A swingin’ summer: groovy Lorne

Of all the towns I’ve visited along the Great Ocean Road, Lorne has always struck me as the most similar to Melbourne. With its upmarket vibe, bustling main drag and manicured foreshore, it comes across like a well-heeled city suburb. Admittedly, I’ve never holidayed there, so my impressions could be way off the mark…

What I do know, however, is that during the 1950s and 1960s, Lorne was about as hip’n’happening as a Victorian holiday spot could be. Come summer, every man and his dog descended upon Lorne: from surfers to beach-babes; beatniks and rock'n'rollers to families on holiday. Hell, the only folks missing were Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon!

Not only did Lorne have sensational surf and idyllic beaches…

Loungin' around on the sand at Lorne. Photo: Trevor Lemke (via Wild on the Beach)

…it had a bohemian coffee house boasting one of the state’s first-ever cappuccino machines….

The Arab, Mountjoy Parade, Lorne. Photo: Trevor Lemke

…AND a jumping live music venue that hosted all the coolest Melbourne bands and hippest punters!

The Spinning Wheels in action at Lorne's Wild Colonial Club. Photo Trevor Lemke (via Wild on the Beach)

Why so serious? An unsmiling quartet of Wild Colonial Club-goers, 1960s. Photo: Trevor Lemke

Wild Colonials on the dancefloor. Photo: Trevor Lemke (via Wild on the Beach)

 Arabs and Wild Colonials

It’s hard to imagine what the town’s residents must have thought when local brothers Graham, Robin and Alistair Smith opened their coffee house The Arab in 1956. After all, this wasn’t moody Greenwich Village or downtown Paris, it was the sun-drenched Australian coast. But somehow, it worked. In his poem, “The Arab”, Lorne poet Hayden Rickey reminisces:

This is where in ‘58
In a summertime of fun
We scattered cushions on the floor
Then sat upon our bum
This is where the action was
The coffee strong, the best
Where plans were hatched for conning birds
Then practised with much zest.

Those little devils.

Caffeine kicks at The Arab (which still exists today, incidentally). Photo: Trevor Lemke (via Wild on the Beach)

By 1958, The Arab was so popular that the enterprising brothers decided to open a larger, live-music venue in an old hall down on the beach’s edge: The Wild Colonial Club. Starting out as a jazzer/beatnik haunt, it hit its rock’n’roll stride once surf culture took off in the early 60s.

Over the course of the decade, bands such as The Spinning Wheels, Max Merrit and the Meteors and The Loved Ones played to high-spirited crowds still buzzing from a day on the beach. (For more Lorne beach action, check out my post on Rennie Ellis’s immortal photos of the time)

Summer means fun: goin' off at the Wild Colonial Club. Photo: Trevor Lemke (via Wild on the Beach)

And if the wild tunes weren’t enough, likely lads such as Hayden Rickey (he of the ‘conning birds’ remark) and surfer Murray Walding (a surfing memorabilia nut who waxes nostalgic about the era here), were never short of a foxy chick to twist, stomp and flirt the night away with...

Lorne lassie. Photo: Trevor Lemke (via Wild on the Beach)

Far-out and fabulous! I want those earrings. Photo: Trevor Lemke (via Wild on the Beach)

Beach blanket bingo, baby! No doubt about it, Lorne was where it was at.

Rennie Ellis: Life’s a Beach

Hark! Is that summer I sense, tentatively showing its unfamiliar face? Of course, I could be speaking too soon, but it does seem to be warming up here in sunny (yes, you read that correctly) Melbourne. That calls for a celebratory end-of-year post featuring the early beach photography of my favourite Aussie photographer, Rennie Ellis…

Back view, Lorne, c. 1968. Photo: Rennie Ellis, copyright Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive

Born in Brighton and educated at Brighton Grammar, Reynolds Mark ‘Rennie’ Ellis (1940-2003) was something of a Renaissance man, working as an advertising copywriter, seaman, creative director, author, gallery owner and TV presenter over the course of his career. But more than anything, he was a photographer, with an instinct for capturing Australian society in all its idiosyncratic glory.

Union Jack, Lorne, c. 1968. Photo: Rennie Ellis, copyright: Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive.

While his subject matter was by no means limited to home soil (he took photos all over the world), it’s his Australian work that resonates most with me. According to the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive, maintained by his second wife and his former assistant, Ellis saw his photographic excursions as a series of encounters with other people's lives. And what people they were: high-spirited and hedonistic, fun-loving and footloose, unconventional and unselfconscious.

Four sunbathers, Lorne 1968. Photo: Rennie Ellis, copyright Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive.

It was during the 1970s and 1980s that Ellis really developed his signature style, taking iconic photos of Aussies at play: at parties, rock concerts, nightclubs, footy matches, the races — and, of course, the beach. But even in the late 1960s, the signs were there, as the photos featured in this post attest.

Surfer with girl, Lorne, c. 1968. Photo: Rennie Ellis, copyright Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive.

Apparently, Lorne was the place to be on the Great Ocean Road during the 1950s and 1960s (stay tuned for a post on that soon), a bohemian hot-spot which attracted truckloads of young groovers from Melbourne during summer. By night, they’d hit the Wild Colonial Club to catch all the era’s hippest bands; by day, they could be found swimming, surfing and sunning themselves at the beach.

And who better to immortalise this swinging seaside scene than Rennie Ellis?

Volleyball, Lorne, c. 1967. Photo: Rennie Ellis, copyright Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive.

Lindy Hobbs Surfing World, Lorne, c. 1968. Photo: Rennie Ellis, copyright Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive

Just as the music of The Easybeats or the sight of a koala in its natural habitat inspire a stronger sense of patriotism in me than usual, the same can be said of Rennie Ellis’s portraits. There’s something about their joyful exuberance, and their complete absence of value judgements, that makes me feel proud to be an Aussie. (And trust me, there’s not a lot these days that does..).

Want more Rennie? Check out the fantastic Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive NOW!