Research by Paula Hamilton
Cracking Awaba – Stories of Mosman and Northern Beaches communities during the Depression, Paula Hamilton (2005), Shoroc Council Libraries, NSW.
Cracking Awaba draws on seventy-two oral histories which illuminate life in Manly, Mosman, Pittwater and Warringah in Sydney during the 1930s. It evokes the landscapes, cultures and communities of these north shore and northern beaches areas in and around the Depression era. And it provides readers with a rich photographic record concerning a previous generation.
The title of the book, Cracking Awaba, comes from a story told to Paula Hamilton by Harley O’Regan of a ‘disastrous’ billy cart ride he took down the very steep Awaba Street from Spit Road to Balmoral Beach.
