City Libraries, City of Gold Coast

Holiday makers from one of the many guesthouses on the southern end of the Gold Coast dressed for a Hawaiian themed party, Queensland, 1960

Holiday makers from one of the many guesthouses on the southern end of the Gold Coast dressed for a Hawaiian themed party, Queensland, 1960

â Swing with Holiday Servicesâ thatâ s what our brochure said. I was called â Uncle Chrisâ and my good friend and manager was called â Fearless Fredâ . We used to take the guests from the Greenmount and Sunset Strip guesthouses at Coolangatta on boat cruises to Stradbroke Island, horse riding, barbeques, and to fancy dress nights at hotels all along the Gold Coast, such as Hawaiian Nights, pirate nights and not forgetting the famous pyjama parties at Bernie Elseyâ s Beachcomber. We handled about 500 or 600 young people and also helped to organise the weekly fancy dress skits for Doug Roughtonâ s weekly show on Greenmount Beach. Each guesthouse had a house captain and vice captain and they performed things like the â Sheik of Arabyâ and the â Sultan and his Haremâ . Each guest house had their own war cries. It was all good clean fun. They had weekly guest house meetings. As each new guest house arrived they were introduced and asked to sing a song. Well, all good things must end and as the guest houses went out of popularity when the overseas cruises took over the market, we moved into day tours to Brisbane, the Gold Coast Hinterland and the Sunshine Coast. In the end we had seven big buses but we started off with three London double decker buses. One driver brought a double decker bus up from Newcastle and said when he arrived, â No trouble Chris â it was a piece of cakeâ , then promptly drove into the local garage roof. Those were the days! [Reference source: http://heritage.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/events/On-line-exhibitions/highway-heritage/exhibitions-and-digital-stories/chris-petersen viewed 3/9/2012 Gold Coast Heritage]