Hazel Maclean

Interviewed by Yolande Pierce on 31 January 1989
Subject: The Amphitheatre, Trams

Yolande Pierce. Do you remember the Theosophist Temple down at Balmoral Beach in its heyday?

Hazel Maclean. Oh yes. In its heyday.

Yolande Pierce. I believe there used to be concerts and all sorts of things there.

Hazel Maclean. And the big home that the Theosophists lived in, afterwards it was all sub-divided, and the other part that I remember vividly, I don’t know whether there’s any people alive now that would remember it, and that was the camping ground at Balmoral. Do you know where the Balmoral Beach Club is? Well, at the back of that was this area there for campers. They had carted old tram cars down there, and people converted them into – caravans, more or less.

Yolande Pierce. Was this after the trams had finished?

Hazel Maclean. Oh, no, no, no, the trams were going for a long time. They were discarded trams, and some English friends of mine, a lass that I went to school with, they had one down there and I used to spend weekends with them down there. It was in the sand dunes at the side of the Balmoral Beach Club.

New speaker. That was still there – that was there….

Hazel Maclean. ….oh, it was a different one to what it is now. Somewhere we should have a photo of that old Balmoral Beach Club. But there were these sand dunes at the side and behind it, quite deep sand dunes they were, with leafy grass on top of them, and the old dressing sheds – that was not Balmoral, it was Edwards Beach. They were to the left of Balmoral Beach Club.

Yolande Pierce. And people used to camp in these old trams?

Hazel Maclean. Yes, and they had tents. It was a fairly large area, but the trams actually made a caravan with small compartments in the front where the driver sat was made into the kitchen part, and the other part was the living part.