The entrance to Sydney Harbour is flanked by two great sandstone bulwarks that are called somewhat obviously South Head and North Head. South Head is the shorter of the twins and although not as high above the pounding water below is a favourite place for some sad and disturbed folk to hurl themselves off. My particular view of this activity is that it is just overwhelmingly sad that someone, anyone who would do such a thing simply has lost the strength to protect those who love them. Somebody does and that somebody is the one that bears the brunt of the sadness and despair of the suicide.

Some of our business in this article is connected with the edifice known as North head. The terrible theme of suicide has also some relevance too. We all do foolish things, me probably more than most, certainly when I was younger which of course encompasses anywhere within the last sixty two years. Having said that it is also it is fair to say, I was not particularly dangerous to myself or others for the first five or six years, unless of course you count very messy faecal episodes or the dangers of projectile vomiting.

There is a wonderful lagoon at Wattamolla Beach in NSW which is situated south of Sydney in the Royal National Park. The beach itself is typical of an Australian beach and will not be found wanting in golden sands as it sits neatly between two gracious headlands that face stoically east. The lagoon is mostly fed by a creek which eventually empties into the lagoon over a picturesque waterfall. The waterfall has always been a place for daring do as people gird their loins and make the ten or so metre leap into the tannin stained water below.

The beach itself joins the land to the sea at the end of a small inlet. The beach precinct is surrounded by walking trails and boasts a wonderful lagoon, which taken in by the discerning eye might give rise to the images of a film set about castaways and young love amidst idyllic settings. Every few years after the creek dwindles, the marvelous lagoon is cut off from its parent sea by the golden sands of the beach. Mother nature will reunite the lagoon and the sea, by creating higher than normal tides or causing the rainfall to swell the creeks and the brackish water will flow again across the sand at the southern edge of the beach.

It was not until I was about six when my predisposition for danger was somehow directed to watery places, like lagoons. where I was doing the usual running away from my carers, usually Mum, and giggling fit to beat the band when my Mother was distracted to a particularly strapping young man stretching his bronzed muscles nearby, caught both her eye and her attention. It appears I took this opportunity to run headlong into the lagoon and begin to drown. Mum never did have a particularly large span of attention or the man wandered off someplace and naturally she returned her gaze to her errant baby boy, only problem was, he was in fact nowhere to be seen. “Let's see he was running toward the water and the young man took off his shirt and Roger is not in sight”, running toward the water was the clue and Mum sprang into action with more speed than seemed possible and raced fully dressed into the briny Wattamolla lagoon.

She found her little boy still giggling madly as he blundered away under the water with little giggle bubbles shooting out of his mouth. I was also told, on another visit to Wattamolla a few years later that a child was taken by a shark from the same lagoon, little did I know until now that this was my Mum's way to discourage me from swimming there on a wet blustery day. It was only while researching a fact for this article that I found this was a work of fiction on my mother's part.

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