Harry Nightingale, Sr was a greatly respected life member of Bondi Surf Bathers’ Life Saving Club (BSBLSC) and a prime example of the great ‘bronzed Aussie’ lifesaver. He was never afraid to say what he thought, regardless of the level of lifesaving, be it club or National Council (later renamed Surf Life Saving Australia – SLSA).

A keen competitor, he was a member of the premiership surf team for the 1932 and ’39 National Council (SLSA) Championships, won the non-restricted surf championship at the 1937 events, and won the 1935 Australian title for Senior Rescue and Reel (R&R).

Many BSBLSC members consider Harry to be the greatest R&R and surf-teams coach in the history of lifesaving, and the ‘open six-person R&R’ trophy for the New South Wales State Titles is named in his honour.

Harry dedicated his life to three things: his family, his club and his coaching. At local level, he coached swimmers at Bondi Baths, and internationally, he coached for both Australia and Sri Lanka – then known as Ceylon – at the Empire Games.

His credits also include founding Sri Lanka’s lifesaving movement, after returning to that country in 1947, having completed active service in the Pacific during World War II. He was made head coach of the Ceylon Swimming Association, galvanised into action because the nation had no formal lifesaving organisation and a staggering number of drownings. He set up four surf-lifesaving clubs there, and trained and examined 150 new lifesavers. When he and his family returned to Bondi in 1956, a newspaper reporter wrote an article headed ‘ONE-MAN COLOMBO PLAN’, and insisted, “He has probably done more to create friendly relations between the two countries than anything we have done under the official Colombo Plan.”

BSBLSC honoured Harry, Sr by naming the Nightingale Patrol after him, and his soul remains forever imprinted on the surf, sand and suntans of beautiful Bondi Beach.

Courtesy Harry Nightingale, Jr and Bondi Surf Bathers’ Life Saving Club.