Mrs Dawson was 33 when she disappeared 36 years ago. There has been no trace of her since.

She shared the Gilwinga Drive home with husband Chris Dawson, a former rugby league star turned sports teacher at Cromer High, and their two daughters, then aged four and two.

Now residents from the street and across the peninsula have decided to organise a walk in her memory on September 30.

Debbie Loughnan, 63, who has lived in Gilwinga Drive for 20 years, said residents wanted to know what happened to Mrs Dawson.

She said her friends had owned the former Dawson property in Gilwinga Drive subsequently and she had swum in the pool, which is again an area of interest for police.

A previous dig near the pool unearthed a pale pink cardigan, believed to have belonged to Mrs Dawson, with cut marks.

“I didn’t realise Lyn lived in the street until I moved there,” Ms Loughnan said. “It’s awful to think she might be buried in her backyard.

“It’s been crazy in the street this week with the police, TV crews and helicopters.

“We just hope they get a result — all the neighbours do.”

Nadarre Harkness, 55, of Dee Why, said she would be at the walk because she wanted people to know Mrs Dawson mattered and that people had not forgotten her. “We want to find the truth,” she said. “For the sake of her daughters.”

Two days after Mrs Dawson went missing on January 8 or 9, 1982, her husband moved his schoolgirl lover Joanne Curtis into the marital home.

This year allegations emerged that a number of teachers had sexually assaulted students at high schools on the northern beaches in the 1970s and 80s.

In July, detectives from the Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Squad and the Northern Beaches Police Area Command established Strike Force Southwood to investigate.

Another walker, who cannot be named as she has given a statement to police in relation to historic sexual abuse allegations at Cromer High in the 1980s, said thousands of people on the peninsula were affected by the Lyn Dawson case.

The former Cromer High student, who graduated in 1980, said people wanted to see justice for Mrs Dawson.

But she said former students also wanted an apology for the way the alleged culture of abuse at high schools was allowed to flourish back then.

“We are now parents and grandparents but what happened while we were at school was horrendous,” the woman told the Manly Daily. “As adults now we need an apology.

“There’s a lot of hurt in the community. People’s lives have been ruined.

“This walk will be a show of strength. People have to be healed.”

The walk will begin at Long Reef surf club at 11am and conclude at Long Reef headland. Walkers will be invited to lay a pink flower in Mrs Dawson’s memory at the headland.

Pink was Mrs Dawson’s favourite colour as well as the colour of the cardigan found buried near the pool.

Detectives and police forensic specialists expect to continue their dig at Bayview this weekend.

“Police will remain on the premises, during daylight hours, for as long as it takes to complete the search,” a police spokesman said.