The list goes on for people like myself who grew up on the northern beaches of Sydney at a time when that region was undoubtedly at it’s very, very best. I grew up at number 15 Nenagh Street North Manly, off Pittwater road, across the road from Nolan Reserve and just down from Walkers tennis courts, and anyone who remembers Manly in the sixties and seventies (my decade) will attest that Manly is nowhere near now as great a place to be as it was then. Back then Manly was a wonderful little town, crowded only on summer weekends when everyone went down to the Corso and the ‘Parra’s’ (those who lived in the western suburbs) came over on the ferries to swim at ‘our’ beaches. We local kids could spot a ‘Parra’ a mile off; they wore thongs or sandals on the beach which flicked the sand up at you as they passed by, they carried bath towels instead of proper beach towels and they wore zinc on their noses and lips.

I remember Manly when…

You could drive from one end of the Corso to the other – the northern end was closed to traffic in 1979. You could actually park outside Coles on the Corso. Having lunch in Coles with Mum after doing some shopping; I can still remember how the milkshakes tasted in the cold aluminium containers. You could buy fantastic little green frog cakes in Pinkertons bakery on the Corso – they were filled with cream, glowed fluorescent green and had pink eyes, there was always a fly or two buzzing around the inside of the cake shop window but who cared about such things back then…? There was a Wimpy bar halfway up the Corso in 1973 which was not there for very long but I recall the hot dogs and the soft serve ice-cream. Humphreys newsagents was a basic shop outlet before it extended way back and became a small supermarket-style newsagents. The Odeon cinema stood directly opposite the Manly Fun Pier – I got banned from this cinema for a year by the skinny blonde woman who worked as the usherette, she was the managers wife (I think) and all because I called her an old bat after she would not let me back in after going to the loo. Cannot remember what picture my friends and I were seeing at the time – 1976 it was.

There was that old guy we called The Pearl King; he was an old guy with a long white beard and had a stall set up in the arcade halfway up the Corso beside Papallo’s fruit shop (I went to school with Vanessa Papallo…) that was all little jewellery boxes and you had to lean over the railing and toss a coin – you got the box that the coin landed on. Inside the box could be anything from a tacky ring to a bracelet or necklace but real kitschy stuff, nothing to get excited over. Anyway, it was a tradition to do this and he was a tourist attraction in himself. You could take your pick of fish and chip shops in Manly but the best one of all was the chippie at Manly Wharf as you went in on the left. They were still wrapping their chips in newspaper into the 1980′s – the best chips I have ever eaten by far. The Brighton Hotel; I was too young to go in as it was a pub but it smelled like pubs used to smell like – that heady aroma of beer and smoke that has been replaced these days by politically correct air-conditioning and no-smoking signs. It also had those old-style pub paintings of football scenes on the outside walls, pubs these days don’t smell like they used to.

Those little arcades that ran off the Corso; one featured a tiny barber shop run by two Italian brothers named Sam and Vince – it was at the back of the arcade that took you out to the multi-level parking lot behind the police station. A day on the beach meant you simply had to buy an ice-cream, a gelato, from the shop run by the Calacoci family on the corner right across the road from South Steyne beach. Next door was a great fish and chip shop but the Calacoci’s shop was the place to get your ice-creams, even after the Royal Copenhagen Ice-Cream shop opened in the early 80′s. They had been there since, well, those with genuine Manly-roots (not today’s pretenders) cannot recall Manly without them; Ivana was in my class at school at Stella Maris and she was still serving in the shop when I was last there in 2000 on Olympic Torch Day. It was the first shop where I tried licorice flavoured ice-cream (it was grey coloured) and they did the best watermelon ice-cream I ever had. Manly was not over-heavy on restaurants back then and the restaurant to go to was K’s Snapper Inn. They didn’t take bookings and you had to queue up outside and wait for a table but the wait was always worth it, it faced South Steyne beach and was legendary. It was opened there in 1966 by businessman Andrew Kalajzich who went on to run the later built Manly Pacific Hotel before infamously shooting and killing his wife Megan in her sleep. How the mighty did fall…

As a kid I went to the Manly Silver Screen cinema opposite the beach at South Steyne. It was situated where the Manly Pacific Hotel now stands, or near enough to the spot, it’s gone now of course but we kids had a lot of fun sitting upstairs and spitting on the heads of people sitting below us in the stalls. There was also the Hoyts cinema across the road from Manly Lawn Tennis club; there was a milk-bar adjoined to the cinema which was owned and run by the Greek parents of my school mate Vivienne Giannoulis. Events I remember were the big storm in 1974 which destroyed the walkway that joined Manly MarineLand (not called Ocean World back then) to Manly Wharf, the council never bothered rebuilding it and everyone went down the next day to look at the big empty space where that promenade had stood for so long. I recall in 1976 my friend and I had been sitting outside the art gallery next door to Marineland and we saw the famous pop singer of the time, Mark Holden, strolling by with his then girlfriend. She popped into the ladies and he stood outside while we sat with our eyes glued to him. The very first Manly Jazz Festival; started by a mate of my dad’s, John Speight (pictured) - I recall him coming round to visit dad one evening in 1976 to run a few ideas by him before he put together an event that has now become a national musical institution. John lived in the next street to us back then and his son Andrew Speight, now a respected jazz muso in hos own right, and I once had a name-calling exchange as kids when I passed his house on my bike and he and his mate went in for some teasing. John eventually came out and put a stop to all the nonsense. I wonder if Andrew would remember that…

The hydrofoils! a more expensive option for the ride over to Sydney than the ferry but much more fun; the ferry when I was a teen cost 25 cents and the hydrofoil cost a whopping 75 cents! the old South Steyne ferry (above) was still in commission though coming to the end of her grand career. To catch the hydro you had to sit on the floating pontoon that was enclosed with yellow plastic windows and it was on the other side of the wharf to the ferries. The ferries back then also had what was called the ‘Ladies Saloon’ on board; this was a section of the boat in which only women could sit and the men also had a ‘Gentleman’s Saloon’ at the other end of the ferry. Back in the 1970′s people were still considerate enough to respect this and you never saw a bloke dare to try and sit in the ladies saloon, if you were a woman travelling on your own at night you could sit in the ladies saloon and then you felt very safe.

Manly was always promoted as ‘Seven miles from Sydney and a thousand miles from care’ - it certainly was back then. Those heady days of the summer of 1976 was, for me, the best summer of my life when every day of the holidays and weekends were spent down at South Steyne beach with my friends sunbathing at the ‘hot spot’ which was in front of the surf pavilion at the end corner. We would stroll over for an ice-cream at our friend Ivana’s parents shop, buy a chico roll or chips at lunch time and then we’d collect our stuff and then wander around to Fairy Bower where it was usually less crowded. 2SM would be on the radio and the sun tan oil we’d use was Hawaiian Tropic in the brown glass bottle – for dark tanned skins no less – or my own favourite, Reef Oil in avocado or frangipani fragrance. Piz Buin and Ambre Solaire were new on the market but too dear for us to buy unless our Mums bought it for us…you were really cool if had Piz or Ambre in your bag. Manly was never better than it was back then – today it is over-developed, over-crowded, too expensive and has become way too commercial, you daren’t go there at night these days. The lifestyle Manly offered it’s locals back in the seventies was laid back and affordable; now it is all pretentiousness and investment – it has not been the same since the millionaires moved in but my memories are of Manly when it was priceless in far better ways.

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