This showcase of photographs vividly reminds us of Australians' enduring love affair with the sun and the sea. For those who grew up in Australia in the 1950s and 1960s, these photographs should gently stir memories of idyllic summers spent at the beach.

The images in Summers Past were all selected from the Archives' vast photographic collection, mainly from the store of Australian News and Information Bureau images – half a million photographs dating from the late 1940s to the early 1990s.

This showcase accompanies the National Archives touring exhibition, Summers Past: Golden Days in the Sun 1950–1970.