source: Sydney Morning Herald Pages 406-407 25th*June 1988.
known to the others as the PGs (Peppermint Grovers). The Neptunians are more organised, with their own annual Neptunian award for the member voted Personality of the Year. Each group follows its own rituals. The PGs sit on the stone retaining wall and towel the sand from their toes. "We wash ours," says Hetty, a Neptunian. After their swim, neither group lingers to catch a suntan. They have other things to do golf, bridge, flowers at the church, marmalade-making for the fete. During the day, they'll pop in on some poor soul who can no longer make it to the beach. Alateship lives on. The Bobbies call themselves lucky' lucky to be alive, lucky to have each other, whom they've known all their lives, and lucky that one of the country's most beautiful beaches waits almost at their door.*
THEY ARE known affectionately as the Bobbies. Each morning at 7 o'clock, their 20 or 30 coloured bathing caps bob like beachballs on the water at Cottesloe beach in Perth. They have been coming for years, these salt-of-the-earth West Australian women, now in their 70s and 80s, mostly widows and mostly overweight. (The men and the thin women are mostly dead.) They park their cars under the Norfolk pines of Forrest Street just as the sun climbs above the branches. Sometimes the sky is tinged with pink. They come before the heat of the day, after the beach-sweeper has furrowed the sand into clean white troughs and laid out a string of empty yellow bins. They come as fishermen on the Groyne are hauling in the day's first whiting. They come while the water is as unruffled as a swimming pool out to Rottnest Island and beyond. They almost always beat the sea breeze (known to visitors as the Fremantle Doctor, but to locals never as anything but the "sea breeze"). Here is Perth the way it was. Here are the rock-solid people whose families farmed, trucked and ministered long before money talk came to the west. Most live in small units now. Their properties have passed into other hands, their old houses have bright new facades, bigger garages and higher fences. Life is far from finished for these women. "You'll only find busy people here at the beach," says Hetty. "Others can't find the time to come." "What are they doing, then?" I ask. "They're home, in bed." Cottesloe Groyne beach at 7 am is like a club with wide open doors. Everybody says "good morning". If you're a stranger, they might ask where you're from and offer sympathy. Swim past and listen to the talk. Each floating group will be discussing the same topics: election results, weather forecasts, the state of the water today compared with yesterday. There is plenty of chin-up breast stroke and some half-hearted overarm. Today is Jenny's birthday. The women tread water in a circle and sing Happy Birthday. There is a card from them all, waiting on the sand. Ev has brought the vinegar bottle, in case of stingers. The bluebottles come in with the northerlies, but do not deter the regulars. There are two groups of Bobbies. They are friendly, but leave their towels in two distinct clumps. One group is Bobbies at Cottesloe beach: lots of breast stroke and a little overarm.
