Lorne Victoria Australia
Victor Marshall was one of the Lorne Life Saving Club’s most popular characters, remembered as a great guy who was very popular in the sixties. Vic was an orphan and had a tough time growing up and working as a shearer in N.S.W.
Vic moved south and found himself a job in Lorne working for Lil Beaurepaire (by then Mrs Clarke) as a boiler attendant and handyman at the old Cumberland guesthouse. Sharky was an unofficial lifeguard for many years and a particularly good friend to hundreds of kids, to whom he gave sound beach safety advice. For several years he operated a one man business on Lorne’s main beach, hiring rubber surfboards and spraying people with sun tanning oil. He was known to spray local kids for free and loan out rubber surfboards.
A retired doctor holidaying in Lorne offered him work in Queensland as a handyman during the winter months, Sharky bought himself a tiny red motorbike, a 50 cc Honda mini bike, which he intended to ride all the way up to North Queensland during Lorne’s off season. Sharky was known for swimming miles out to sea, being possible shark bait, so became known as Sharky.
Sharky died in his sleep in the winter of 1986. His service was held on the balcony of the SLSC and his ashes scattered from a surfboat into Louttit Bay. Fifteen hundred people attended his tribute and the public had a plaque fixed to a seat overlooking the beach where incidentally, no shark ever did get him.
The plaque reads….
Sharky: Victor Marshall 1918 – 14/7/86
He entered life as a foundling
unnamed and departed as a
man named Sharky – loved by thousands.
Life member Lorne Surf Club
Ashes scattered in the surf at Lorne 27/12/86
Sharky Interviewed by Lisa Trigg
(Published in the Lorne Mercury 17 December 1981)
Q. What do you do up in Queensland?
A. The same as I do at Lorne; hire out mats and boards on the beach.
Q. How did you get your nickname?
A. Well, when I was a little boy, I used to swim out behind the breakers, and the policeman used to ride up on horseback into the water and say, “Come here sonny. What are you doing way out there in the water”? I Replied, “Swimming”. “Well, come out, and stay this side of the breakers, or you’ll be Shark-bait”. That’s how I got my name, but thousands go out there now beyond the breakers and swim. In the early days you couldn’t … you were mad, you were a “lunatic”. Then I started swimming further and further out, of course. I carried my name wherever I went.
Q. What do you do down here in the summer time?
A. Well, I look after the beach, while hiring out mats and boards. I put out the flags. I also have life guards to help me over the school holidays, which is a big thing.
Q. How long have you been in the Surf Club?
A. Ever since it started, the foundation, practically, with Henry Love and them.
Q. How do you go up to Queensland?
A. On a little Mini Bike, 50cc. Ride it all the way up; a different road up each couple of years. For 40 odd years I have been going back and forward.
Q. Where did you originally come from?
A. I was born in Tasmania. Jumped on a beach in Port Melbourne. I’m still on a beach.
Q. How long have you had your bike for?
A. I have had my bikes, from the worlds fastest bike, BMW, down to, a little Honda, because I never get booked for speeding on it. They just look at me and laugh, then turn away.
“Sharky” told this story of how he was riding his little bike from Cairns to Brisbane, when some truckies went past in a huge Mack. They were yelling at him, giving cheek, and almost killing themselves with laughter. When he arrived in Brisbane, he boarded a big interstate bus, (the little Honda is permitted aboard as luggage), and travelled day and night in comfort. When he arrived in Echuca, rested and refreshed, he met the same truckies, as he putt-putted along the highway. His face crumpled into a smile, when he saw the puzzled looks on their tired faces.
Sources:
- Facebook, The One and Only Lorne Community Notice Board, posting by Jeannie Osborne Hunt, January 2025
- Lorne A Living History by Doug Stirling
