Memory Lane: Remembering the 'sun tan man' spraying bronzed bodies on the Gold Coast

It was sent by Elaine Barnes from Macksville (previously Avalon), who honeymooned with her husband Warwick in Coolangatta in 1961.

The pictured Rolls-Royce (vintage even at the time) was used by the entrepreneurial John Paterson to spruik his Vita-Sun tanning lotion.

Known for his booming voice and distinctive white pith helmet adorned with a stuffed mutton bird, he was granted permission to spray people on Surfers Paradise Beach with Vita-Sun.

And yes, the lotion was derived from said birds.

"We walked on the beach, surprised at the number of people braving the autumn weather sunshine, fascinated with people taking the opportunity to spray suntan oil on to already brown bodies," Elaine said.

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Paterson lost the concession in 1972, and it was taken over by Al Baldwin, who sprayed holidaymakers for 30 years.

It's believed that at the height of summer Baldwin sprayed as many as 600 people a day. And it's estimated he gave three million bodies the treatment over the years.

The business began to fade from the 1980s as Australians became more aware of skin cancer, especially on the beaches of Queensland, often described as the melanoma capital of the world.

Al died in 2004 at the age of 74. Today a bronze replica of his famed deckchair and peaked cap stands in The Esplanade in memory of him.

While the honeymoon was Elaine's first time in Queensland, Warwick had been to Coolangatta five years earlier when he hitchhiked from Sydney with a mate. There the pair had to sleep rough in a picnic shelter at Greenmount.

"Just as they had done, we too travelled north on the New England Highway, then returned to the Pacific Highway before spending 10 days at the Sea Breeze Motel right on Coolangatta Beach," Elaine said.

"Probably because we were a honeymoon couple, our corner room was on the third or top level from where we could look across to the sea.

"We didn't have a lot of money - fast-food outlets were in the future and neither of us can recall meals or cafes - although we can remember pineapples and an abundance of autumn activities including wake-boarding behind a slow-moving launch filled with tourists, then feeding emus, small kangaroos, rainbow lorikeets and dolphins."

Elaine said having been raised from the age of four in suburban Eastwood, Coolangatta was "almost exotic".

"Friends and family moved to south-east Queensland in the early 1970s, so more often than not we made an annual northbound pilgrimage, usually on the New England Highway as Warwick considered the Pacific Highway to be a dangerous road."

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