Cook's Hill Life Saving & Surf Club

Price: $59.99

by John Ramsland

The first hundred years

 

This is a graphic saga of a great community surf club. Founded in 1911, the original members hailed from Cook’s Hill, a struggling working-class precinct of Newcastle. Men were involved in heavy industry, confronted on a daily basis with life-threatening situations. Several of these men volunteered to be surf lifesavers to protect members of the community from the dangers of the deep at Bar Beach, a popular local surfing spot. With modest resources, ordinary Australians began to do extraordinary things.

What unfolds is a tale of heroism, of sporting accomplishment through adversity — two world wars and, in between, the Great Depression — and then on to the 21st century. There are stories of exciting, hotly contested carnivals, ferocious deadly shark attacks and heroic rescues. There is a history of ups and downs, but even by 1928, Cook’s Hill had indelibly stamped itself as a premier club on the national scene and ever since then winning innumerable awards.