1938 - present

Jan Carmody grew up in Bondi and was the winner of the 1959 Miss Australia Surf competition. The award included an overseas trip with top modelling agent June Dally-Watkins as her chaperone, to promote Australia, and Jan went on to be a successful model with the leading agency. She and Lynette Whillier, the runner-up in the Miss Australia Surf Competition and a champion swimmer, were the muses for local artist Lyall Randolph Williams when he created Bondi’s famous mermaid sculptures, famously but illegally installing them on the large rock at Ben Buckler on 9 April 1960. Mermaids Jan and Lynette were crowd favourites but were unable to withstand the fierce conditions of the North Bondi rockface and inevitably succumbed to the cruel sea.

Artist Lyall Randolph determined that Bondi deserved its own mermaids after he was inspired by the ‘mermaid on a rock’ statue in the Danish capital Copenhagen. Mermaids Jan and Lynne took him more than two years to complete, and when Waverley Council baulked at the cost, he decided to sponsor the works himself, supposedly having gained the Department of Lands’ permission to erect them on the rock, which he claimed was beyond Council’s jurisdiction.

He used bronze-coloured, concrete-filled fibreglass to create the sculptures, and after he’d stealthily installed them at Ben Buckler, they quickly attracted both praise and controversy. Beach inspector Aub Laidlaw objected to them because he was worried that people wanting to see them could be “lured to their death”. Real-life Jan, however, responded, “I hardly think a bronze statue of me would lure people to their deaths; I think they’re a wonderful idea for Bondi and a great drawcard – and I must certainly say there’s nothing vulgar about them.”

Not long after Lyall launched the sculptures, a posse of university students blasted Mermaid Jan off the rock, as part of a Commemoration Day prank. Bondi police officers located her in Sydney Uni’s Engineering Department, and her popularity among the locals was such that members of the public didn’t hesitate to contribute money so she could be repaired and restored to her sea-sprayed home. She and her bronzed-up sunbathing partner went on to regularly attract tourists, and any postcard that featured a photo of them was destined to sell well.

Unfortunately, during a heavy storm in 1974, Mermaid Lynne was swept off the rock and out to sea, never to be found, and Mermaid Jan was heavily damaged. In 1976, Waverley Council decided to remove the now solo amphibious beauty from the rock and to place her in storage, where she remained forgotten till a group of Friends of Waverley Council members paid Sydney Artefacts Conservation to preserve and restore her. She’s now encased in glass at the top of the staircase in Waverley Library, and real-life Jan lived happily and productively in Bangalow, before returning to Double Bay at 83 years of age. Here she bought an electric scooter to drive down to Doyle’s for lunch. Jan is still high spirited and says 'I can walk very well but thought it would be fun to whiz around Watsons Bay on a scooter. There is still life in the old mermaid'.

Courtesy Jan Carmody, the Waverley Library Local Studies Collection and Fairfax media.