The first Kylie

     March 12^th 2012 is the centenary of the birth of novelist Kylie Tennant, who was born at Clifford Avenue, Manly.  On the anniversary I am planning to give an illustrated lecture about Tennant’s childhood, asking, what was Manly like in the 1910s and 1920s?  There is a short biography, Kylie Tennant by Jane Grant, which gives illuminating detail on Tennant’s later life, but says comparatively little about her early years, and Tennant’s autobiography, The Missing Heir, is cryptic and not terribly helpful.

     I have been looking into the name ‘Kylie’.  Where did it come from?  A commonly accepted explanation up to now has been that it came from an Aboriginal word for a type of boomerang, and in that sense the word was used in several newspaper reports from the 19^th century.  However, ‘Kylie’ was also used to refer to a type of Scottish cattle from the Kyle locality, imported to Australia from the 1870s, and either derivation seems as likely as the other.

     The earliest use of ‘Kylie’ as a forename that I have found was for a girl called Kylie Brown, who was a helper on a stall at the bazaar of Manly Cottage Hospital in 1898 (see SMH 17 October  1898).  Her mother, Mrs Mary Brown, was on the hospital’s fund-raising committee, and her father was a Mr Alexander Brown; they lived for a time at Crescent Street, Manly.  Kylie Brown later married Frank Leonard Row, otherwise known as ‘Banger’ Row, a prominent rugby union player, who represented NSW against Queensland and Great Britain.  In fact, her full name was Mary Kyle Brown, so in this case, ‘Kylie’ was more of a nickname than a forename in its own right, and again links to Scotland rather than to boomerangs.  However, her local popularity may have prompted other Manly parents to choose the name, because as well as Kylie Tennant, there was also a Kylie Lough, who was a year or two Tennant’s junior.

     Only one Kylie was listed in NSW birth records prior to 1912, a Kylie Morgan, born at Bowral in 1907.  Was she the first Aussie Kylie?

     As it happens, Kylie Tennant was christened Kathleen, and it is not clear when this became Kylie, but she was certainly referred to as Kylie at school at Brighton College, Manly, and she was the first person to be listed in NSW marriage records as ‘Kylie’.  She may be somewhere in this photograph of pupils at Brighton College, perhaps in the row of older girls on the upstairs balcony, but I have not been able to identify her.  (I feel sympathy for the little boys in the photo, overwhelmed by the girls!)

     Her celebrity, even notoriety, in the 1930s and 1940s led to a wave of parents choosing the name for their girls in the 1950s and 60s, and then along came the other Kylie, and global domination was assured.

JMacR

Lighthouse Service Station

     I was contacted by Ann Krasny who provided some helpful information about the Lighthouse Service Station in Sydney Road, Fairlight, which was run by Franz and Paul Krasny in the early 1940s.

     This service station was erected in 1930 on the corner of Sydney Road and Woods Parade, designed by architect Frederick Fuller in a vaguely Spanish Mission style.  It is shown in the photo in October 1931, located adjacent to the "Heath Buildings", which featured a distinctive painted advert for tea. 

     In its early years it was known as the Auto Super Service Station, and was run by a Mr Ginsburg and a Mr Hartigan, who were also agents for Chevrolet motor cars.  They appear to have gone out of business in early 1940, when wartime restrictions meant fewer cars on the road.  Around then, the garage was renamed the Lighthouse Service Station, and at that time it was numbered 113 Sydney Road.  In turn this was replaced with the Manly Motors Garage, which was still in business into the 1950s.

     If you have any memories of these service stations, I would be pleased to pass them on to Ann.

JMacR

Bright Lights of Manly

     Neon lighting arrived in Australia towards the end of 1929.  It had been successfully demonstrated by French scientist Georges Claude as early as 1910, and the Claude Neon Lighting Company held the principal patents for the process.  They defended their patents vigorously, but when their principal patent expired in 1932, numerous competitors entered the field, greatly expanding the market.

     Businesses in Manly wishing to install external neon lighting for the purpose of advertising had to put in an application to Manly Council’s Health and Building Committee, whose minutes have survived from the late 1920s onwards.  The first shops to apply were premises at 8 Corso and 104 Corso in July and August 1930, followed by the Dungowan dance-hall on South Steyne.  Their signs were made by Claude Neon Lights NSW Ltd.

     Owing to the Depression, there were no applications in 1931, but in 1932 the Rialto Cinema and Balgowlah Theatre, the New Brighton Hotel (see photo), and several cafes on the Corso installed neon lighting.  By the end of 1933 all the main hotels and cinemas in Manly and many of the businesses on the Corso had applied to erect neon signs, either from the Claude Neon Company or from Messrs Neon Signs Ltd., or occasionally from the Radiant Signs Co.  In the case of the Hotel Manly, what is more, the sign was “animated”.  The bright lights had come to Manly.

Manly Amateur Athletic Club

     Manly Amateur Athletic Club began just after World War One, although an earlier Manly Athletic Club had existed at the turn of the century.  Early meets of the club were limited by the lack of illumination at Manly Oval, but after 1920, floodlighting was put in and training could be conducted properly.  In the 1920s the club was famous for its annual Manly Modified Marathon race, a race of some twelve or thirteen miles from Manly to Narrabeen and back, open to all-comers.  Local identities associated with the club included Don D McIntyre and Ozzie Merrett, who managed the Australian Olympic Games team.

     This photo shows the committee of Manly Amateur Athletic Club in 1926.  It was donated by Mrs Lyneve Hunt, whose father, Stewart Peterson is in the front row, left. 

     Back row, l to r: Eric Nettheim, Eric Whitehead, n/k.

     Middle row: Ben Johnston, A H Smith (Club Treasurer), Don D McIntyre (President), D Middleton and Harold Vaughan (Club Secretary).

     Front row: Stewart Peterson, Joe W Morgan, n/k.

     Harold Vaughan was well-known in Manly as the host of the Dungowan Cabaret on South Steyne.  Club Captain Eric Whitehead was a specialist in field events such as shot putt.  Ben Johnston later became a Manly Alderman.  Don McIntyre was a life member of Freshwater Surf Life Saving Club, and later was inducted in the SLSA Hall of Fame for his long association with Surf Life Saving.

     The photo was probably taken at the back of Manly Oval, and it is interesting to note the carved graffiti from the “Robin Patrol” – evidence of a Boy Scout gathering, perhaps?

JMacR

Flying Officer E H Brown, DFC

     Edwin Hanlon Brown was born on 9 May 1918 at Toowomba.  He attended the Grammar School there.  Tall and fair-haired, he came to Sydney to work as a bank clerk with the Union Bank at Crows Nest.  He lived at 56 Fairlight Street, Manly, and joined the Manly Life Saving Club and Manly Hockey Club.  He competed in the Manly LSC team in the Australian surfboat championships.[1]

     He enlisted in October 1940 and became a Flying-Officer with the RAAF, seconded to 682 Squadron RAF.  He flew more than 60 sorties, including one reconnaissance flight prior to the Dieppe Raid which involved extremely dangerous very low-level flying.  Reconnaissance photographs taken by him on this occasion proved to be of great importance to the operation.  He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1943, with the gazettal referring to his 62 sorties and his successful accomplishment of a reconnaissance flight over Naples in April 1943 in the face of heavy and accurate fire from ground defences.  He must have been very brave.

     He was flying a Spitfire on a mission on 5^th May 1943, when he called to say that he was about four miles north of Algiers.  This message was quickly followed by another saying “May Day, I am baling out”.  It is thought that he must have had to bale out at low altitude, as his parachute did not have time to deploy.  His body was recovered from the sea off Algiers, and he was buried at the El Alia military cemetery near that city.  His mother accepted his DFC at a ceremony in Government House, Brisbane.

     A photo of his gravestone has been posted online by volunteers John and Jill Mitchell.  I would love to hear from anyone who knows of a photograph of F/O Brown.

JMacR

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[1] Brisbane Courier-Mail 27 August 1942, p3.