Travelling by road in Sydney from the city to the beachside suburb of Manly, after you have passed through Neutral Bay and Cremorne and Spit Junction, the road winds its way down to a sparkling Middle Harbour and the Spit Bridge.
If it was 1956, just after the Melbourne Olympics, and if you stopped at the bottom of the hill, where the trams disappear up Parriwi Road, and if you turned right and walked under the dark and putrescent Moreton Bay Figs, you would see ahead the flaking weatherboard sheds of the Spit Baths.
You would see children in their swimmers and sandals, with zinc cream on their noses and towels curled on their heads like Beau Geste, dawdling along.
At the entrance to the baths you put a penny into a turn-style and lean your skinny body against the cold steel gate to push your way in. And suddenly you are back in the dazzling light of the morning sun.
Your first thoughts are of food, because you can smell the fantales and cobbers, freckles, liquorices and other sweets (two a penny) set out in a latticework of wooden containers on the kiosk counter, beside the turn-styles.
You can run your hands through the sweets. Nobody is watching. The kiosk is unattended. And as you look at the sweets you notice something shining, golden, among them; and something shining silver.
There are at least four gold medals there, and at least one silver, and more. You can pick them up, feel their weight. Smell them. You could walk off with them if you wanted to. There are no signs, no fanfares. It's not a big deal. No security guard, no advertising, no stardom, no rip off.
These are the medals that our Spit Swimming Club members won at the Melbourne Olympics. It helps that two of our members are Murray Rose (pictured) and John Devitt, who are coached by the manager of the Baths, Sam Herford. But we are all coached by Sam Herford. He taught us to swim. Not that there are very many of us.
The Spit Baths consist of two swimming areas bounded by boardwalks built on piles sunk into Middle Harbour. During the summer king tides, the water rises above the level of the decking. At low tide, however, there is barely enough water to swim in.
You can see John Devitt doing time trials in just a few feet of water. There is no black line on a sterile tiled floor here, just sand and seaweed. Starts and turns are made off crudely raised and lowered wooden frames.
Half way down the pool a wooden set of steps intrudes into the only viable swimming lane, and you hold your breath as John Devitt swims past, for he does a lap without breathing, and you wonder if he can see where he is and if he might break his hand against the steps and never swim again.
We swim laps, do jelly rolls and bombs and horse dives off the diving board, and lie in the sun on the boardwalk, smelling of salt. We buy freshly scooped ice-cream in a cone, dipped in hundreds and thousands, and walk our long slow way back up the hill to Seaforth with the ice-cream smelling of vanilla and melting down our hands.
I was ten. It was just another day.
Murray Rose won four Olympic gold medals, one silver and one bronze, and held the world record for the 400, 800 and 1500 meters freestyle. He died in April 2012. A good man. John Devitt won two Olympic gold medals, one silver and one bronze, and held the world record for 100 meters freestyle.
John Honner won a blue and gold propelling pencil for coming third in the Spit Baths under ten handicap.