Lorne legend, Vic Marshall
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
Sources:
- Facebook, The One and Only Lorne Community Notice Board, posting by Jeannie Osborne Hunt, January 2025
- Lorne A Living History by Doug Stirling