Someone should slap a heritage listing on the old fibro shack. By Althea Thomas
THE For Sale sign on the old fibro cement shack did it. A full blown attack of nostalgia for the old San Remo hit me.
My father built that shack as a weekend bolt hole in the 1950s. The living room was painted in the colours of the moment: apricot, lemon yellow and an apple green. There was an open fire at one end with armchairs surrounding it, and a Laminex table and chairs at the other. Possession of a cane lounge along the window, just made for reading, gazing at the view or simply dreaming, was hotly contested.
THE For Sale sign on the old fibro cement shack did it. A full blown attack of nostalgia for the old San Remo hit me.
My father built that shack as a weekend bolt hole in the 1950s. The living room was painted in the colours of the moment: apricot, lemon yellow and an apple green. There was an open fire at one end with armchairs surrounding it, and a Laminex table and chairs at the other. Possession of a cane lounge along the window, just made for reading, gazing at the view or simply dreaming, was hotly contested.
That house, along with the Neil Lacco built coûta boat with the saggy sails, gave us hours of family fun. When the flathead were biting and the swell was up in Cleeland Bight my father took to tying me to Teresa’s mast. I was allowed to dangle a handline but he wasn’t enamoured with the prospect of taking to the roiling waters to rescue me if I happened to hook anything bigger than a toadie or was upended by a rogue wave.
The ‘in place’ to swim was between the jetty and the old suspension bridge situated about 100 metres to the left of the jetty. A magical construction seeming to float in the air, you could get airsick just walking across it. It swayed horizontally in the wind and bounced vertically with the traffic.
Published 1969 to mark the opening of the new Phillip Island bridge. The view is looking towards
San Remo with the old suspension bridge on the right.
San Remo with the old suspension bridge on the right.
The more timid of the town’s youth would do bombs or dive off the jetty but some of the local lads competed for notoriety and chutzpah by jumping off the central span of the bridge, swimming madly against the tide to make it back to shore.
Everywhere was the smell of coconut oil on gleaming golden bodies roasting in the sun. Not a whiff of sunscreen or even zinc could be detected. We used to have skin peeling competitions: who could peel the longest and widest piece without it breaking. No doubt others, like I am, are now contributing handsomely to their dermatologist’s children’s school fees.
San Remo milkbar, circa 1960. Photo: San Remo Foreshore Committee of Management
Ahh the San Remo picture theatre. The romance of it. The building was a converted Nissan hut situated in Marine Parade about where the chemist is now: freezing in winter, boiling in summer. Seats were director’s chairs with a single strip of canvas strung along the row. Fine when everyone sat still but as soon as the wriggling started, the entire row either plunged or plummeted into motion accompanied by the squeaking of canvas.
The plus for me as a skinny kid was that I gained a few inches in height and could see over the weightier people in front. The last two rows were the cuddle seats, double seats with no armrest, the site of my first kiss – but where DO the noses go! And of course there was Jaffa rolling from the back stalls.
The plus for me as a skinny kid was that I gained a few inches in height and could see over the weightier people in front. The last two rows were the cuddle seats, double seats with no armrest, the site of my first kiss – but where DO the noses go! And of course there was Jaffa rolling from the back stalls.
The movies? Musicals like Carousel and Oklahoma’; Douglas Sirk melodramas such as, Imitation of Life and Magnificent Obsession come to mind and forgotten `50s gems like The River of No Return with Marilyn Monroe which my Uncle Col thereafter dubbed The river wot never came back. An Affair to Remember, with Cary Grant and Deborah Carr was showing the night I got my first period - I wasn’t going to forget that one!
Not a pizza place in town was to be seen but Mrs Normington’s hamburgers from her shop across from the jetty were to die for: the buns and lettuce were crispy, the sweet vinegary beetroot cut through the salt, fat and meatiness of the burger, but there was something else – undetectable - in the actual burger. Customers would beg to be told the secret ingredient, but she would never divulge. “It’s going with me to my grave,” she would say. She was a force to be reckoned with, was Mrs Normington. Reg, her husband, would attest to that.
I look around at San Remo’s bland new developments: Penniwells, Keams, Island View Estate, houses squeezed together, filling up most of the block, development creeping ever closer towards Anderson.
Someone should slap a heritage listing on that old fibro cement shack.
Not a pizza place in town was to be seen but Mrs Normington’s hamburgers from her shop across from the jetty were to die for: the buns and lettuce were crispy, the sweet vinegary beetroot cut through the salt, fat and meatiness of the burger, but there was something else – undetectable - in the actual burger. Customers would beg to be told the secret ingredient, but she would never divulge. “It’s going with me to my grave,” she would say. She was a force to be reckoned with, was Mrs Normington. Reg, her husband, would attest to that.
I look around at San Remo’s bland new developments: Penniwells, Keams, Island View Estate, houses squeezed together, filling up most of the block, development creeping ever closer towards Anderson.
Someone should slap a heritage listing on that old fibro cement shack.