PLEA FOR HELP TO RECOVER LOST HOLIDAY MEMORY
IT was a photo that sparked a decades-long love affair with the Gold Coast.
Now Broadbeach couple Wilma and John Price, both 83, are desperately trying to find their treasured holiday snap after accidentally losing it in a clear-out.
The colour photo was taken in the late 1950s and shows the Lennons Hotel in Broadbeach in all its glory.
The five-storey building was the tallest on the Gold Coast at the time and was later known as the Broadbeach International Hotel before being knocked down to make way for the Oasis shopping centre in 1987. Mr and Mrs Price had taken a flight from Newcastle to the Glitter Strip “as everyone did for their honeymoon then” to stay at the Californian Serviced Apartments in Laycock St, Surfers Paradise, for three guineas a night.
They took the photo during a bus trip – and the memory has never left them.
“There was nothing but sand all the way up to the Gold Coast Highway and they were starting to make roads and signs in the sand,” Mrs Price said. “The beach was probably about ten times wider than it is now.
“The driver said that’s in an oasis, it will never make it, it’s too far away from everywhere.”
The Prices’ love for Queensland stayed with them, with the couple deciding to relocate to the Gold Coast two years ago.
For many years the photograph took pride of place in a family photo album, but a mix-up meant it was included in a bag of items collected for an op shop.
Now Mr and Mrs Price are desperate to get it back.
“It could have gone to any of the op shops, so this is my one chance in a million to get it back,” Mrs Price said.
The photo was left in an envelope inside a maroon pull-along shopping trolley collected about September last year. After a fruitless search of op shops the Prices are hoping the trolley’s new owners may be able to return it.
Anyone who has found the missing photo can contact the Gold Coast Bulletin office on 5584 2400.