“Archie will too!” Bec adds.
It may seem a long way off, but she’s right. The
shack was always where kids would learn to fish,
swim, water ski, light fires, ride bikes and be
independent. They would come home from the bush
or the beach with pockets full of shells and buckets of
crabs, in time for a charred sausage in bread.
These days, smart renovations and new builds
are changing the coastal landscapes, but the shack
culture remains.
Just a few doors down from George and Bec’s
building site, the Richardson boys – Noel, Kevin and
Ian – are gathering for a long weekend, just as their
parents would have, back when they bought the
block and built their shack in the late 1950s. Today
they have three beach houses side by side on Scenic
Drive. All of their children have grown up with regular
visits to the shack. The family share their memories of
idyllic weekends and holidays.
“It was just an amazing adventure for us boys, we
would play cricket all day every day. Fishing, diving,
water-skiing…”
“We had the paper and bread delivered by a bloke
in his EZ Holden…”
“We’d leave the money in the mailbox and he’d
come past. That’s right, the car was green…”
They all pause in thought.
“No, it was blue.”
“The Australian Cricket Team came out here one
Sunday before they went to England. We had Bill
Lawry playing right there… on our own cricket pitch.
The toilet door was the wicket. If the ball hit below
the handle you were out.”
The Richardson family boat shed is a shrine to shack
culture. Ropes and buoys, brushes and brooms, oars
and buckets, fishing rods, fridges, barbeques and
these days a yacht out the front.
“We don’t take it for granted. We take care of it all
as Mum and Dad did when they were here. The sand
dunes were higher than the pine trees back then.”
“And now, our grandchildren are doing what we did
at the shack.”
The stories and the memories are as much a part
of the heritage of shack life as the makeshift, often
rambling, buildings themselves. Island people by the
nature of their isolation have always been creative.
Life becomes simpler and the colours more saturated
in the telling.
Perhaps, one day, Archie will tell stories as these
men do, with animated pride.
WATCH ME! OMG! Eight weeks to a deck party! - Extended scene