Rollo and Norma Chayter owned a sprawling beach house on Safety Bay Road directly opposite the beach south of Penguin Island.
Worms for fishing were dug from the beach sand. Swimming sometimes involved armfuls of seaweed, jellyfish and the occasional stingray.
It was on a huge quarter acre block with a rain tank, smelly bore water, an outside copper, a fig tree and a jungle of grape vines.
Rollo had a dingy with ores and rollers that he left on the beach (it was never stolen!) ready for his lengthy fishing trips where he inevitably returned with whiting, flathead and the occasional shark.Crab nets were set, often baited with an octopus caught at the same beach, and the crabs were boiled up in a huge pot on the outside copper.
The house had an outside loo and bathroom. The bathroom had a bath and a tiny water heater fueled by wood.
The kitchen had a Metters stove and a large table with wooden chairs that were painted a startling blue.
It was a maze of a house with many bedrooms that were allocated from seniority. Two rooms had doors and were occupied by Rollo and Norma and Jack and Marcia. Nerida and chilla had the misfortune of having the room through which the children had to travel to their own rooms.
Every holiday had maintenance tasks allocated to the able relatives. One year, fuelled with many many king brown bottles of beer, Jack and Chilla painted the roof and the the chimney bright red. They were nicknamed “Burt” and “Wal”, names they called each other for the rest of their lives.
Everyone’s dogs and cats came to holidays, and with no fences, the Jack Harrison family dog “Sooty” was hit by cars a couple of times (and survived to tell the tale!)
