Marg Kentwell (left)
(1950s)

Earlier on, people went because they knew what they were doing. And then we get all the leisure industry and shops selling everything and anybody and everybody goes out and they don’t know what they’re doing. They get stranded in their boats, they have to be rescued by a helicopter or some rot—there is a difference in attitude there. I won’t say the wrong sort of people are going—everybody’s entitled to go and do whatever—but in the earlier times, people knew more of what they were doing. They were less likely to get into trouble.

Bernice Noonan (right)
(1950s)

We were all experienced in a good sport and we all enjoyed it and unless we all pulled together we weren’t going to get there. I didn’t feel that the men were superior or that there was a difference because of the sexes. I never felt that at all. It might have been there for some people but it never bothered me… When I was 27, I had a cerebral haemorrhage and I was paralysed for a while and that part of my life ceased. The doctors told me, ‘No more sport.’

Picture: Neill Lamb collection.