Eurovision. "Giorgio" went on to become a far more successful song than "Refrain" and helped continue her musical career which has seen her perform in many of the world’s major concert halls: the Plaza in NYC, in the Tivoli in Copenhagen, in the Tropicana in Havana. 

In 1962, Lys married a Danish hotel owner and partly retired from showbiz. In 1995, her husband died in a car accident. Since then, Lys Assia has managed the hotels and wineries on her own.  In 2002, at the age of 76 Lys Assia returned to the stage and in 2005 she celebrated her comeback on German and Belgium radio and television and was one of the performers at the "Congratulations" show which celebrated the 50th birthday of the Eurovision Song Contest.

In a career which was spanned seven decades Lys has performed for Queen Elizabeth II, Evita Peron and the last ever Egyptian king Faruk. An orange Floribunda rose has been named after Lys Assia.

The songwriters behind "Refrain" were the songwriting team of Géo Voumard and Émile Gardaz. Géo Voumard was born in Bern in 1920 and is primarly known as a very successful jazz pianist, He was born into a family clock and watch makers and in his childhhod studied music before going on to study architecture after he left school, however music remained his first love.  In 1944, he became the pianist-arranger of the full orchestra of Hazy Osterwald becoming a favourite on Swiss radio. 

In 1948 Géo Voumard formed his own jazz trio, touring throughout Switzerland and internationally and in 1952 they became the houseband of Radio Lausanne. In this capacity Géo Voumard becomes associatedwith many successful musical programmes. In 1966, Géo is promoted, becoming responsible for "variety, entertainment, animation and jazz". In 1969, he beccame chief of the entertainment department a position he held until retiring in 1983.

Émile Gardaz was born in the Swiss canton of Vaud in 1931 and studied at the University of Lausanne and at the Sarbonne in Paris. The career of Émile Gardaz was based in broadcasting and he played many role while working for Switzerland's French language radio. In his musical career, Émile Gardaz wrote the lyrics to almost 800 songs, and formed a longtime partnership with Géo Voumard. As well as writing refrain in 1956, the duo also combined to write four other Swiss Eurovision entries; "L'enfant que j'étais" (8th in 1957), "Nous aurons demain" (3rd in 1961), "Le Retour" (10th in 1962) and "T'en vas pas", the runner-up, which many people felt deserved to win the 1963 contest. In later years Émile Gardaz became a successful author and poet, having several books published. His daughter Sophie became a successful actress.