Harry Elliffe: ‘Environmental crusader’ honoured on Freshwater to South Curl Curl walkway
Part of the walkway from Freshwater to South Curl Curl could be renamed after environmental crusader Harry Elliffe, a former northern beaches resident and volunteer, who died earlier this year. WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Manly
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A beloved volunteer has been recognised as an “environmental crusader” by the council and is set to have part of the Northern Beaches Coastal Walkway named after him.
Henry William Elliffe, known to locals as Harry, died at the age of 92 on January 6 from a heart attack.
The former Curl Curl resident was one of the founding members of popular community group Curl Curl Lagoon Friends.
He has been acknowledged for his hard work in maintaining the Curl Curl Boardwalk along Carrington Pde and for restorations works on John Fisher Park Lagoon.
At last month’s council meeting Cr Sue Heins put an idea to the council to rename part of the walk between South Curl Curl Beach and Lumsdaine Drive in Freshwater.
If it is approved, the walk will be renamed Harry Elliffe Way.
The council supported the plan, but it will require community engagement before the naming is finalised.
Harry’s daughter Dianne Elliffe thanked the council for recognising her father’s work.
“My father loved the wild beauty of nature and, living right next to them, he could see how the Curl Curl lagoon, foreshore and headlands needed protection,” she said.
“He saw that the council needs the resources of volunteers if our natural environment is to be protected, and he was prepared to “give back” to his community through this work.”
Ms Elliffee told the Manly Daily she thought it was a “wonderful” idea and revealed more personal details about her father.
“I think he would have been quietly chuffed people have recognised his contribution. He was there several times a week for hours on end to improve the bushland along the walkway. It just goes to show what an ordinary person can do for other people,” she said.
“He was quiet but had this wicked sense of humour. We had a wonderful childhood, we were always active. As a family we would bushwalk, swim, go camping and sailing.”
She said her father was in a better place.
“His death was sudden but in the scheme of things it was a good way to leave.
“The the last couple of years were hard for him because he couldn’t walk the distances to go down to the Diggers or to the lagoon with the bushwalk crews.”
Mr Elliffe had three children, Dianne, John and Peter, and was also a grandfather and great grandfather.
He was born in New Zealand and moved his family to Sydney in the sixties where he worked as a civil engineer, first operating his own roadworks business and later as an engineer with the Warringah Council.
Later in life he became well known to walkers along Carrington Parade, and when the boardwalk was completed, he quietly tended to the native vegetation surrounding it.
In 2001 Warringah Council awarded Harry and his late wife Bev an Outstanding Community Service Award.
In 2013 the Curl Curl Lagoon Friends named him an Environmental Warrior in recognition of his service to the enhancement of Greendale Creek, John Fisher Park and Curl Curl lagoon and beach.
More recently, in 2018 he became the Northern Beaches Senior Citizen of the year.