In at the Deep End

Appears in
Tried, Tested and True: Stories and Recipes Celebrating the Traditions of Australian Community Cookbooks
Tried, Tested and True

By Liz Harfull

Published 2018

  • About

The Mitchell Valley Recipe Book, c. 1960s (State Library of Victoria).

When Australian swimmers Murray Rose and Dawn Fraser won five gold medals between them at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, they became national heroes and inspired the next generation.

The impact in Victoria’s eastern Gippsland region was immediate. The Bairnsdale Swimming Club had been in recess, but by January 1957 it had 350 new members, and a significant problem. The town’s only public swimming pool had been cut into the banks of the Mitchell River as part of a relief scheme for the unemployed during the Depression. It was far from ideal.