PHOTOGRAPH (DIGITAL): LAKE FAMILY BOAT 'ETNA'

The Lake family were one of the earliest families to come to Subiaco. Joseph Lake was one of 20 local members nominated for the first Subiaco Roads Board. He was not successful in winning a place in the election but hhis continued hard work was recognised with his favoured candidacy and successful election to the inaugural Subiaco Municipal Council the following year.

By 1896, Joseph's family arrived from Melbourne and at first, they camped in the tent. Their first house was built on the south-west corner of Rokeby and Barker Roads. It was made of hessian on a wooden frame, the hessian dipped in a cement slurry so it dried firm. The cloth windows swiveled at a point mid-way down the frame so that the top half of the window swung in and the bottom half swung outwards. Harold would later say that his was one of the first half dozen houses in Subiaco.

In 1899, Lake family moved into their own weatherboard house in Bagot Road Subiaco. Joseph built the house and it still stands at the corner of Bagot and Salisbury Road, Subiaco.

Laurence Wilfred Lake was born 1883 Boskenna, South Australia. The second of the four children of Joseph and Sarah Lake.

Harold and Laurie were members of the Subiaco Small Bore Rifle Club and, in a team with two other members, won the Stevens trophy, shooting off over six weeks with Harold the overall winner.

Living in Subiaco, Cottesloe and later Crawley bought the young Lakes in contact with the Swan river estuary where Harold spent a lot of his youth. Harold sailed with friends in the Etna, a large yacht, rigged with white sails fixed with an anchor emblem. They sailed the Perth and Melville Waters into Freshwater Bay and used to camp at Bicton, just south of Blackwall Reach. Crew members of the Etna remained friends of the Harold's and one of them: Terry Lonergan took up farming at Balkuling near Quairading, a place occasionally visited later on when both men had families. It was on the sailing trips that Harold saw the local Aborigines fishing with gidgies in the shallows of off Chidley Point.