Death of a mentor

I was saddened to read of the death of Peter Thompson the golfer.

When I was a young girl he taught me how to play golf, along with every other kid who turned up to have lessons.  We lived near Beverly Park Golf Course where every Monday afternoon after school he held free lessons for any child who wanted to come along.  I always found him the most generous and patient of instructors.

Beverly Park doesn't hold the happiest of memories for me as it was where my mother died when I was only 16 years old.  In fact I couldn't wait to get away and put all that behind me.  But looking back it wasn't all bad.  In fact some of it was good.  Like the golf ball retrieval that a group of us ran.  There used to be a deep tidal storm water canal that cut through the golf course.  We would station one kid at the bridge to watch for sharks swimming into the canal while the others would dive for the golf balls that got hit in.  It made good pocket money for us in the school holidays.  I'm not sure how clean that water was though.

And it wasn't as built up as this and we could sail our VJ boats on the bay in summer.  Not a bad place to live for a while growing up.  Now our old home is worth millions and it is a very sought after address in Sydney.

 

Comments

[Rachel]

It does sound like a good place to grow up.

[Carolyn Foley]

It was  what it was.  Like lots of places good and bad.