“The first morning she was here I took her along Addison-road, and reaching its extremity, turned to the left and reached the spot where the steps lead down to the beach. The spectacle quite enraptured her.” This line comes from a story published in the Sydney Mail on 7th March 1906, written by one Samuel A Mills. The story, entitled The Romance of the Breakers, concerns a girl from the bush who visits Manly. On her first time bathing in the surf, she is saved from drowning by a handsome rescuer, and falls in love with him. Not much is known about Samuel A Mills. The National Library of Australia has two booklets written by him: Fowler’s Pottery, and The Wine Story of Australia, both circa 1908. A nephew, Lt Com Owen Griffiths, was a well-known Manly figure in the years after WWII.
Mills’ rhapsodic prose-style owes something to the Celtic Twilight movement, and was out-of-date even then, but his description of Manly Beach paints a vivid picture. Read the full story here:
The%20Romance%20of%20the%20Breakers.docx
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