North Steyne Surf Club is an iconic Australian surf club that has been serving the community for over a century. Established in 1907, the club has a long and fascinating history that reflects the development of surf lifesaving in Australia. In this blog, we will take a closer look at the history of North Steyne Surf Club, from its early beginnings to its present-day activities.   The Early Years (1907-1920s) North Steyne Surf Club was founded in 1907 by a group of passionate surfers who were concerned about the safety of beachgoers. The club was established on the northern end of Manly Beach, and its members were dedicated to the principles of surf lifesaving. North Steyne Clubhouse 1914  In its early years, the club had limited resources, and members often had to rely on their own equipment and expertise to carry out rescues. However, despite these challenges, the club quickly gained a reputation for its commitment to safety and its high level of skill.  Early members of the club date unknown  During the 1910s and 1920s, North Steyne Surf Club continued to grow in popularity, with more and more people becoming involved in surf lifesaving. North Steyne Snr Surf Belt team at Bondi Carnival (Date unknown) The club participated in a number of competitions, including the prestigious Australian Surf Lifesaving Championships, and achieved many successes. Carnival December 19th 1925, North Steyne, showing the then new circus seating The North Steyne Surf Life Saving Club promoted their 4th annual carnival, scheduled for Saturday 19th December 1925 at 2.45pm, with a flyer printed by the Manly Daily Press. The noted "Surf and Beach Attractions" included: "1200 Competitors, 18 Leading Surf Life Saving Club's Participating Surf Boat Races, Thrills and Spills, Board Exhibitions, All State Surf Swimming Champions Competing".  North Steyne boat crew "poster King Cup" 1925   The club also played an important role in educating the public about surf safety, and members were often called upon to assist with rescue operations outside of their usual patrol areas. The Interwar Period (1930s-1940s) The 1930s and 1940s were a challenging time for North Steyne Surf Club, as the world was gripped by the Great Depression and then the Second World War. Despite these difficulties, the club continued to operate and remained an important part of the community. Carnival at North Steyne December 1930 North Steyne boat crew January 1st 1931 North Steyne January 3rd 1931 During this period, the club also played a key role in the development of surf lifesaving as a sport. Many of its members were involved in the creation of new events and competitions, and the club hosted a number of successful carnivals. North Steyne boat crew Freshwater Carnival January 26th 1931     In 1942, the club was forced to temporarily close its doors due to the war effort. Many of its members joined the armed forces, and the club's facilities were requisitioned for military use. However, as soon as the war ended, the club was re-established, and it quickly regained its position as one of Australia's leading surf lifesaving clubs. Brother-in-arms and brothers-in-law, Manly Servicemen Leo Ibbotts, Bede Sutton and Stan Lyons, in 1941 sitting on the sandstone at North Steyne, opposite their parent's home on Ocean Beach. Barbed wire on the beach during WWII   The Modern Era (1950s-Present) Since the 1950s, North Steyne Surf Club has continued to be a vital part of the community. The club has expanded its facilities and services, and today it boasts a modern clubhouse, state-of-the-art equipment, and a team of highly skilled and dedicated members. The club has also continued to be involved in the development of surf lifesaving as a sport, and its members regularly compete at local, national, and international events. Belly board, surf skis, hollow board and others, Manly Beach circa 1951. Photograph probably Ray Leighton Longhurst, page 79.  In addition to its lifesaving and sporting activities, North Steyne Surf Club also plays an important role in community service. The club runs a number of programs aimed at promoting surf safety and educating the public about the dangers of the ocean. It also provides training and support for new members, ensuring that the tradition of surf lifesaving continues for many years to come.   1964 World Championship Manly Beach Sydney 1st   Midget Farrelly, 2nd Mike Doyle (USA), 3rd Joey Cabell (Hawaii),  4th L.J. Richards (USA), 5th Mick Dooley, 6th Bobby Brown.World Tittles Awards, Many Beach, 17 May 1964 .Photograph by Ron Perrott. 1964 World Championship Manly Beach Sydney, 1st Midget Farrelly in action  In conclusion, North Steyne Surf Club has a rich and fascinating history that spans over a century. From its early beginnings as a small group of passionate surfers to its present-day status as one of Australia's leading surf lifesaving clubs, the club has played an important role in the development of surf lifesaving and in the local community. With its focus on safety, skill, and community service, North Steyne Surf Club is a true Australian icon, and a testament to the enduring spirit of surf lifesaving.   Club members including "Boy" Charlton seated (foreground) to the right of Hawaiian surfer Bill Harris, with straw hat (c.1923-24). Photo and caption resources: North Steyne Life Saving History website; Surfresearch.com.au; World Tittles Awards, Many Beach, 17 May 1964 Photograph by Ron Perrott. Use the links below if you'd like to order this or other vintage poster prints, or check out some of my other creative uses for vintage appeal merch. https://www.lostmanly.com.au/products/vintage-poster-north-steyne-surf-carnival Check out all the available customised vintage merch and posters here.  https://www.redbubble.com/people/LOSTMANLY/shop?asc=u  

Most locals would fondly remember skating with friends, at Narrabeen Ice Skating Rink, on weekends and in school holidays, and watching in awe as professional figure skaters, both young and old, trained alongside. There was a kiosk onsite serving awesome hot chips and lollies, and everyone would of course wake up with super sore leg muscles and maybe a few blisters the following day. Since its closure in the late 1990’s the former (Warringah Ice Skating Centre as it was called in the mid-1980s) site has evolved into a large apartment and commercial complex, but once upon a time the highly popular Narrabeen Ice Rink sat on the corner of Lagoon and Wellington Streets, next to Narrabeen Woolworths where it served as a local icon for over 35 years. The rink was constructed in the 1970’s by Dutch native Dick Groentemann, who also built Ice rinks in Newcastle and Blacktown. The arch-trussed building was also home to the Warringah Bombers Ice Hockey team, at times attracting crowds of over one thousand spectators.  The old rink was purpose built from iron and never made ice effectively. Dick bought it and also failed to make ice properly until he met another Northern Beaches family the Pitstocks. Warren Pitstock was an engineering genius and fixed it. The larger rink was then built as a joint venture between the two families, once Father Sobb allowed them to remove the abandoned Nunnery behind the old rink. It was a handshake agreement that died with father Sobb, but that’s another story. Dick Mann owned and operated many businesses on the Northern Beaches over many decades. The ice rinks and ski slopes are a couple. Yes Narrabeen and Warringah Mall ski slope. Some might remember him or his children from Narrabeen Ice skating rink, Elliott, Ronnie and David. David 'Dickie' Groenteman is one of Australia's oldest living survivors of Auschwitz. He was captured as part of the resistance. Passing illegal papers to help people escape. Born in 1923 in Amsterdam, this is the first time Dickie has shared every intimate, unfathomable and inspiring chapter of his life story. It's the tale of a boy from Holland who survived death row and the death camps to become a hockey legend. On the ice Dickie was known as 'The Flying Dutchman' and this is his story told. To see the key characters of this story and learn more about Dickie, follow @storiestoldau on Instagram or Facebook. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-flying-dutchman/id1656572482  When David Groenteman arrived in Australia and moved to Sydney, one of his first ports of call was the local ice rink. Ice hockey was his passion but in a country with Australia’s climate, building a legacy around the sport was always going to be a challenge but Dickie doesn’t mind a challenge and he quickly established a team of talented European immigrants. They called themselves ‘The Bombers’ - a homage to the military planes that came to their rescue during World War II.  After a resounding win in their first match against the state’s best players to earn a spot in the top NSW League, ‘The Bombers’ would go on to win a string of championships and cups.  But Dickie wasn’t content with personal glory on the ice.  He wanted to transform the sport nationwide. So, he went and built rinks with his bare hands and the help of family and friends across the country.  This included Narrabeen which became home to ‘The Bombers’ (workplace health and safety was a little different in those days).  Three generations of Groentemans (Manns) have since pulled on the ‘The Bombers’ jersey and the club is still winning trophies to this day. Do you Remember the artificial ski slope behind the Mall? the surface was made of spiky, nylon bristles and when you fell you got a cross between a gravel rash & a bad carpet burn. It was opened in 1967.  Newspaper ad from May 1968 ARTIFICIAL SLOPE On Friday nights, the group go to the Cortina artificial ski slopes at Warringah Mall for ski training. One of them, George Spartalis, said the training helped to keep them fit all the year round, and the artificial ski slope enabled them to keep their form in the summer. "Last year when the snow came late we had no opportunity to practise on the snow before the racing started, but because of the artificial slope we were in pretty good shape.' The Cortina slope, opened last year, is 200ft long and 40ft wide. The slope is made of nylon brush supported on scaffolding about 50ft high, The proprietors guarantee to teach stem turns, the intermediate stage of ski-ing, in three one-hour lessons. https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1301&dat=19680519&id=e5wpAAAAIBAJ&sjid=zOYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=1731%2C6284177&hl=en&fbclid=IwAR173bE1yjFF2LOiHxfeEbxzUeZyq-LYwGnDx7gPbjx7FjJTG-w1HZNB1sA   https://www.instagram.com/p/CmquOSfvvp2/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D&fbclid=IwAR0FyYnlF4zo9C_rCovB5V7t-Fkum1IJuebbVE4dfm2WZIcykunNlz_LPgM   https://www.facebook.com/groups/107448472624800 From the Facebook group album “The flying Dutchman”   https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.968697274096257&type=3      

 On a recent visit to the Northern Beaches, I mustered up the courage to knock on the door of my childhood home, in North Manly, curious to see how it had fared over the years, but nobody was home.  So I snuck in a few cheeky pics, to savour my childhood memories.  Not much had changed and yet everything had. The footpath that lead from the little letterbox, to the semi-enclosed front porch, where I would bash out a song and dance on most days after school, is now cracked and worn, though the footprints on my childhood were as shiny and bright as they ever were, and I could still feel the rush of jumping across the entrance gap, like Nadia Comaneci scoring a perfect 10 in the 1976 Olympics. The old garage door down the cracked and buckled driveway had seen better days, though it once served as the perfect canvas for handball, hide and seek or table tennis inside the garage. Instantly, I could see mum's gorgeous chiffon, royal blue strapless gown, the one she wore the night she met my father at the annual footy ball in 1958 Sydney, now strewn across the garage floor to stop the rain coming in, thanks to my brothers playing in their table-tennis championships. Oh Lord, my mother was beside herself when she saw it, but the boys thought nothing of it. I too was shattered as it was my favourite dress up gown of mum's, which was lovingly kept in a linen pillowcase.   The fragrant Camellia bush outside my bedroom window is now a fully grown, established tree, planted in the 1960s when the house was built, saved from the scourge of the developers knife, it still has the most luscious shiny leaves and fragrant, heady scent of Camellia, that wafted its way inside my bedroom windon, on many a hot, summer's night.   The side of the house, where we used to sneak a cheeky smoke after school, has now been fenced up, so I could only peer through the cracks, remembering those moments locked in time, thinking we were clever enough to light up a smoke underneath the open lounge room window, walk inside, and mum not be the wiser? How childish indeed!   When I had seen all that this fortified temple allowed me to see, I dragged myself away, with an intense longing in my heart to want to stay. It was so hard to walk away as each footstep forward was distancing me from my past, from those tender childhood memories that are mine and mine alone, that can never be taken from me, whether I own that home or not. I had to hold back the tears as my longing to return was so palpable. Elvis said it best in his beautiful song, Memories: Memories, pressed between the pages of my mind Memories, sweetened through the ages just like wine Quiet thought come floating down And settle softly to the ground Like golden autumn leaves around my feet I touched them and they burst apart with sweet memories Sweet memories Of holding hands and red bouquets And twilight trimmed in purple haze And laughing eyes and simple ways And quiet nights and gentle days with you.  

  It's hard to believe the Northern Beaches was once one of the least desirable places in Sydney to live because it was a long and difficult road trip from Sydney, and few travailed. Before the Spit Bridge was built in 1924, the only way across Middle Harbour was by punt, owned and operated by the Ellery family. The Northern Beaches is now one of the most desirable places to live in Sydney, reflected in the inflated housing prices, forcing many families to leave, causing a sense of 'dispossession' or loss, with many moving away, yet longing to return, if they could. Manly's European history was the vision of one man, Henry Gilbert Smith, from the 'mother land' of England, who fell in love with the natural beauty of Manly and envisioned an Utopian paradise; an escape from the hustle and bustle of the Industrial Age polluted city life that the fledgling new Sydney town was embracing with such gusto; smoke, noise, pollution, crime and poverty, that he sought to create a utopian paradise reminiscent of his beloved 'Brighton by the Sea' in old England, an escape to a peninsular paradise. Smith's vision was for a holiday life by the sea, where people could forget all their troubles and cares, and bask in the natural beauty of this undeveloped peninsula paradise, even though daylight swimming was illegal and fifty years away from legalisation. Smith saw Manly as the perfect place to recreate his 'BRIGHTON BY THE SEA' naming it, for a brief period, 'ELLENSVILLE' after his beloved wife.  He saw its development potential so quickly claimed much of the surrounding land.  However, though undeveloped, the land was not uninhabited. Manly is situated on the land of the Gayemagal people, the traditional owners of this land. The Gayemagal lived in the Manly area and thrived due to the abundance of food resources like fish, shellfish and animals. Evidence of these can be found in the middens all over the coastal area. Aboriginal people are part of the oldest surviving continuous culture in the world. Early relations between the first colonists and the Gayemagal people quickly soured. In 1789 a Smallpox epidemic spread through the local Aboriginal population. By the 1830s, only a few Aboriginal people remained in the Manly area. Recorded Aboriginal sites included shelter, midden sites, rock engravings, open midden sites, shelter cave art and open camp sites. From  manlyaustralia.com.au/info/history. For more historical information, please visit www.aboriginalheritage.org. Many suburbs were named after Aboriginal names: Akuna Bay – 'place of water' Allambie - 'to remain a while' Barrenjoey – 'young kangaroo' Curl Curl - curial curial meaning 'river of life' Elanora -'camp by the sea' Narraweena - 'a quiet place in the hills' (From northernbeaches.gov.au)   Join our engaging facebook group where it all began:https://www.facebook.com/groups/lostmanlynorthernbeaches  

I think my History Obsession began in Mum's Kitchen When I was a child, I was fascinated by my mother's childhood memories, growing up in North Manly during the war, shared with me in mum's kitchen. Mum was born in Narrabeen in March 1939, as the world was facing the second world war.  With that came stories of mum's childhood during and after the war, when butter was scarce, and rations allowed them to survive, and spreading dripping, instead of butter, on their bread was common. Mum's cooking was basic, as she worked full time as a Legal Secretary so by the time she got home, she usually made just meat and three veg and saved the fancy cooking for the weekends, which I loved, helping her and bonding over food. Mum´s Shepherd pie conjures up vivid childhood memories, baked in our old post-WW2 avocado, and beige enamel gas oven with the old pilot light that was lit with a match and was scary smelling the gas seep out before the flame caught it in a little explosion of fire.   Mum's parents and grandparents lived close by, and we walked past my great grandparents house in Soldiers Avenue Harbord (Freshwater) on the way to Freshwater beach. Old man Claus, a Norwegian sailor from Bergen, built the original wooden house with his own two hands in the early 1900s and they lived their the mid 1960s when they both passed away, six months apart; a love like no other. Mum´s grandparents lived 1.2km eastward, towards Freshwater Beach and we walked past their house on the way to our local beach, Freshwater While Mum's parents, her childhood home was 1.2 km in the opposite direction, up the hill in Allambie. From our front yard, we could see the tops of the four tall Oak trees that stood outside mum's parent's home.  That too fascinated me and sparked my childhood imagination and passion for history.

I am so excited! Just knocked down a family tree brick wall that has never been solved til now thanks to an email from a 2nd-3rd cousin on Ancestry through DNA match. My mother´s father´s family of origin was right under our noses on the south coast of NSW. Here is the first pic I´ve ever seen of my great grandmother, Nellie McKee, born in Nimitabel NSW in 1875. Died in Randwick 1942 when mum was barely 3. Mum would have been chuffed to know this too. I hope she´s watching. I can see the resemblance in the subtle nuances of her eyebrows and the bow on her top lip...I got those....the daughter of Irish or Scottish catholics, pioneers of the Monaro district. I now have a complete story of my grandfather’s family tree which has eluded us all because of one little letter u in his name. I just wish I knew how Nellie’s youngest son Henri, met and married a girl from the Northern Beaches. Some things we’ll never know. Lessons learnt from this: when you hit a brick wall in family history research look sideways - unilateral search!