A local legend turned out to be true when Rona Thorogood confirmed that her father had been the mysterious lion tamer of Manly.
The revelation was a highlight of Manly Memories at the Manly Art Gallery when 90 residents came forward to talk about the good old days. Some remembered swimming and fishing at Manly Lagoon, the pooh marches of the 1980s or Chinese market gardeners selling their produce from horse-drawn carts between Manly and Newport. The event was hosted by Mayor Peter Macdonald and Judy Reizes from Manly Environment Centre.
Gail Dendle recalled her childhood at the heritage-listed Manly Hotel before its demolition.
On Fridays, the fishermen would arrive from the wharf with live lobsters, crabs and fish. A chef lay in wait with boiling 20-gallon pots of water. "The lobsters would be screaming their heads off," Gail told the gathering. Her grandfather and grandmother lived opposite former premier Sir Robert Askin. "Grandad hated his guts," she volunteered. "As a child, I remember seeing Askin and his chauffeur packing and sorting money in the boot of a car."
Ken Shadbolt, now a judge, described, "exciting times in wild Manly," during the green bans on the eastern hill during the 1970s. The small but well-organised Conserve Manly group enlisted the help of Jack Mundey and his Builders' Laborers Federation to block the building of several multi-storey apartment blocks.
Mario Palato was also an activist. "In 1951," he told his fellow oral historians, "I left Italy looking for the promised land." His campaign was against a proposed marina and boat ramp where Little Manly Point Park stands today. The development was regarded as a foregone conclusion when the old gasworks closed but the local children had other ideas. They persuaded 3000 people to sign a petition a metre long. Every councillor got a copy and the kids won the day.
But the most bizarre story came from Rona Thorogood. Her father, she confessed, was the mysterious lion tamer of Manly. He bought two lion cubs from Sir Edward Hallstrom at Taronga Park Zoo just after the war and moved them into his terrace house in Central Avenue. "Mum kept the lions on the front balcony," Rona announced. "My three brothers and I let the cubs stalk us. When we started to get too many scratches on our legs and they were getting bigger and smellier, my father decided to start training them in the back yard." When he wasn't sticking his arms or head in their gaping jaws, her father would keep the lions in a trailer parked outside the house. This triggered a series of complaints from the neighbours about jungle noises at night. Rona's father was a trifle eccentric and apparently decided to convince the Manly police that the lions were harmless. "He attached a chain to the male lion, loaded him into the front seat of his truck and drove to the police station to show them how quiet he was. The police disappeared behind their desks and drew their guns."
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