AUSTERITY BREAK

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 2, 4 January 1943, Page 4

AUSTERITY BREAK

SYDNEY SEEKS OUTDOORS

HORROR OF SHARK TRAGEDY

(0.C.) SYDNEY, December 30. Throwing off the restraint of factory and office, Sydney quietly and purposefully made the most of the four days' austerity holiday break at Christmas. Even Scotsmen did not protest against the ■ substitution of Monday for New Year's Day, realising: that the Federal Government's aim was to | cause as few interruptions to war J production as possible. j Because of petrol shortage and restrictions on inter-State travel, people sought their recreation on nearby beaches or took short rail journeys to popular resorts. The holidays were mari*ed by a shark tragedy on Boxing i Day and the death of two boys by drowning. Restricted train, tram, and bus services made travelling extremely uncomfortable and a shortage of bread and ice added to the worries of housewives. But Sydney put up with discomfort and stoically faced risks of travel and pleasures. Even the horror of the shark tragedy did not keep bathers from the water, and the next day men swam a short distance from where the victim had been killed. Shark alarm bells rang at several beaches where thousands of surfers were bathing, but within ten minutes of leaving the water they returned. IN TWO FEET OF WATER. The victim of the shark tragedy was Denise Rosemary Burch, aged 15, who with an ailing mother and sister was an evacuee from Hong Kong, where Mrs. Burch's husband . and son were taken prisoner by the Japanese. Denise Burch and her sister, Pamela, aged 17, were with a picnic party near Ban try Bay, Middle Harbour. She was wading in two feet of water when she suddenly screamed: "Help, a shark has got me." Her friends battered the shark with oars and sticks, but the shark did not release the girl for several minutes. When she was brought to the rocky beach she was dead. The tragedy occurred only half a mile from where Zeita Steadman was killed by a shark on January 4 this year. This is known as the "shark season" in Sydney. Sharks follow shoals of fish into shallow waters and in the bays and inlets seek mullet which feed on oyster spawn. Most of Sydney's shark tragedies have happened at this time of the year. The boys drowned were Roy Hudson, aged 10, and Reginald Murray, aged 9. In different parties both were drowned at Narrabeen Lakes, a popular resort, 16 miles from Sydney. Hudson's body was recovered from a hole under a large overhangnig rock in 20 feet of water.