I'd like to reveal a little of the setting of my 2nd novel The Ozone Café. The literary world often states for writers, “write what you know”. I have used my hometown in the setting of the novel, however the names have been changed to protect…yes no novelist wants to be sued or face undue litigation esp. when one writes about a corrupt shire. It was common knowledge in the area, that because the Ozone Café sat on prime property (a stone’s throw from the beach), it attracted the moguls and thus disappeared through dubious means.
Ettalong Beach, New South Wales
Ettalong was and has always been a small community lifestyle: a
population of less than 5,000, an older community with shopfronts like the cake
shop, chemist, newsagents, banks and supermarket. It hasn’t changed in 50
years. There’s fishing, prawning, oysters in the myriad of waterways that is known
as Broken Bay which sprawls to Gosford and is known as the Brisbane Water
District. What has replaced the café is a very large monolith resort-type
building that I understand is not liked nor valued by the locals. Well, it’s a
holiday venue for the “rich”.
I went to Ettalong Primary, and then later attended Gosford High
School. As a teenager and even younger I frequented the café with girlfriends,
esp.one in particular named, Heather. We would have a milkshake, buy lollies,
click on the jukebox and if we had any money left we’d slide a twenty shilling
piece into one of the pinball machines. Looking back, it was actually a
challenge to enter the Ozone café as it was daily occupied by Bodgies and
Widgies. They were the rock-n-roll gangs of the sixties, rather harmless, but I
guess it was the leather jackets, the chewing gum and sneers that made you feel
uncomfortable. Nevertheless, the café was so close to the beach, that after a
swim that being hungry we often bought an icy-pole or ice-cream. So, my local
teenage haunt was a vivid memory that I would never forget.
When my younger brother, still living in the area, told me that the
Ozone had been pulled down, I wanted to write the story of life inside its
walls and its ultimate destruction.
The
Ozone Café, with three separate owners therefore,
is the nemesis of my story and its demise through council corruption.
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