| Part 1 Childhood in Australia · First Encounters Many are quite often surprised that I have an absolute love for sharks – it’s not what they expected, they say. They figured that as a gardener, I would love something else, more in line with my job. As it happens, I do – it’s called nature. People often assume my fascination with sharks began with the film Jaws. It’s an easy assumption to make — especially for anyone who grew up during an era when Spielberg’s mechanical monster lived rent-free in the public imagination. But the truth is, my fascination with sharks didn’t begin in a cinema. It started long before Hollywood ever got involved. It began in Australia. I grew up in Seaford, Victoria — a coastal town where the beach wasn’t a day trip; it was part of your daily life. The pier stretched out into the blue-green water, sun-bleached, weathered, and always busy. Fishermen gathered along its rails, catching flathead, mackerel, garfish — whatever the tides offered up. They’d gut their catch right there on the boards and toss the remains into the water. And those scraps brought in sharks. This wasn’t dramatic, unusual, or headline-worthy. It was simply everyday life. Occasionally, you’d hear the lifeguards’ whistles — sharp and urgent — calling swimmers out of the water. But no one panicked. In the mid to late seventies, the world saw risk and safety differently. If you swam near the fishermen, well… that was your responsibility. From that pier, I saw all sorts of sharks: nurse banjos topes catsharks And sometimes, if the sea decided to gift us a glimpse, a bronze whaler or even a great white passing through. I saw them, thankfully from afar, but they were there. My most vivid memory, though, came not from above the water, but beneath it. I spent a lot of time underwater back then — more comfortable below the surface than above. I adored swimming underwater — I loved the life below, trying to move with the same fluid ease as the fish around me. One day, a nurse brushed past my thigh. Its skin, rough like sandpaper, scraped across my leg hard enough to leave an abrasion. That minor injury became a tiny scar I still carry today — now faded to little more than the size of a ten pence piece. But it remains a reminder: a small, permanent mark from a moment where I came face to face with the unexpected. Not fear, not panic — just curiosity. Just awe. By the time I turned eleven, Peter Benchley’s Jaws found its way into my hands. People talk about the book with a hushed reverence, as though it’s inherently terrifying. But for me, it wasn’t fear that gripped me — it was fascination. I didn’t imagine a monster lurking beneath the waves because I already knew what sharks looked like in the real world. I had seen them glide under the pier, watched their shadows shift in the water, felt the roughness of one brushing past me. To me, Jaws didn’t create the fascination. It confirmed it. Those early Australian years gave me a front-row seat to a world where sharks weren’t horror villains but everyday creatures — misunderstood, ancient, and deeply important. Growing up alongside them shaped how I saw nature. It sparked an early environmental awareness and a respect for wildlife that would follow me into adulthood, becoming part of the foundation for the gardener and naturalist I am today. This is where the story begins: With a child underwater, watching shadows move beneath him, not as threats, but as possibilities. |
Where It Began
Earthly Comforts 
What a beautiful post, Rory. Childhood fascinations are intriguing, and it’s interesting to hold on to the same curiosities in adulthood. As a child, I was fascinated by the moon, and wanted to kidnap it. To this day, I am still in love with the moon.
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I can still see your love of the moon in much of what you write today Eugenia. I think childhood passopns and loves stay with us throughout our lives.
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😊
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Lucky you Rory to have seen sharks in real life.
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It was a wonderful experience.
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👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
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