For those with an Internet connection, I will also include links each issue to some interesting history and heritage World Wide Web sites.

There are many local organisations with an interest in preserving our past.

The featured group this issue is the Brisbane Water Historical Society.

The Society owns and maintains Henry Kendall Cottage, the Historical Museum Complex at 27 Henry Kendall Street, West Gosford (behind the shopping centre), which is open for inspection every Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday from 10 am to 4 pm, and all school holidays and public holidays (except Good Friday and Christmas Day).

The Society meets each month on the third Tuesday at 1 pm in the Uniting Church Hall, Donnison Street, Gosford.

The following is taken from the page one story that appeared in The Telegraph on Monday, December 24, 1934:

BOY DIVES INTO JAWS OF SHARK

Anguished Mother Sees Tragedy at Woy Woy

Watching his "very last dive" of the day from the verandah of their holiday shack on Horsefield Bay, near Woy Woy, yesterday, a mother saw her 14-years-old son plunge into the jaws of a shark.

With its victim gripped in its teeth, the monster reared its head out of the water, and then disappeared with its prey.

The boy's 12-years-old sister was swimming a few feet away. Her leg was torn by the shark's fin as the man-eater rushed to the attack.

It is believed the shark had marked her out as its prey, when the boy dived into its jaws.

The victim was Roy Inman, 14, of Wordsworth Avenue, Concord.

For about 11 years the Inman family, popular throughout the holiday district, have been making regular holiday visits to the shack.

The children: Roy, Joyce (12) and an elder sister, Kathleen, have been swimming at the spot, using the boat landing stage as a diving platform, since babyhood.

During the past fortnight many people have seen a grey nurse shark, at least 10 feet long, cruising about.

Mrs. Inman, hearing of this, asked the children yesterday morning not to go in swimming.

However, a man later discounted her fears.

Mrs. Inman then gave the two young children permission to swim.

Most of the morning Roy spent showing Joyce how to perform fancy dives.

Shortly before 2 pm, Mrs. Inman's fears returned.

She asked them to leave the water.

"I'm going to have just one more dive, mum," said Roy. "Watch me do this tricky one, then I'll come out."

Joyce was treading water when there was a cry: "Shark! Oh! A shark!"

Something had brushed against her left leg. She turned. Then, as she told an ambulance man later: "I saw my poor brother in the shark's mouth."

The agonised mother saw the entire tragedy.

From the rear of the shack, the father and elder sister, who had been painting, ran out.

Kathleen Inman saw her brother disappear with the shark.

Running to the boat, Mr. Inman pulled across the bay to Mortimer's store.

He ran in, crying: "Roy! Roy's gone! A shark took him! Get the police!"

Constable McKenzie went to the spot in the police launch, and was joined later by water police from Newcastle.

Meanwhile, Mr. Walter Walwork, a railway guard and ambulance man, who was visiting Woy Woy, rushed to the spot to attend Joyce's injury.

Until late last night dragging operations had been unsuccessful in discovering the boy's body.

On 7th February 1961, the Gosford Times announced that a £50 million industrial and housing project would be established on a 500 acre site at South Woy Woy.

The new town would be called "Timberlake", and "arrangements had already been made with the Railways Department to build a station on the satellite town site".

A spokesman for the developer, former Senator J. P. Tate, added that "in the meantime, we can use the old railway at Woy Woy".

Apart from a new railway station, the new town was to include 1200 residential sites, 200 acres for industry, a modern shopping centre with provision for the parking of 4000 cars, a large bus terminal, two hotels, four service stations, four churches, a police station and a fire station.

Tunnel Creek, or Deadman's Creek, Woy Woy

(from an old postcard in my collection)