Kevin Chambers, Bonwicks Beach, 1986 By Kevin Chambers
FOR nigh on 70 years, Western Port – and especially San Remo – has been an integral and lasting part of my life. It started in 1952 when my parents, Ernie and Florence ‘Fofo’ Chambers, bought an old shack from “the wilds” of Thomastown, put it on a low loader and plonked it down in Edgar Road, San Remo.
I remember that day, cos Mum took five-year-old me to a nearby park and, because the swings were not properly anchored, I promptly came a cropper. This building and the subsequent extension, was the genesis of our families 60 years of owning holiday houses in ‘Remo’.
My parents and the guests they entertained were a sociable lot, resulting in the unofficial house name of ‘Hangover House’. By dint of the fact that Ernie was a very good pub pianist, this situation extended to either the bottom or the middle pubs. Some unkind soul may have suggested that our place at Edgar Road was the top pub.
FOR nigh on 70 years, Western Port – and especially San Remo – has been an integral and lasting part of my life. It started in 1952 when my parents, Ernie and Florence ‘Fofo’ Chambers, bought an old shack from “the wilds” of Thomastown, put it on a low loader and plonked it down in Edgar Road, San Remo.
I remember that day, cos Mum took five-year-old me to a nearby park and, because the swings were not properly anchored, I promptly came a cropper. This building and the subsequent extension, was the genesis of our families 60 years of owning holiday houses in ‘Remo’.
My parents and the guests they entertained were a sociable lot, resulting in the unofficial house name of ‘Hangover House’. By dint of the fact that Ernie was a very good pub pianist, this situation extended to either the bottom or the middle pubs. Some unkind soul may have suggested that our place at Edgar Road was the top pub.
Number 7, the Chambers beach shack, bound for Edgar Road,San Remo, 1952
Six o’clock closing was a myth in bush pubs all over the state. Once Dad and his friends got going, the publican’s takings went through the roof. My brother Ron, cousins and I know the words to all the old songs like Roll Out the Barrel because we would be sung to sleep in some back room of the pubs while our parents rocked on into the night.
Mum and Dad soon got to know all the well-known fishing families in the town: the Bagleys, Wintles Johnsons et al. Time, weather and tide permitting, I’d be hanging off the end of San Remo pier, fishing rod in hand, trying to catch a feed of leatherjackets. From there I graduated to going out with the professionals and being called a cow cocky by Bertie Johnson. Hell! What did I know about the correct way to pull a craypot?
Mum and Dad soon got to know all the well-known fishing families in the town: the Bagleys, Wintles Johnsons et al. Time, weather and tide permitting, I’d be hanging off the end of San Remo pier, fishing rod in hand, trying to catch a feed of leatherjackets. From there I graduated to going out with the professionals and being called a cow cocky by Bertie Johnson. Hell! What did I know about the correct way to pull a craypot?
Young Kev in the stern of Herbie Kirkland’s Dawn couta boat. It was a thrill to be rowed out by Herbie to where Dawn was moored beside the old breakwater and then go out on a fishing party with the family. Two more enduring memories. The first – being out on a trawler with the oyster grapple just back on deck. Dad puts his hand in the grapple and instead of an oyster in hand, ends up with a porcupine fish. That caused more than a few “Oh bothers” and “Bless mes”!
The second – Mum going down the pier, giving one of the fisherman “10 bob and a kiss” and that night, the “crayfish suppers” were on for young and old. We kids got all the legs.
This was the genesis of what became my deep and enduring love of “things nautical” with emphasis on San Remo and eventually most of Western Port.
Weekends, school holidays and of course Christmas holidays were a constant for the Chambers. Just as well I was average at sport. Straight after Friday afternoon school sport, I’d be bundled in to Ernie’s car, muddy football boots and all. “We have to get to Remo.”
By this stage Aunt Glad and Uncle Jack had contributed a fibro sleepout and this became my boy’s room. Two old cast iron bedheads and sprung bases welded together and voila, double bunks! Stinking hot in summer, fly spray for the mozzies and two of Mum’s very own eiderdowns in winter …
Bottled milk had yet to arrive, so my morning chore was to take the billy down to the milk bar and pick up the milk and paper.
The big hole up in the back yard, with the “pink pages facility” over the top, was the toilet.
But we knew no different and many happy weekends and endless summers were spent at “number 7”. (No street numbers back then, it was Mum’s lucky number!)
Moving into my teenage years, Remo was, of course, responsible for my first teenage summer romances and getting to know some of the fishing family kids, including ‘Yado’ Johnson and Peter ‘Bags’ Bagley.
A lot of the “romances” started at the old San Remo theatre/hall. Either there or via parental introductions. I remember the Back Beach beach parties. Cut to 60 years later and the reason I know there’s been extreme coastal erosion in that location is that there’s nowhere between the caravan park and the beach to “take a young lady for a moonlight stroll”.
Saturday nights meant the flicks. At interval, it was out the door and walk past the servo to the milk bar (the current supermarket) for your ice cream or soft drink. The hall was also where the local rock band “The Mysteries” used to play. Unkind souls were known to comment on connections between their name and playing skills!
Plus of course, Ma Normington’s 2/9d hamburgers with the lot. These memories and the annual Christmas foreshore carnival will endure forever. Not to mention climbing the Norfolk pine outside the “middle pub”. You could see for miles up there.
The second – Mum going down the pier, giving one of the fisherman “10 bob and a kiss” and that night, the “crayfish suppers” were on for young and old. We kids got all the legs.
This was the genesis of what became my deep and enduring love of “things nautical” with emphasis on San Remo and eventually most of Western Port.
Weekends, school holidays and of course Christmas holidays were a constant for the Chambers. Just as well I was average at sport. Straight after Friday afternoon school sport, I’d be bundled in to Ernie’s car, muddy football boots and all. “We have to get to Remo.”
By this stage Aunt Glad and Uncle Jack had contributed a fibro sleepout and this became my boy’s room. Two old cast iron bedheads and sprung bases welded together and voila, double bunks! Stinking hot in summer, fly spray for the mozzies and two of Mum’s very own eiderdowns in winter …
Bottled milk had yet to arrive, so my morning chore was to take the billy down to the milk bar and pick up the milk and paper.
The big hole up in the back yard, with the “pink pages facility” over the top, was the toilet.
But we knew no different and many happy weekends and endless summers were spent at “number 7”. (No street numbers back then, it was Mum’s lucky number!)
Moving into my teenage years, Remo was, of course, responsible for my first teenage summer romances and getting to know some of the fishing family kids, including ‘Yado’ Johnson and Peter ‘Bags’ Bagley.
A lot of the “romances” started at the old San Remo theatre/hall. Either there or via parental introductions. I remember the Back Beach beach parties. Cut to 60 years later and the reason I know there’s been extreme coastal erosion in that location is that there’s nowhere between the caravan park and the beach to “take a young lady for a moonlight stroll”.
Saturday nights meant the flicks. At interval, it was out the door and walk past the servo to the milk bar (the current supermarket) for your ice cream or soft drink. The hall was also where the local rock band “The Mysteries” used to play. Unkind souls were known to comment on connections between their name and playing skills!
Plus of course, Ma Normington’s 2/9d hamburgers with the lot. These memories and the annual Christmas foreshore carnival will endure forever. Not to mention climbing the Norfolk pine outside the “middle pub”. You could see for miles up there.
*****
By my mid and later teens, unless it was Christmas or other major holiday periods, Remo became boring. Especially in winter when I was far more preoccupied with riding my bike to Windy Hill and watching my heroes like Johnny Birt, Ken ‘Frizza’ Fraser and Ron Evans run around for the Mighty Bombers. I had weekend youth clubs and five games in under 15 footy, where my lack of skill and motivation soon sorted that out!
So I point blank refused to go and (horror of horror these days) was left to my own devices for the entire weekend! Come 18, car and licence, plus night school, Saturday night dances and working overtime in the family business meant Remo faded into the background.
It got worse as I moved into my twenties, cos my mates and I were into huntin’, fishin’, shootin’ (and drinkin’), at various camping sites and other locations all over the state. This changed very rapidly with marriage and the subsequent arrival of my two lovely daughters, Sara and Narelle. A cheap holiday at Remo suddenly seemed very attractive.
So I point blank refused to go and (horror of horror these days) was left to my own devices for the entire weekend! Come 18, car and licence, plus night school, Saturday night dances and working overtime in the family business meant Remo faded into the background.
It got worse as I moved into my twenties, cos my mates and I were into huntin’, fishin’, shootin’ (and drinkin’), at various camping sites and other locations all over the state. This changed very rapidly with marriage and the subsequent arrival of my two lovely daughters, Sara and Narelle. A cheap holiday at Remo suddenly seemed very attractive.
The view from the deck at No. 23
Thus 1976 dawned with Ernie and ‘Fofo’ heavily engaged with building our second holiday home up on Ocean View Drive overlooking the Eastern Entrance. A typical 70s home, all orange carpets and kitchen laminate, with mission brown everywhere else.
Just like Edgar Road, it was home away from home for our families and many other family and friends. A lovely quote by a cousin in the visitors’ book summed it up. “Time could never erase the memories and spirit that live in this place”.
Dad busied himself cutting lawns and maintaining the house, then he was off to the pub. Mum was using her milliner trained skills and whiled away her hours with her tapestry loom. She was also heavily involved with local charities and made all manner of Miss Piggy dolls and full size Father Christmases to be raffled off.
Bonwicks Beach just a few steps out the back of the house, became known as Grandma’s Beach to my daughters and the Step Beach to my grandkids, Patrick and Annabelle. In later years, after a morning’s fishing, if I’d caught a feed, I’d pull in there and by the time I’d got back to Newhaven, pulled the boat and got back to number 23, Mum would have the fish cooked and ready for my lunch. My wife was not a big fish fan, so any of the good table species I’d managed to catch, such as flathead or whiting, only had one name: “YUKFISH”!
Come 1980 and I bought brother Ron’s 4.3m Quintrex Tinnie from him. I also began my almost 40 year membership of the Newhaven Yacht Squadron. This was long before the now modern marina and Christmas temporary moorings meant rowing out to where my “Quinnie” was moored. The rather unreliable Mariner 2 stroke outboard loaded up and stalled if I came out of the marina at the correct speed, so I got into strife for steaming past sleeping yachties at 5am.
I got into more strife when the thing completely carked it down in the Entrance. The first “official event” of my yacht squadron membership was being towed back in. I upgraded to a 40hp Mercury and that rig (“Sarelle2”, after my daughters) took me almost anywhere in Western Port I wanted to go.
By 1980, Dad had semi-retired from the business (Kevron) and brother Ron and I were running it, with me as managing director and responsible for sales and marketing. The pressures of running a small manufacturing/exporting business could be extremely intense at times, but there was always number 23 to escape to. Especially by the late `80s, when it became the “Boys’ weekend fishing HQ”.
By that stage I had upgraded the boat to “Sarelle III”, a 4.8m Savage Osprey tinnie and the fishing weekends became even more of a fixture. With my great fishing mate, Steve Hickey, our PB was 21 out of a possible 36 hours out on the water. Once we were back at the house, boat and “persons” all cleaned up, we’d sit down to (hopefully) a good feed of fish, suitably lubricated by a very good Australian white wine or three or four and, as the sun went down over Phillip Island, we’d solve the problems of the world.
Get up next morning and not a thing had changed. “Hang on, we fixed that last night!”
Just like Edgar Road, it was home away from home for our families and many other family and friends. A lovely quote by a cousin in the visitors’ book summed it up. “Time could never erase the memories and spirit that live in this place”.
Dad busied himself cutting lawns and maintaining the house, then he was off to the pub. Mum was using her milliner trained skills and whiled away her hours with her tapestry loom. She was also heavily involved with local charities and made all manner of Miss Piggy dolls and full size Father Christmases to be raffled off.
Bonwicks Beach just a few steps out the back of the house, became known as Grandma’s Beach to my daughters and the Step Beach to my grandkids, Patrick and Annabelle. In later years, after a morning’s fishing, if I’d caught a feed, I’d pull in there and by the time I’d got back to Newhaven, pulled the boat and got back to number 23, Mum would have the fish cooked and ready for my lunch. My wife was not a big fish fan, so any of the good table species I’d managed to catch, such as flathead or whiting, only had one name: “YUKFISH”!
Come 1980 and I bought brother Ron’s 4.3m Quintrex Tinnie from him. I also began my almost 40 year membership of the Newhaven Yacht Squadron. This was long before the now modern marina and Christmas temporary moorings meant rowing out to where my “Quinnie” was moored. The rather unreliable Mariner 2 stroke outboard loaded up and stalled if I came out of the marina at the correct speed, so I got into strife for steaming past sleeping yachties at 5am.
I got into more strife when the thing completely carked it down in the Entrance. The first “official event” of my yacht squadron membership was being towed back in. I upgraded to a 40hp Mercury and that rig (“Sarelle2”, after my daughters) took me almost anywhere in Western Port I wanted to go.
By 1980, Dad had semi-retired from the business (Kevron) and brother Ron and I were running it, with me as managing director and responsible for sales and marketing. The pressures of running a small manufacturing/exporting business could be extremely intense at times, but there was always number 23 to escape to. Especially by the late `80s, when it became the “Boys’ weekend fishing HQ”.
By that stage I had upgraded the boat to “Sarelle III”, a 4.8m Savage Osprey tinnie and the fishing weekends became even more of a fixture. With my great fishing mate, Steve Hickey, our PB was 21 out of a possible 36 hours out on the water. Once we were back at the house, boat and “persons” all cleaned up, we’d sit down to (hopefully) a good feed of fish, suitably lubricated by a very good Australian white wine or three or four and, as the sun went down over Phillip Island, we’d solve the problems of the world.
Get up next morning and not a thing had changed. “Hang on, we fixed that last night!”
*****
I defy anyone with any history or knowledge of the special place that is Western Port not to fall in love with this very special place. As my beloved sleepy fishing town became a summer tourist mecca, the threats to the bay began to materialise. Yes, I still enjoyed my boys’ fishing weekends and my family had many and enjoyable holidays at 23 Ocean View Drive, winter school hols with the rain coming in sideways excepted.
Coupled with this, I was in awe of what Naval Surgeon George Bass and his intrepid crew had achieved in discovering Western Port in what today would be regarded as a slightly oversized surfboat with sails. Scrutiny of Bass’s journals of the voyage revealed that the first place he landed in Western Port had to be Bonwicks … AKA Grandma’s beach. I soon became a real George Bass fan and, in my business travels, even visited his and Matthew Flinders UK birthplaces.
In 1990 a proposal to cover the entire Griffith Point headland in houses led me to convene a small group of dedicated and hard-working residents and weekenders to stop it. The Friends of San Remo slogan: “Preserving San Remo’s best for San Remo’s benefit”.
After a two-year hard-fought battle, we managed to slice off the most environmentally sensitive part of the development. We rather enjoyed the hyperbole of the local press, who described us as a “new potent and powerful environment group”. We did not let the fact we only had 10-12 active members go to our heads!
Despite some challenging (nay … frustrating!) experiences with various positions within the Newhaven Yacht Squadron, eg magazine editor and motor boat committee person, I did enjoy being asked to be officer of the day and to co-ordinate the seagoing part of the Bass Bicentennial celebration in January 1998. I led the procession of an Eastern Entrance full of various motor and sailing craft, capped by the replica schooner Enterprize, as we and 2000 people up on the cliffs above Bonwicks, welcomed the replica whaleboat to its landing point on the Back Beach.
Coupled with this, I was in awe of what Naval Surgeon George Bass and his intrepid crew had achieved in discovering Western Port in what today would be regarded as a slightly oversized surfboat with sails. Scrutiny of Bass’s journals of the voyage revealed that the first place he landed in Western Port had to be Bonwicks … AKA Grandma’s beach. I soon became a real George Bass fan and, in my business travels, even visited his and Matthew Flinders UK birthplaces.
In 1990 a proposal to cover the entire Griffith Point headland in houses led me to convene a small group of dedicated and hard-working residents and weekenders to stop it. The Friends of San Remo slogan: “Preserving San Remo’s best for San Remo’s benefit”.
After a two-year hard-fought battle, we managed to slice off the most environmentally sensitive part of the development. We rather enjoyed the hyperbole of the local press, who described us as a “new potent and powerful environment group”. We did not let the fact we only had 10-12 active members go to our heads!
Despite some challenging (nay … frustrating!) experiences with various positions within the Newhaven Yacht Squadron, eg magazine editor and motor boat committee person, I did enjoy being asked to be officer of the day and to co-ordinate the seagoing part of the Bass Bicentennial celebration in January 1998. I led the procession of an Eastern Entrance full of various motor and sailing craft, capped by the replica schooner Enterprize, as we and 2000 people up on the cliffs above Bonwicks, welcomed the replica whaleboat to its landing point on the Back Beach.
Kevin Chambers leads the whaleboat into the Back Beach, part of the Bicentennial celebrations for the arrival of George Bass and his crew in 1998.
The dawn of the new century rang in some significant changes for me. Separation and divorce, plus the successful 2003 sale of the family business and retirement. To this must be added the wonderful experience of meeting and loving Ms Heather White, my wonderful life partner of 20 years this year.
Came 2009, with 23 Ocean View Drive sold, Heather and I built our “retirement dream home” on an acre block at The Gurdies. Living so close to Western Port full time brought even more happy hours out on “our Bay”, (by this time in my final 5.5 metre Savage Tinnie), chasing the ever elusive “bagging out”, ie bag limit on snapper.
Came 2009, with 23 Ocean View Drive sold, Heather and I built our “retirement dream home” on an acre block at The Gurdies. Living so close to Western Port full time brought even more happy hours out on “our Bay”, (by this time in my final 5.5 metre Savage Tinnie), chasing the ever elusive “bagging out”, ie bag limit on snapper.
Kevin with five-year-old grandson Patrick and a very nice gummy. Patrick died last year, aged 20, in an accident in the US. The “serenity” was badly disrupted in 2014 when the then Liberal Government announced plans to build a gigantic container port at Hastings. It was back to manning the conservation barricades. I was a founding member of the Preserve Western Port Action Group (PWP). Once again, a group of dedicated locals took four long years to fight a proposal that would have ruined Western Port forever.
As the resident fisho of the group, I led a campaign where we spoke to fishing clubs all over Western Port and also a number of the big suburban clubs. We highlighted how the proposal would ruin our recreational fishing and created a coordinated approach to all levels of Government to voice our opposition. PWP ran market stalls, wrote letters to the local papers and achieved very significant public support for our cause. We celebrated the 2017 scrapping of the proposal with gusto.
For family and health reasons, we moved back to Melbourne and eventually to the retirement village where I sit writing this “missive”
We still come down to stay a couple of (warmer) times a year. The housing developments in and around the town, and the extra bods, make me very glad my times at Remo were the way they were.
As the resident fisho of the group, I led a campaign where we spoke to fishing clubs all over Western Port and also a number of the big suburban clubs. We highlighted how the proposal would ruin our recreational fishing and created a coordinated approach to all levels of Government to voice our opposition. PWP ran market stalls, wrote letters to the local papers and achieved very significant public support for our cause. We celebrated the 2017 scrapping of the proposal with gusto.
For family and health reasons, we moved back to Melbourne and eventually to the retirement village where I sit writing this “missive”
We still come down to stay a couple of (warmer) times a year. The housing developments in and around the town, and the extra bods, make me very glad my times at Remo were the way they were.
*****
Four generations of my family learned to love and respect Western Port and Remo and for that, we are all very grateful.
After their passing, both in their 80s, Ernie’s and Florence’s ashes were scattered at sea out the back of 23 Ocean View Drive.
As too were those of Auntie Glad and Uncle Jack who provided the sleepout at 7 Edgar Rd.. Their plaques are side by side up in San Remo Cemetery with the words, “Ernie and Florence, Jack and Glad, together again at Remo.
When my time comes, what’s left of me is going into a little cove under Woolamai. Roughly where the old granite quarry used to be. My turn to feed the fish.
After their passing, both in their 80s, Ernie’s and Florence’s ashes were scattered at sea out the back of 23 Ocean View Drive.
As too were those of Auntie Glad and Uncle Jack who provided the sleepout at 7 Edgar Rd.. Their plaques are side by side up in San Remo Cemetery with the words, “Ernie and Florence, Jack and Glad, together again at Remo.
When my time comes, what’s left of me is going into a little cove under Woolamai. Roughly where the old granite quarry used to be. My turn to feed the fish.
*****