The Robinsons on Holiday

1965

Margaret Robinson recounts her childhood family beach holidays along the NSW coast.

William Patrick (Pat) Robinson had a lifelong love of the beach.  Nothing was better than a day in the sun and the water.

Unfortunately, as a blue-eyed, blonde, fair skinned lad Pat suffered for his passion.  He always told the story from his boyhood that, on one family picnic day at Nielson Park, he was so sunburned he was taken to hospital where they had to cut the shirt from his blistered back.  In his later years he had a regular appointment with the dermatologist to burn away numerous, benign skin cancers.

His wife, Patricia, did not particularly like the beach.  Despite many futile lessons, she never got the hang of swimming.  She preferred cocktails, dining out and dancing to the music of big bands.  However, unlike her husband, she had an olive complexion and would tan to a rich, dark brown.  So she tolerated family beach forays and would spend the day under the beach umbrella, reading and tanning to perfection.

Early Holidays

Holidays, then, were always a beach get-away.  In 1959, when Margaret was five years old and Katherine almost three, Pat drove the family to Terrigal in his clapped out old car lovingly called Bertha.  Before the F3 Expressway was built the old Pacific Highway twisted and turned mercilessly for the whole journey from Sydney.  Katherine, like her father, was miserably car sick and the holiday is memorable for travelling in Bertha’s claustrophobic back seat with Kath vomiting frequently into a bucket.

Kath and Margaret with Bertha the car at Terrigal, 1959

Wangi Wangi

The next holiday of note was around 1965.   Pat had a work colleague who offered him use of his beach house at Wangi Wangi on Lake Macquarie.   The expression on Patricia’s face when the family arrived at the “house” was a mixture of horror and anger.  She was ready to turn around and go straight back home.  The dwelling was a ramshackle fibro hut with bad camp beds and a tin-can dunny way up the backyard.  It was right on the lake but you had to wade through squelchy mud to reach the water.  The family toughed it out for a few days.  There was a reasonable baths a short distance from the house and it occupied the kids until they developed ear infections from the murky water.

Katherine about to hit the water at Wangi Wangi, 1965

Combined with vicious mozzies and spiders, this was probably enough to convince Pat to head back to Sydney.  The best thing Margaret remembers about Wangi is that the artist William Dobell had his studio a few houses up the road and he was regularly seen walking his spaniel along the lakefront.  A bit of history!

Forster

In 1968 Pat finally got the beach holiday right.  He booked a cabin in Forster in the Great Lakes area on the mid-north coast.  It was in a compound of ten, small cabins all of which faced onto a large, grass play area.  There was a communal shower block at one end. 

Margie, Pat & Kath on Forster Beach, 1968.  

That beach umbrella survived with Margaret through to the 1990s and was used on many beach holidays with Yvette & Gabrielle in later years

Pat had invested in a new beach umbrella and an eski which set Patricia up nicely while he and the girls spent hours in the water.  Margaret was allowed to buy her very first bikini and a cool pair of white sunglasses.  She was very pleased with herself. 

On some days Pat hired a tinny boat and the family went tootaling around the lakes.  By chance, Margaret met a school friend who invited her to come water skiing.  She was a slow learner but it was thrilling.

All the families in the compound had kids.  They all congregated in the grass area in the late afternoon and basically just marauded. 

Margie, Kath & second cousin Colleen Seage

Margaret and Katherine were old enough to be left alone within the safe confines of the compound, where there was always some parent on hand to watch over things. Sometimes all the kids would go en masse to the flea bag cinema in town.  This gave Pat and Patricia the freedom to go out for a relaxing drink in a beer garden or to wine, dine and go dancing at the local RSL Club.

Forster met the requirements of each family member so Pat rebooked the cabin for the following year.  But this was to be the last family holiday.  From 1970, Pat and Patricia left their teenage daughters at home and set off on their cruising holidays together (see Pat and Patricia).