A 1950s holiday at Woy Woy Bay

My aging grandparents, nan and pop Freeman, moved to Woy Woy Bay in the early 50s after a life of farming up at Rylstone.

My earliest memories were from the holidays in 1956 of a rambling old house with wide verandas, veggie gardens, a long walk up the hill to the outdoor dunny and chooks that were better escape artists than Houdini.

The old place was on several acres surrounded by Taylor St at the front and Meena Rd at the back.

The manicured lawns and lovingly cared for gardens, with every vegetable you could think of, were fenced in by white painted posts and rails with cyclone wire and a number of seemingly heavy timber gates.

The oversized front verandah had cane or bamboo roll down blinds for afternoon and evening shade.

In the lounge was a new black and white TV which was rarely used as the wireless had all the radio serials and the ABC news which pop listened to each night.

I remember light green paint and a corrugated iron roof, passionfruit vines, beans and something nan called chokoes growing along the fences.

At the back of the yard there was a cutting in the sandstone where a sample was taken for the pylons at each end of the Harbour Bridge.

A little higher up the hill there was an area of moss covered stone and a small rock cave where, as kids, we used to pinch a bottle of milk and a bunch of carrots from nan's garden and go off to be bush rangers.

We went back to Woy Woy Bay in 1992 when my dad died and climbed up to the cave.

It must have been the first time somebody had been back there because we found a couple of old milk bottles from Wyong dairy.

On the foreshore where the little park is now, low tide provided a great spot for us to annoy the hundreds, if not thousands of soldier crabs that emerged from the sand.

A little further out was great for finding live bait and the odd swimmer crab.

Pop (Syd) Freeman had farmed all his life.

He was second in a family of 12 kids and was born in Rylstone, in 1889.

Nan (Vera) was born in Lithgow and also came from a big family.

She was two years younger than pop.

As a result, we always had lots of older relatives and cousins dropping in.

In particular I remember Uncle Athol (pop's younger brother) who would remove his wooden leg each night before bedtime and Uncle Tom who had thick white hair but was bald on top.

Uncle Arthur, the youngest of nan and pop's kids, had a disability, severe epilepsy I think, and lived at home until he passed away in East Gosford in the late 70s.

He was a character.

A stock whip and a bull whip were second nature for him.

He could wrap the end of a bull whip around my neck without disturbing the collar on my shirt.

When called in for lunch or tea he invariably answered: "I'll be there directly."

He drove an old Zephyr and in 1961 thought about buying one of the new Ford Falcons but joked that the "Falcon" might eat the chooks.

There was another Arthur who was a bit older than my uncle.

He had thick black hair, was quite portly, if not fat, and was as easy going as anybody.

He skippered the ferry to and from the jetty over at Woy Woy station to the jetties at Bassan St where the fenced in sea baths were, then up to Goora Lane to the Post Office and general store.

I have no idea why the baths were fenced in as I don't remember any problem with sharks or rays.

There was an urban myth about a lad diving off a jetty at Phegans Bay, who, when called in for lunch one Christmas Day insisted on one more dive and was never seen again.

But, I heard the same tale many years later in Brisbane.

The ferry was an old wooden tub, like in The African Queen, with wooden benches seating up to 20 and an open, semi circular aft deck with seating for eight or 10.

It chugged back and forth for school times and to meet the various trains, taking people to who knows where.

Arthur was supposed to collect six pence for the kids fare each day but forgot to do so several times each week.

This meant ice cream and soft drink were always at the ready on a hot Saturday or Sunday.

These sweets were purchased from Mrs Divine who had a small shop on Taylor St.

Mrs D sold fresh bread, milk in one pint bottles with silver paper tops, shredded wheat, corn flakes and, as a treat, Coco Pops.

The milk was straight from the cow, just chilled, with about an inch of real cream at the top of each bottle.

About once a month a man with a horse and cart would show up selling bags of salt, sugar, flour, salted beef and bacon and would offer to sharpen knives and scissors.

Life was good in Woy Woy Bay for a nine-year-old.

I had been sent up there from wet old Melbourne following a bad case of bronchitis in July of 1959.

At low tide we could go down to the water's edge, stomp around in the exposed weed with bare feet and catch nippers for live bait.

But we had to be careful as large mangrove crabs were also there and those larger nippers could easily remove a toe, but they cooked up ok.

The first time I went fishing with pop, he took me in his old wooden boat "Bonney" way up the far end of the bay and we drifted back on the outgoing tide.

I hooked a flounder using nippers and a bamboo rod with an old Alvey side cast reel.

Nan cooked it for us with home grown potatoes and string beans with a lemony vinegar and toast (that would cost a mint now at Doyles).

The fish, crabs and oysters were great: Fresh and plentiful.

Unused bait, like nippers and pippies, usually ended up as some sort of soup or were simply thrown onto the coals on a homemade outdoor fire place.

The oysters came from a rocky area just out of sight from the bay toward Phegans Bay.

It was only accessible at low tide and those shells were sharp as a razor, resulting in abrasions on our hands and feet which bled quite well, causing Nan some distress as we walked in the back door with our catch.

My friends at the time were Norman and "Lolly Pop", a lad with bright red curly hair, Jeff Shepard from the corner of Goora Lane and a pretty blonde girl with pigtails from up the hill on Woy Woy Bay Rd (all of us were about eight or nine) and Diane Beach who was about 12.

Diane wore a dark blue one piece swim suit which left a marked impression on most of us.

Alas, she moved to WA before we realised what we were missing.

The clear waters of the bay were home to mainly retirees and holiday makers and a strong community spirit. It had its own CWA and its own small volunteer fire service.

I stayed there until after the holidays.

I was in third grade and, though only for a few short months, the school in town was well remembered, especially trying to catch the oiled piglet at a school fete.

The greased flag pole was also a lot of fun.

I wonder if animal welfare and today's litigious world would allow that to be on any agenda.

Pop's health deteriorated in the early 60s and they sold the old place and moved to East Gosford near Doris (their first born) and Frank Arnott.

Pop was lost to us in 1966.

I married in 1976 and honeymooned on the Hawkesbury.

With a visit to nan and Arthur taking along a huge mud crab and two of the biggest bream I have ever seen.

I showed my bride the best place in the world, but alas work and other commitments overtook our lives.

Nan passed away in 1977 and our visits to the area became less frequent.

Woy Woy Bay is now a much bigger place than I remembered.

There was the Taylor St foreshore up to Goora Lane with little further along.

The hill side had maybe a dozen homes and only a couple of places heading back up the hill along Woy Woy Bay Rd, probably only a fifth of today's development.

It is pleasing, however, to see the roadways are still a little agricultural and some of the old houses are still there even if they were renovated.

I am in enforced retirement now after breaking a few bones in my back and live near another waterway at Lake Eppalock in central Victoria.

It's nice here but it's not Woy Woy.

One day, maybe, I'll win the lotto and buy a place on the water with my own jetty.

Email, 13 Jan 2012 Keith Freeman, Lake Eppalock