Transcript
Speaker: G'day, I'm Trent Maxwell.
Speaker: And I'm Lee Mason.
Speaker: And we want to welcome you to our Live, Learn, Survive podcast.
Speaker: Since 2018, Lee and I travelled the globe and met face-to-face over 30,000 children in six countries across three continents.
Speaker: We've created a series of award-winning children's books, a global online education program, and are founders of the Live, Learn, Survive charity, all focused on teaching children and young adults life skills that not only help themselves, but help others too.
Speaker: We're on a mission to spread awareness about fire and water safety and first aid education to inspire the next generation of first responders.
Speaker: So join us for the next half an hour for some fun, inspiration and kindness and we'll try and learn something.
Speaker: So how are you this week?
Speaker: Lee, welcome aboard.
Speaker: I am good, Maxie.
Speaker: How are you?
Speaker: I'm great.
Speaker: I'm great.
Speaker: And what a week it's been.
Speaker: We've got another special guest today.
Speaker: One of our favorite days, Maxi.
Speaker: We love a guest.
Speaker: We do love a guest.
Speaker: We love asking questions of a new guest.
Speaker: And a very special guest today.
Speaker: So someone who's been very important in your life.
Speaker: So shall I give the big intro?
Speaker: Yeah, I've known this person for 17 years.
Speaker: big influence in my life and becoming a lifeguard.
Speaker: I wouldn't say a great lifeguard.
Speaker: Hopefully, you know, maybe he can give me a rap there, but a really good lifeguard.
Speaker: He's taught me a lot.
Speaker: So enough of my chatting.
Speaker: Let's introduce him.
Speaker: Here we go.
Speaker: So today, Maxie, we are joined by Bondi lifeguard, Mr. Laurie Williams, who has said that we can call him lots.
Speaker: So Laurie joined Waverly Council professional lifeguards back in the 70s, 1978,
Speaker: when they were known as beach inspectors.
Speaker: So born and raised in Paddington, Sydney, Laurie joined the North Bondi Surf Club as a 13-year-old in the early 70s.
Speaker: He lifeguarded through the late 70s, the 80s and 90s,
Speaker: and the early 2000s and then rejoined the service as a casual last year.
Speaker: I reckon it'd be safe to say, Maxie, that Laurie is seeing plenty over his 24 years on the beach.
Speaker: But here's the thing, not stopping there, Laurie has a love of local history.
Speaker: And in time for the 100-year centenary celebration back in 2013,
Speaker: He put together the history of the lifeguard service at your beaches, Waverly, Bondi, at your Waverly beaches, Bondi, Tamarama and Bronte.
Speaker: I should know better.
Speaker: Not stopping there, Laurie has continued his research, he's created an audio book project to tell the story of the lifeguard service in the contents of what was both going on locally and globally through both world wars and the Great Depression.
Speaker: Bringing this to social media, he's known as the Bondi Historian.
Speaker: Laurie continues to share quirky stories about the people and the places of the local area, sharing historical stories that have woven the rich tapestry that is Bondi Beach.
Speaker: And what amazing stories it has to tell.
Speaker: So, Maxie, let's give an amazing warm welcome to Mr. Laurie Williams.
Speaker: Welcome, Loz.
Speaker: Welcome, Loz.
Speaker: A very good midday to you.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's great to be on with you.
Speaker: Yeah, mate.
Speaker: Again, thank you for coming on, mate.
Speaker: I really appreciate it.
Speaker: You've been a massive influence in my lifeguarding career.
Speaker: You've taught me a lot.
Speaker: We've had some really good times and we've had some, you know, I'm not saying bad times, but we've had some big jobs on the beach, some incidences as well.
Speaker: So today it's all about having a good chat.
Speaker: asking you a few questions, getting to know the Bondi historian and yeah, look forward to having a chat mate.
Speaker: So Lee, do you want to kick it off?
Speaker: Let's start it off.
Speaker: So Laurie, what year did you start lifeguarding and what did your role look like then?
Speaker: 1978, so you know, the core duties, the primary duties that we had back then as beach inspectors or lifeguards as they're known now, were pretty much the same.
Speaker: You know, it's all about
Speaker: preventing rescues, performing rescues, major and minor first-age, reuniting children with their parents, dealing with antisocial behaviour on the beach, but probably the standout
Speaker: The standout duties back then were there was a focus on beach ordinance or compliance and those sort of issues were difficult for someone my age.
Speaker: You know, there were still a lot of guys around that had been there
Speaker: They had quite a few years under their belt.
Speaker: They were old school in their attitudes.
Speaker: Things like policing dogs, the dogs prohibited on the beach, board riders, which is still an issue but not the issue that it was because most of the board riders, if not all of them back then, were all local kids.
Speaker: and adults for that matter no bikes no bike riding on the promenade no skateboard riding on the promenade no fun on the promenade so you you you like what we know now is bondi you some some of the older lifeguards would have heart attacks since what what goes on yeah and remember this that uh we're all local people um that worked on the beach and we were dealing with
Speaker: people that we knew or knew of, or we knew their parents.
Speaker: And, you know, I was pretty much around the same age as a lot of these guys.
Speaker: And I was surfing at the time.
Speaker: So I was surfing with these guys one minute, and then the next minute I'm down there with a loud hailer telling them to get away from the flags.
Speaker: You know, it was really hard as a 20 year old because you were also,
Speaker: Your whole world in the eastern suburbs was centered around the beachfront and Bondi Junction.
Speaker: We didn't have to venture far.
Speaker: It was all here for us.
Speaker: So I guess my point is we were bumping into these people morning, afternoon and night.
Speaker: I was playing footy against these guys.
Speaker: You know, they were out to smash me.
Speaker: I was just going to say, you mentioned night.
Speaker: Was there some words of a nighttime loss?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah, look, we, you know, one of the big nightclubs back then was the Regis Room.
Speaker: It's now known as the Beach Road Hotel, but the hotel was known as the Bondi Rex and the nightclub around the side or the disco was the Regis Room.
Speaker: And it was like,
Speaker: the whole of the eastern suburbs in that demographic of like 16, let's face it, they were 16, 16 up to 25 and everyone descended on the Regis Room.
Speaker: So I'm dealing with guys that I've had to have words with down the beach.
Speaker: So yeah, there was some pushing and a bit more.
Speaker: There's definitely some times.
Speaker: Um, mates, when did you realize that you wanted to become a lifeguard?
Speaker: What age and yeah, what made you want to become a lifeguard?
Speaker: Well, it, it wasn't, uh, it wasn't something that I aspired to.
Speaker: And the reason was that I was living in Bondi Surf Club as a resident caretaker at the time.
Speaker: I'd been there for a year and I took a break from working in a local hardware store over in Rose Bay.
Speaker: So I wasn't doing much.
Speaker: And I got the tap on the shoulder from one of the guys in the surf club to say there was a job going on the beach.
Speaker: I didn't aspire to do something that I thought was all about keeping people in line.
Speaker: But the opportunity came up and I jumped at it.
Speaker: And it was pretty much for someone who was young and fit.
Speaker: I was a water person from way back.
Speaker: It was a walk-up start for me.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: I didn't have the aspiration going into it, but I definitely developed the love for it increasingly over the years, over the decades, just like a radio station, you know, the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s.
Speaker: I read, my career reads like that.
Speaker: Incredible.
Speaker: Just before we go into the next question, Loz, did you have a favourite decade of lifeguarding
Speaker: did you have a favorite decade?
Speaker: Yeah, it's just something that I just thought of then when you're just going through the decades.
Speaker: I'm like, did you have a decade that was like prime...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just good times.
Speaker: Absolutely, the 80s.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: It was the whole backdrop or context of what was going on socially, the music.
Speaker: We were all a bit older.
Speaker: We were in our 20s.
Speaker: We were having fun.
Speaker: We were playing footy.
Speaker: We were surfing.
Speaker: And the other side of that is those –
Speaker: those legacies from years gone by, you know, really heavy policing on the beach and on the promenade, they were disappearing.
Speaker: Things were changing.
Speaker: The area was, there were a lot of Islanders, a lot of Maoris, which was great.
Speaker: We also had a bit of a Bohemian colony here.
Speaker: You know, they were actors and artists.
Speaker: It was that first sort of phase before gentrification and money.
Speaker: It was fun.
Speaker: All those people were here for fun and good times.
Speaker: The musos that were down here, you know, like, I don't know, just Dragon from New Zealand, MySex, all those guys, Richard Clapton,
Speaker: They were all coming down the beach.
Speaker: It was just, and everyone was, it was a real egalitarian thing.
Speaker: No one stood head and shoulders above the rest.
Speaker: Once you took off, you know, your shirt and your trousers, you were just like anyone else.
Speaker: And that's how everyone acted.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know what, it's interesting that you just saying that, that was one of the things that I've always loved from very first coming to Australia was that there was an equality that I didn't know
Speaker: coming from England that, you know, it was more in England, you know, what school you went to, whatever, whatever.
Speaker: And I still feel even to today in Australia, it's, you know, it's obviously very different, but there is still a bit of that is people take you for who you are.
Speaker: And it's really refreshing.
Speaker: So I get that you're saying that.
Speaker: I can imagine it would be a special time back then.
Speaker: You can tell the way you're talking about it.
Speaker: Your face lights up talking about it.
Speaker: You can tell it's like, yeah, good times, you know.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, it was a lot of fun.
Speaker: And, you know, lifeguarding was progressing by way of technology, whether it was medical technology or the equipment we used.
Speaker: Things were on the improved, old attitudes and old values, some of which we still uphold, but they were disappearing, especially in our approach to, you know, crushing these poor kids, you know, with their skateboarding and...
Speaker: and riding bikes and board riding, we weren't confiscating.
Speaker: A good example for you, Maxie and Lee, is that we weren't confiscating boards anymore, which we had done.
Speaker: And I absolutely abhorred that part of our role in that if we had
Speaker: we didn't really it was all bluff but yeah we we could confiscate a board and and and issue a receipt for the board and then write that person up in in the book of infamy which is up in our archives in the library nowadays um yeah and you know you that was really hard it was really hard seeing a kid
Speaker: just a cheeky 13, 14-year-old have their board taken off them for what was a subjective amount of time.
Speaker: You would have been in that book for sure, Maxie.
Speaker: Yeah, I reckon I would have.
Speaker: I was never really too cheeky, but maybe the odd left or right into the flags.
Speaker: I reckon that's what would have brought me undone, I reckon.
Speaker: They wouldn't have caught you.
Speaker: There's no way they would have caught you.
Speaker: I can just imagine nowadays, I just got a visual of Maxie out there on the beach with almost like his old clipboard and whatever, giving people receipts and taking the boards off him.
Speaker: That would just be, I think you should, we need to get Maxie, you with Loz on the beach one day on your days off, just, what do you call it, reconstructing that for people.
Speaker: Can you imagine just going up and saying, mate, give us your board.
Speaker: You've lost it for two months.
Speaker: I can see Maxie.
Speaker: And what's your name again?
Speaker: How do you spell that?
Speaker: Here's your ticket.
Speaker: Come back in eight weeks.
Speaker: You can have your board back.
Speaker: And look, you know what, Lee?
Speaker: There were lots of Maxies back in the day.
Speaker: There were those kids that just kept smiling and you couldn't.
Speaker: And, you know, I'm a sucker for that and I would find a way to get their board back to them somehow.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: I might confiscate it till the end of the day and when, you know, the older guys went off duty, I'd find a way to get that board back to you.
Speaker: And you know what?
Speaker: The kids would have, you know, would have loved that and they would have respected you so much as a lifeguard.
Speaker: So that's awesome.
Speaker: And they'd say to you, we'll never do it again until tomorrow.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And I still, you know, through social media, I still chat with people
Speaker: uh guys who were kids back then when i was lifeguarding and and they say that i you know we always remember you as that that friendly guy that just you know you weren't like the other the other guys do you know what now it will be their badge of honor that you wrote them up in the book that'll be the thing they'll be wanting to be in the book
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly right.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: I'm proud of being in the book twice.
Speaker: You know, once having my board confiscated for being cheeky and inside the flagged area on a wet day, I might add, with no one around.
Speaker: And then the other side of the ledger was taking one poor sod's board off him for maybe a week.
Speaker: But, yeah, I remember him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I'm sensing already, Loz, so many people look up to you.
Speaker: So when you were a kid, who did you look up to?
Speaker: Who inspired you?
Speaker: Well, I had a number of mentors and most of them were mentors, aside from my lovely mother, God bless her soul.
Speaker: You know, most of them were from the beach.
Speaker: So they were, when I joined the surf club, guys like Guy Oakley, who was just Mr. Natural when it came to his abilities in the water and his easygoing nature, his friendliness, his happiness, his array of sunshine and a great mentor for me as a competitor.
Speaker: Brad Mayes, when I always knew Brad was one of the best surfers of Bondi, a really stylish surfer.
Speaker: I admired the way he surfed, but I admired him the person, because again, he had that easygoing,
Speaker: devil may care attitude and that was something that i was all about back then devil may care um and you know moving on cedric emmanuel when i when i lived in uh bongo surf club he was a guy in his probably in his 60s maybe early 70s back then he'd been
Speaker: In his heyday, he was a boxer, a wrestler, played rugby, competed for the surf club, but he was the most wonderful human being.
Speaker: He was what it was all about, what you'd aspire to, to be a good human.
Speaker: And my karate sensei or teacher, Steve Fifield, again, another shining light.
Speaker: He wasn't just about, you know, teaching you to destroy people.
Speaker: He had this holistic approach to life.
Speaker: He was Mr. Philosophy.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: That's awesome to hear, mate.
Speaker: And, mate, we spoke about before about you being a caretaker at North Bondi Surf Club and in the bio about being a young kid in the North Bondi Surf Club.
Speaker: Can you talk about your life in the surf club early days?
Speaker: Did you compete?
Speaker: Did you do any patrols?
Speaker: What was it like back in the surf?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: I came down with a group from Waverley College, which is where mum had me enrolled.
Speaker: And there was a group that came down with a couple of the brothers, Christian brothers, and we had our own patrol, the Waverley College patrol.
Speaker: You know, mum wanted to get me off the streets of Paddo, God love her, because, you know, Paddo back then was a pretty tough place.
Speaker: Anyway, you know, for a while there, it was just a place for me to put my stuff.
Speaker: And then I'd go down to the beach and hang out with the kids on the beach who were riding cool lights, do my patrols.
Speaker: But as the years went on, I became more involved in the club.
Speaker: I became their first junior captain, which was a wonderful year for me.
Speaker: I loved board paddling, which set me on the right path to lifeguarding.
Speaker: I didn't know it at the time.
Speaker: But, you know, just the guys there, the older guys who were like the dad that I didn't have, they were just the most wonderful people to be around.
Speaker: So increasingly, as I got older into my later teens, I enjoyed hanging out in the club more and more.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: And it's so important, isn't it?
Speaker: Like you say, having those role models.
Speaker: So I think so often, you know, Max and I, we've traveled and been to these clubs all over, you know, and, and, and how,
Speaker: important some of these people that are volunteers in clubs that that they are like they are role models and they are they do become more like family i grew up in this i had a i had a great family life with my parents but we were in part of a swimming club and the club become your family that was what we did you know and it's it's so um important work that gets really unrecognized doesn't it
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, 100%.
Speaker: Mate, it's awesome.
Speaker: Actually, I've known you for 17 years, and I never knew that you were a junior club captain.
Speaker: That's a pretty cool thing.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I was the first junior club captain, and I organised, you know, beach footy competitions, film nights in the club, barbecues on the weekend to raise money, dances for, like, under-18s.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: It was kind of like...
Speaker: I'd always had that ability and never had the, I never had anywhere to showcase it.
Speaker: And someone said to me, a guy put me through a Rotary program, which was called the Rotary Youth Leadership Award.
Speaker: Once I did that, I was,
Speaker: You know, I think around the same time I was a junior captain and that was a calling for me.
Speaker: I realised I was an organiser and, yeah, it was great.
Speaker: It was a great year.
Speaker: It was a pivotal year.
Speaker: Great stuff, mate.
Speaker: Great stuff.
Speaker: Incredible.
Speaker: Absolutely incredible.
Speaker: It's you, Lee.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Talking about all of this, you've had obviously a very long career.
Speaker: What's been the most stressful part of it for you?
Speaker: Because it's a, you know, you've obviously stayed with it.
Speaker: You've been able to make, it is a stressful job.
Speaker: What, what's been the most stressful part?
Speaker: Well, I think, um, I look at some of the, a couple of the resuscitations that we did where children were involved.
Speaker: I found that very distressing.
Speaker: There was a body retrieval that I was involved in that involves someone that I knew, whereas previously with body retrievals they're usually not people that you know.
Speaker: And, you know, you've got to distance yourself emotionally to be able to deal with that.
Speaker: But when it's someone you know, it's...
Speaker: It can be hard.
Speaker: Very different.
Speaker: Yeah, it's very easy to internalise that stuff.
Speaker: You need to deal with it.
Speaker: Yeah, but definitely anything to do with children.
Speaker: I never found the rescues distressing.
Speaker: I always enjoyed doing them.
Speaker: I always enjoyed the challenge.
Speaker: But I definitely, when it came to major first aids and if they involve children, yeah.
Speaker: They stick with you.
Speaker: And mate, I know that you're very active, you move the body a lot.
Speaker: You've, you know, you mentioned before karate and so on.
Speaker: How do you deal with the stress?
Speaker: I'm actually answering the question for you.
Speaker: I know you do a lot of exercise, but is there any other ways or, you know, give us, give us a, tell us how you deal with your stress.
Speaker: Well, you know, I mentioned that term internalising things, which is a male problem and continues to this day, although we do have a lot of material out there to help people realise that it's not the way to go.
Speaker: I was always lucky.
Speaker: I'm like you two.
Speaker: I love a chat.
Speaker: And I think that is imperative.
Speaker: when you're dealing with something that is distressing is you've got to talk to your peers.
Speaker: And I know you guys do a lot of that now.
Speaker: Talking about what's happened and not internalising it, that I think is the key to dealing with those stressful situations.
Speaker: Yeah, 100%.
Speaker: And like adding on to that, do you like to exercise if you are a little bit stressed?
Speaker: Do you like to just go and blow off some steam?
Speaker: Yeah, well, I definitely do.
Speaker: I mean, we, you know, having lost a child a few years back, I could have taken one of two paths, one not so good in terms of how I dealt with that loss.
Speaker: And I found that, you know, throwing myself into exercise and eating well, I knew that was the path I had to take.
Speaker: And it's definitely the way to go.
Speaker: You know, just whether it's running, surfing, no matter what you do, keep the wheels turning.
Speaker: Yeah, keep it well oiled and moving, mate.
Speaker: Yeah, you've had some stressful times over the years, mate.
Speaker: And, you know, me and you have had some really good chats over time and you mentioned it's very important to talk to mates and people that, you know, in my eyes, Loz, you know, you're still young, you know, even though you're a little bit old, you're very experienced.
Speaker: But, you know, me and you have had some really good in-depth combos about life, about situations, about stress.
Speaker: And you're definitely one of the more role models I'll turn to to get some advice.
Speaker: So thank you for helping me and stuff that you've dealt with.
Speaker: I'm always here to listen and help.
Speaker: And helping you, I'm helping me.
Speaker: It's a two-way street.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: That's often the way, isn't it?
Speaker: That's what people don't, you know, realise.
Speaker: You know, helping each other and if you're feeling a bit and you can help someone else, it makes you feel better too.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, just start the conversations.
Speaker: It's so important.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So, Laurie, to just mix it then a little bit, we want to know all about this history.
Speaker: So you're often known as the Bondi historian.
Speaker: Tell us about it.
Speaker: I am fascinated by it, about this.
Speaker: So, yeah, tell us about it.
Speaker: Well, it started...
Speaker: uh you know when i changed roles with council um i had a lot to do with bondi pavilion and remember that building is something is a building i've worked out of for most of my working life without knowing anything about its history yes um you know it was a place we got changed and showered and so on so forth um
Speaker: When I took on this new role on a place management team, I had to learn about that building very quickly because I was responsible for the maintenance there.
Speaker: And out of that, I'd always had a love of history going back to school.
Speaker: It was one of my pet subjects.
Speaker: But out of that, having to research the pavilion grew my love of the history of the area.
Speaker: And it grew and it grew.
Speaker: And of course, you know, I was fascinated by what went on, on, you know, the busiest beach in Australia.
Speaker: And there was so much because we're so close to the city.
Speaker: We're the first, we're the beach of choice for anyone that comes out of here, any type of celebrity, whether it's in the entertainment industry or sporting.
Speaker: And it's always been like that.
Speaker: That's what I found.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: my appreciation for that history grew and grew and grew and I decided to create the Bondi Historium and specialise in Bondi history.
Speaker: Aligned with that around the same time, I knew that we hadn't, you know, I thought it was wrong that we hadn't documented the history of the lifeguard service.
Speaker: So I knew we were on the threshold of 100 years.
Speaker: This is
Speaker: 1913 to 2013.
Speaker: So 1912, sorry, 2012, I embarked on a project to document the history of the lifeguard service, Bondi, Brony and Tamarama, and have that ready, a potted history ready for our celebrations in 2013.
Speaker: I've gone on from that now, and I intend doing an audio book
Speaker: which will thread the history of the lifeguards through all the different periods in time.
Speaker: So in the context of things like two world wars, the Great Depression, the social change at the end of the Second World War, and so on, just to make it a, you know, a riveting and interesting read.
Speaker: My social media is really all about sharing these stories with people
Speaker: Anyone, anyone and everyone, I want them to get an appreciation of what has gone on in this wonderful place for years and years.
Speaker: Loz, we've had some great chats over time about some of the history around Bondi and I just can't get my head around some of the...
Speaker: Yeah, the good history, the bad history, the dark history, there's so much that has gone on around these sands.
Speaker: And it's not just in the last couple of hundred years, we're talking thousands of years back in the indigenous history as well.
Speaker: And with the history stuff that you do do, you just mentioned before, it's just around Bondi, but is there any other history that you really enjoy to learn or know about?
Speaker: Well, I love all history.
Speaker: Anything that's historical is of interest to me, whether it's ancient Egypt, imperial Rome, classical Greek history.
Speaker: It all interests me because although it might be in the past, there's definitely lessons to learn from the past going forward.
Speaker: So I'll always draw some sort of influence from what I read.
Speaker: about history of different civilizations.
Speaker: Indigenous history I love.
Speaker: You know, I'm really fascinated by it and I love it.
Speaker: When I was doing history walks, it's always how I begin and always how I end.
Speaker: because it is a fascinating story when you think of their history in Sydney in particular, you know, which I know in other parts of the country it goes back as far as 65, 70,000 years, which is simply amazing.
Speaker: But in the Sydney area, maybe around 20,000 years, maybe, and probably longer.
Speaker: Yeah, all that stuff fascinates me.
Speaker: Have you got something for the people listening?
Speaker: Because we do have people all over the world that listen to this podcast about different things.
Speaker: And have you got something there that you can share about Indigenous history for 20,000 years?
Speaker: The last 20,000 years?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, look, a lot of...
Speaker: A lot of the traces of their existence along coastal New South Wales is underwater because at the end of the last ice age, with the Great Melt, we lost a lot of coastal New South Wales up to however many k's out to sea.
Speaker: So there is history that's submerged.
Speaker: Aboriginal ceremonial site at North Bondi is really special to me.
Speaker: It's hundreds, if not thousands of years old.
Speaker: It's a series of petroglyphs or carvings on a sandstone outcrop.
Speaker: And the fact that it has a dual meaning, both
Speaker: One side of it is spiritual, celebrating the marine animals that sustain them.
Speaker: And also it was a practical pointer for anyone that was visiting.
Speaker: And of course, there was a whole ritual around other tribes visiting outside of their own areas.
Speaker: But it indicated where those sources of food could be found.
Speaker: For example, there were those carvings of shark, whale, fish, a number of different fish.
Speaker: And, you know, I love that they may have, men may have danced to Korobori because it's said, and it's not conclusive, but it said that it was a ceremonial ground for
Speaker: boys becoming men so they would have danced to corroboree so there's nothing um you know just standing up there and looking at the expanse of the ocean and looking all the way down to maroobra and just dropping yourself into that time when there was nothing there but sand dunes and scrub and ocean and
Speaker: you know, a bonfire and, you know, men dancing this ritual that they'd done for, you know, probably a few thousand years.
Speaker: That's pretty magical.
Speaker: Amazing stuff, mate.
Speaker: Incredible.
Speaker: Absolutely incredible.
Speaker: I could listen to you for hours, Laurie.
Speaker: I really caught it.
Speaker: That audio book, mate, that's going to be something that's going to be on repeat.
Speaker: I'll tell you, you would have some amazing stories to share.
Speaker: And you know what as well, the fact that it is being documented, I mean, just like these stories need to be told, don't they?
Speaker: So that they get written down, that they get spoken about, that they get passed on for the generations.
Speaker: There's so much history that gets lost.
Speaker: And, you know, when we've, we've come, you will know, Maxie loves his history.
Speaker: When we've traveled, you know, we, we, if we've ever got half an hour in a town, Maxie, where is the, always the first place we go and look for?
Speaker: museum or you know the oldest place in the town that we can you know like how old is this place and um i love that he asks the questions yeah you always ask the questions the thing is he used to ask me the questions because you know we'd be in the uk he'd be asking me the questions thinking i had all the answers and i'd be like
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: You got the wrong idea.
Speaker: I'm just adding on to that.
Speaker: Lee just made a good point.
Speaker: It's so important to document history.
Speaker: I think it is because people can learn from past mistakes or, you know, in the past of learning things of how they did things back in the day and how beautiful and rich life would have been.
Speaker: But, mate, hats off to you.
Speaker: I've been living in the eastern suburbs now and I've done more schooling for the last, you know, 20 plus years.
Speaker: And I don't think I've come across someone yet in all the different people that we meet as lifeguards and, you know, different types that have
Speaker: dedicated some time or a lot of time to the history.
Speaker: And the fact that you're going to be documenting this through audio books or through books, and if you have done that, you know, how lucky are the people from the eastern suburbs, people from Sydney, people in New South Wales, Australia, around the world.
Speaker: The fact that you have that passion, mate, so many people are going to benefit from it.
Speaker: So thank you for doing what you do.
Speaker: I feel I'm the lucky one because...
Speaker: I'm just telling the stories.
Speaker: Yeah, but you're telling the stories, but no one really has kind of told the stories the way that you tell the story.
Speaker: So that's a beautiful thing, I think.
Speaker: Do you know what I think?
Speaker: So many people talk, but what you're actually doing, Laurie, is listening and documenting it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it stands the test of time.
Speaker: So, you know, people will say things, but very few people will actually take the time to care enough
Speaker: to go, we need to write this down or we need to talk this and record it.
Speaker: And we need to.
Speaker: And that takes someone like very special, which you obviously are to go, you know what, we're going to capture this because in the blink of an eye, it can be gone.
Speaker: You know, one person knows a really cool thing and then the next thing they're not around and it can really happen.
Speaker: In the case of almost half a generation, the stories get lost.
Speaker: So the fact that you've cared enough to listen and then write it, I think is pretty special.
Speaker: And if I can jump in, Lee, it's important to me as well because we've had a major shift in demographics down here and even the socioeconomics of the place has changed dramatically from what was primarily a working class
Speaker: say middle, lower to middle class area and now it's, you know, it's moneyed up around here.
Speaker: It's expensive to live here.
Speaker: There's a lot of new residents, but I will say there's a lot of the new residents that want to know more about the place and I'm happy to be that guy.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: That tells the story.
Speaker: It was home for you and it's your, like, where you, but for people that have moved to Bondi, it's a very privileged place to live now.
Speaker: It's a, you know, it's an extraordinary place and it is a real privilege to be able to live somewhere like Bondi.
Speaker: So I've been down here now, I think next year is 53 years, and there's still people around here, probably around the same age and older, that see me as a blow-in from Paddo.
Speaker: And hey, I get that.
Speaker: I was born and raised, born in Surrey Hills and raised in Paddington by, you know, a third generation Paddo mother.
Speaker: I get that, but Bondi was my salvation.
Speaker: It was, you know, it's where I grew up.
Speaker: If you haven't got three generations in the graveyard or whatever, you've got no chance to get in a street named after you.
Speaker: Or is that still, you know, my first home was Country Victoria and that was a bit the same there.
Speaker: You know, 53 years, Laurie, you just like, you know, you came in from around the corner.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And, you know, I'm good with that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was my salvation and it's truly the place where I grew as a person.
Speaker: So I'm...
Speaker: What a journey, absolutely.
Speaker: Great stuff, mate.
Speaker: No, yeah, I was just going to say there's a question here that we missed for before we went into the history.
Speaker: And I'm just going to just quickly ask, because I know you spoke about mentors and stuff before, but best piece of advice you've ever been given?
Speaker: Ah, there's a couple of good ones.
Speaker: Yeah, one of the best ones was surround yourself with people that talk about ideas and not other people.
Speaker: Oh, I love that.
Speaker: It's, you know, I've heard different versions of it, but I love it because, you know, it's all about talking about positive things and not small talking about other people.
Speaker: Another classic from an old timer was never start an argument and never finish one.
Speaker: And I didn't understand it at the time, but now I do.
Speaker: You know, it's,
Speaker: just biting your tongue, let the other person let off their steam and don't finish it.
Speaker: You know, that's just an ego thing.
Speaker: That's a really good one.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: And on a lighter note, don't piss into the wind.
Speaker: Or eat yellow snow.
Speaker: I was going to say that you eat yellow snow, that's like, that's from my, that would be good advice in winter in England for sure.
Speaker: But not over here so much, yeah.
Speaker: Not over here so much.
Speaker: I just thought that would throw that in for a bit of levity.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Brilliant, brilliant.
Speaker: That's great, mate.
Speaker: And like I said, that was just before we went into history.
Speaker: But before we go into Lee's next question, just give us one quick crazy Bondi fact if you got one.
Speaker: I do.
Speaker: A lot of people wouldn't realise.
Speaker: Now, I thought about, you know, Nosy Bob, the colonies hangman who lived, you know, responsible for 60 odd hangings as the state hangman, essentially.
Speaker: But I thought about, you know, that's becoming more commonly known now, Nosy Bob Howard.
Speaker: But I thought about Shark Alley.
Speaker: Now, do you know about Shark Alley, Trent?
Speaker: I do.
Speaker: I've heard a bit about Shark Alley over the years, but I'm sure Lee and others listening haven't heard of Shark Alley.
Speaker: I don't know about Shark Alley.
Speaker: So now the rip in the north corner has always been called the Kitty's Rip.
Speaker: And the reason it's called the Kitty's Rip is because it's the place you learn about...
Speaker: using a rip to your advantage um so you know kids were thrown in there with their dads or their mums and they just allow the rip to take them out and feed them back on around the back of the sandbank and so you learn how the more benign side of the river yeah back in the day however um and we're talking about back in the 1920s 1930s even beforehand it was known as shark alley
Speaker: Of course, deep water being a rip.
Speaker: There were a lot of fish around back then, lots of big schools of salmon and kingfish and all sorts of other critters.
Speaker: And that was the shark's little stomping ground up there.
Speaker: And we're not talking about grey nurses.
Speaker: We're talking about tigers and bronze whaler sharks.
Speaker: So there was a pastime.
Speaker: There are a number of local fishermen who used to stand on the beach and it was a sport.
Speaker: They would bait sharks and pull them into the beach.
Speaker: with a line, pull them into the beach, prise out their jaws, leave the carcasses rotting on the sand.
Speaker: And this was all out of Shark Alley, most of it done in Shark Alley at North Bondi until the council stepped in and said, that's not hygienic.
Speaker: You at least bury the carcass of the shark.
Speaker: So there were Nosy Bob, going back to Nosy Bob, the colony's hangman,
Speaker: He lived on Brighton Boulevard, North Bondi.
Speaker: He lived a solitary life because of his occupation.
Speaker: But he was one of those guys.
Speaker: He'd bring his horse down.
Speaker: He'd have a rope attached to the saddle.
Speaker: On the end of the rope, there'd be a hook or a gaff.
Speaker: and he'd put a leg of mutton and he'd pull in a shark and then give his horse a slap on the rump and the horse would drag the shark in on the end of the rope and then he'd prise out the jaw and he had his backyard at North Bondi.
Speaker: He kept a beautiful vegetable garden there, but he had all these shark jaws and those were his features.
Speaker: Those were his garden features, all these shark jaws.
Speaker: There's a little known fact.
Speaker: Yeah, wow.
Speaker: It's amazing.
Speaker: I always thought this was going that the guys, so I just got like the rip for the kids with the thing and then the fishermen would goading the sharks into the rip with the kids and I thought, oh my, where's the list of having us?
Speaker: The shark, Ali,
Speaker: There wouldn't be a school ever, I reckon, how many we've been to now, Maxie, over 70, there wouldn't be a school that hasn't had the shark question.
Speaker: Well, good thing.
Speaker: Good to know also the last two fatal shark attacks at Bondi Beach were one month apart in 1929, so a long time ago, and the chances of that happening are very, very, very minor.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: That's what Maxine, what do you say, Maxine?
Speaker: No, no, the sharks are all right.
Speaker: They won't bother you, but watch the crocs.
Speaker: The crocs, the crocs get you.
Speaker: And rule of thumb, see a school of fish, go the other way.
Speaker: Go the other way.
Speaker: Don't go near them.
Speaker: Don't think that it's cool and you're going to be swimming amongst the fishes because someone else wants, you know, to do some serious business there.
Speaker: Someone else thinks that as lunch.
Speaker: It's the man in the grey suit.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Stay away from the school of fish.
Speaker: Stay away.
Speaker: Stay away.
Speaker: So if you weren't a life god, am I in the right place now?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I love the way this chat's going.
Speaker: So if you weren't a life god, what do you think you would have been?
Speaker: Um, I did, I, I, I was enrolled at Wollongong Uni, um, in sports science.
Speaker: So I would have gone down that path.
Speaker: I would have been a sports physiologist.
Speaker: I, you know, I still have a love of, um, human movement and, um, you know, in different sports.
Speaker: So that's, I had to think about that.
Speaker: Not, I'm pretty sure that's the path I would have taken.
Speaker: I think what, what,
Speaker: probably put the dampener on that for me was the travel between Wollongong and Sydney and keeping up a career as a lifeguard.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it would have been tough.
Speaker: But, mate, like I said, going for the ranks as a lifeguards, how long did you run the beach for again?
Speaker: Actually manage the beach.
Speaker: Yeah, manage the beach like a top dog.
Speaker: Look, it was only a couple of years, but it was a...
Speaker: really, it was a watershed period for the lifeguards.
Speaker: It was like the great leap forward.
Speaker: We needed to make some serious changes to how we conducted the service.
Speaker: And it was a big challenge for both Bruce Hopkins, Hoppo and I. And we got through that period and, you know,
Speaker: you guys have taken it forward and continue to raise the bar um so yeah it was 2000 to 2002 2003. good stuff mate good stuff incredible and like you say all that work to bring the professionalism to the service to you know be the elite elite life gods that you you all are because there's no
Speaker: no roadmap when you're starting that from nothing before at the, you know, one of the busiest beaches in the world.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly right.
Speaker: It's, you know, it's, you would have seen a lot of change over the years, mate.
Speaker: And, you know, the stuff that you've bought, so not just me, but other lifeguards, you know, I truly thank you for all your time, your service and so on.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: And just going on to the last two questions, Loz, what advice would you give to your younger self right now?
Speaker: If you saw your younger self, young Loz in front of him right now, what advice would you give him?
Speaker: I think, and this is what I've found with lifeguarding and, you know, the love of history, is find a passion.
Speaker: It's easy.
Speaker: Something that you love, pursue it.
Speaker: and get better at it because it's going to lead places.
Speaker: And I know both of you will agree with that because you're both good examples of that adage.
Speaker: Find a passion, find something you love to do and pursue it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's great advice, mate.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: That's to my younger self.
Speaker: Yeah, I love it.
Speaker: It's so true because, like, you know, I think certainly when I was, some of the attitudes, like, from older generations when I was leaving school, it was,
Speaker: You just get a job.
Speaker: You know, you get a job and you're happy you've got a job and you're grateful for it.
Speaker: And if it's a job for life, all well and good.
Speaker: But that's not necessarily the way it should be because you've got to do something that you love because you work a lot of your life.
Speaker: And if you've got something that you love, you want to get better at it.
Speaker: You want to you've genuinely got an interest of it.
Speaker: So I think, you know, that is as good of advice that you can give.
Speaker: Because if you're doing something you love, you want to learn more about it.
Speaker: It's natural.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Loz, we've spoken just before we did the podcast.
Speaker: Have you got a song or two that we could add to the playlist that gives you a bit of fire in the belly, that hypes you up, puts a smile on your face, gets you ready for a good day on the sand?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Russell Morris.
Speaker: Russell Morris.
Speaker: Russell Morris, the real thing.
Speaker: He's an Australian...
Speaker: Artist, love that song.
Speaker: Old school, not so old school, but increasingly becoming old school, Long Road to Ruin by the Foo Fighters.
Speaker: Go the Foo, go the Foo.
Speaker: And I know that Russell Morris is back doing a national tour at the moment, but yeah, that's a classic get fired up song.
Speaker: All right, well, I'm going to play the Russell Morris song, maybe because you mentioned it twice in the last minute, so here we go.
Speaker: Let's get it on, let's have a listen.
Speaker: Come and see the real thing, come and see the real thing, come and see.
Speaker: How good?
Speaker: How good?
Speaker: It gets better.
Speaker: It just gets louder and better.
Speaker: It's just like a fine wine, mate.
Speaker: It just keeps getting better.
Speaker: Like a crescendo.
Speaker: When you're in the car, do you just like turn it up a bit?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's on my list, yeah.
Speaker: It's on my plate.
Speaker: It's like you start off and then you turn up a bit, you turn up a bit, turn up a bit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I never get tired of it, Lee.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: I've got about 400 songs plus on my playlist and never get tired of that one or I keep coming back to it.
Speaker: No, it's good.
Speaker: Music is just the best thing for just like, you know.
Speaker: It's good for the soul.
Speaker: Change your mood.
Speaker: Good for the soul.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: So, Loz, before we wrap up, mate, it's been a great chat.
Speaker: With this audio book, is there a timeline of when you think it would be either available or finished or obviously it's a work in progress?
Speaker: 2024 is my year for really nailing this project.
Speaker: I think it's a good thing.
Speaker: You know, telling the lifeguard history is...
Speaker: It's not bland, it's a good read, but telling it in the context of what was going on in Bondi
Speaker: and the world at the time is an even better read.
Speaker: Because you get to see how it affected social values and attitudes, how the lifeguards, the beach inspectors responded to that.
Speaker: I just think you color it, you've got a much more extensive palette when you
Speaker: involve all those amazing periods of time like you know two world wars um the great depression how you know um all the deprivations of that time
Speaker: And then, you know, that social change at the end of the Second World War was remarkable when you think about going into the 50s and 60s with fashion and music and resistance to authority and, you know, the way that affected the beach inspectors at the time.
Speaker: And these were guys that were well into their careers.
Speaker: They were...
Speaker: 20, 30, 40 years into the job and still treating the job like something like the 20s and 30s.
Speaker: Suddenly they've gone from heroes to villains.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You're saying that, mate.
Speaker: With the 20s and 30s and 40s, who was the first lifeguard?
Speaker: So the first lifeguard was a guy called Dennis, nicknamed Dinny, which was Dennis for short in those days.
Speaker: Dennis the Menace.
Speaker: Dennis Brown.
Speaker: Dennis the Menace.
Speaker: Dennis the Menace.
Speaker: He's a broadie boy.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: I remember you telling me a story.
Speaker: He was running a boy and that's where he is in the surf club over there and he'd come over and... He had to join Bondi Surf Club because for decades, literally decades, the surf clubs were... They influenced who got the job.
Speaker: You didn't get a job unless you were a member of a surf club and unless you got the tick, the green tick, from whatever surf club it was because Bondi was the first beach where they appointed...
Speaker: a lifeguard in Waverley, then he was required to join Bondi Surf Club.
Speaker: But he stuck around for 10 years and the great Stan McDonald came on a very short time after Dennis, didn't he?
Speaker: And he was, you know, he stood head and shoulders above
Speaker: you know, lifeguards down the years.
Speaker: He was a great man, apparently.
Speaker: Yeah, but it was a brawny boy.
Speaker: He took the honours.
Speaker: Well, there you go.
Speaker: And people wouldn't realise the Bondi and Bronte rivalry, but I'm sure you have the answer.
Speaker: Which come first, Bronte or Bondi Surf Club?
Speaker: Controversial.
Speaker: Yeah, look, it's controversial.
Speaker: You know, look, Bronnie have got a strong case, but what stood against them in the end is the fact it's called primary evidence and it's paperwork, it's minutes of meetings.
Speaker: that Bondi were able to produce and say, we held a meeting at this venue on this date and these are the minutes of those meetings.
Speaker: And that's why North Bondi and Bronnie more so, because they claim to have been founded in 1903.
Speaker: Bondi was founded in February 1907.
Speaker: So Bronnie will stand by that until...
Speaker: It's forever.
Speaker: See, Maxie, that's why our charity board meeting notes are so important.
Speaker: Someone wrote it down and dated it and signed it.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Have you noticed that we finished five, ten minutes ago, but I just keep hitting you with questions because it's so important.
Speaker: Oh, and another thing.
Speaker: That is just like, you know, it's incredible.
Speaker: And, you know, wish you all the luck with getting your audio book.
Speaker: Please keep us posted.
Speaker: We'll be listening.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: You didn't ask me my funniest moment.
Speaker: Oh, here we go.
Speaker: I'm looking at this.
Speaker: What was your funniest moment over the years, mate?
Speaker: Go for it, Loz.
Speaker: Tell us.
Speaker: Well,
Speaker: We used to play pranks on each other.
Speaker: Nothing new, eh?
Speaker: Nothing new.
Speaker: This was another level.
Speaker: So this guy that I worked with, Al, he used to train in the gym.
Speaker: He loved punching the bag for his workout, speedball, bag, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: And before he went in, he'd
Speaker: have a blender and he put in whatever he had in there, all these wheat germ and milk and egg and banana, but he let it sit there.
Speaker: So I thought one day that I'd get some blue bottle solution, which was blue colour, and throw that into the mix and hit the
Speaker: And he looked at it.
Speaker: He had no idea, but he did once he smelled it.
Speaker: And he smiled at me, and I wasn't to know that right grin meant bad things were coming my way.
Speaker: Bad things were coming.
Speaker: Let me tell you what he did.
Speaker: He waited.
Speaker: He waited and he waited until I thought it had died down and gone.
Speaker: Anyway, what he had done in the meantime was he waited until we had an influx of blue bottles washed up on the beach.
Speaker: He cut off two long tails, which is where the sting is.
Speaker: For anyone out there that doesn't know, the sting is in the tail of the blue bottle and it's nasty.
Speaker: And he dried them on a coat hanger, on a wire coat hanger.
Speaker: He hung them up, he dried them.
Speaker: Then he threaded the tail through a needle, you know, tied it off.
Speaker: Then he got a pair of my costumes and sewed the blue bottle sting
Speaker: All good.
Speaker: Here we go.
Speaker: I put my costumes on.
Speaker: No problem.
Speaker: I didn't know.
Speaker: So I'm walking down the promenade, hot day, and of course you get a bit sweaty under the arms in the crutch area.
Speaker: The sweat is activating the sting.
Speaker: I'm walking along and I'm scratching my groin.
Speaker: And this went on for two or three days until finally,
Speaker: One of the guys came up to me and said, mate, we can't stand this anymore.
Speaker: It's embarrassing.
Speaker: You're walking along the promenade scratching your groin.
Speaker: Oh, that's the best.
Speaker: People are watching you.
Speaker: Then they told me he'd sew two dried blue bottle stings into my costumes.
Speaker: That's unbelievable, mate.
Speaker: It's so nice.
Speaker: Sorry, you go, Maxie.
Speaker: No, sorry, Lee.
Speaker: You go, go, go.
Speaker: I was going to say, so my question is, did you go, okay, we're quits, or did you also then think you'll keep?
Speaker: You know what, Lee?
Speaker: Any person that is capable of taking a prank to that level is someone to be feared.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: There's no way.
Speaker: That was it.
Speaker: There's another story there.
Speaker: There's another story that I know of.
Speaker: This one was...
Speaker: You know, it sounds like maybe it wasn't Al, but maybe it was someone else, but the prawn heads.
Speaker: Yeah, the prawn heads.
Speaker: That was... Tell us that one before we wrap it up.
Speaker: Well, I think that might have been Kerr Box.
Speaker: And I think, you know, I played some pretty nasty tricks on Box in his early days.
Speaker: Although I'm going to cut this ex-pro surfer down to size.
Speaker: You know, same thing.
Speaker: He was from Bronnie and those guys grow up on that stuff.
Speaker: You know, they chew pranks up.
Speaker: And what he'd done was the classic, he'd...
Speaker: I think he got into my car, he got the keys to my car and he stuck a bunch of prawn heads somewhere in the car where I could not find it and it reeked.
Speaker: You know, I thought I'd heard of this joke before but I got in the car.
Speaker: I didn't think anyone was capable of it but, yeah, Box took it to another level.
Speaker: And you had to...
Speaker: My memory of this story, you had to sell the car because the stances that bad?
Speaker: I think you're right.
Speaker: I think I got rid of the car.
Speaker: There was no getting it out.
Speaker: It was unbelievable.
Speaker: I think he got under the back of the seat.
Speaker: He got into the boot and got it under the back seat where you couldn't reach it.
Speaker: You had no idea.
Speaker: You know, back in the day, it was in the hub.
Speaker: You'd take off the caps off the wheels, the hubcaps.
Speaker: And you know, that's easy.
Speaker: You just take them out, no big deal.
Speaker: But in this, yeah, he went all the way.
Speaker: And it wouldn't surprise me if he collaborated with Al.
Speaker: Best ever.
Speaker: He probably got his advice from Al.
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: Evil.
Speaker: That was evil.
Speaker: Evil.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Mate, you know what?
Speaker: I'm just, we had our retread second guest again.
Speaker: We had, you know, Piers, who's a follower that I work with.
Speaker: We had him on again for a second time.
Speaker: And I think, Loz, we'd love to have you on again in the future, a second time.
Speaker: We could talk about the audio book, a little bit more about history and so on.
Speaker: It's been an absolute great chat.
Speaker: I love talking to you guys.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: Next time I'm in Bondi, and you've got half an hour, three, I'll shout you a cup of coffee.
Speaker: Can we go for a walk?
Speaker: You're on.
Speaker: Yeah, Lodge.
Speaker: Actually, of all the years I've spent time in the tower and going for walks on the beach, mate, we should do the Bondi Historian walk that you've done.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, let's do it.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: I would love that because I like to do the walk and I read some of the signage that's on the walk, you know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm doing it just as a tourist.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'll send you, I just showed Laurie earlier the two photos of my first time that I went to Bondi.
Speaker: So I'll scan those photos and I'll send them to you because I love what you're doing.
Speaker: And I remember, you know, Bondi is iconic for people in the UK.
Speaker: They have a love of Australia, people in America, anyone, they come to Australia, they want to see Bondi Beach.
Speaker: Want to see Bondi Beach.
Speaker: And it is, you know, the first time you see it, it's like seeing, you know, the first time you're going to fly into Sydney, all you want to see is the Opera House and the bridge.
Speaker: Can I give it a plug?
Speaker: Can you let me do a plug?
Speaker: Yeah, go.
Speaker: Well, do you want some quirky stories?
Speaker: Bondi Historian on Instagram or Facebook?
Speaker: Facebook is the full version.
Speaker: Yeah, we will share all of this when we share the podcast.
Speaker: We'll make sure we have all your socials.
Speaker: We'll make sure we share the podcast and we'll give your socials a wrap, mate, because it's a really good thing you're doing.
Speaker: Amazing.
Speaker: Great talk to you guys.
Speaker: It's been an absolute pleasure.
Speaker: I have loved every minute of it.
Speaker: Yeah, it was fun.
Speaker: I enjoyed it.
Speaker: That was fun.
Speaker: I knew you were a legend and now I really know you're a legend, Loz.
Speaker: No, I'm just one of you guys.
Speaker: You're a good man, mate.
Speaker: I will see you later because this is a prerecord, but I'll see you later, Loz.
Speaker: Yeah, I'll only have a couple, but definitely one of those will be with you.
Speaker: Look forward to seeing you, mate.
Speaker: Great talking to both of you.
Speaker: See you guys.
Speaker: Take care, everyone.
Speaker: See you.
Speaker: Bye.
