For a guy who hadn’t actually surfed for many years, Stuart Scott maintained the stoke throughout an adventurous, creative life that ended too soon last week.
Born in Sydney but raised on Hastings Street, Noosa – and how many people can claim that! – Stu was not quite six years old when his parents rolled into town in 1956, seeking a new life in the sun. In fact, the manner of the family’s arrival in a VW Microbus (the forerunner of the Kombi) set the tone for a life that was just beginning.
In the driveway, a “van that rocked”, right out front a series of perfect point breaks where he could start “surfing the ’60s”. Both concepts would become best-selling books for Stu in later life.
Stuart Scott started surfing in 1963, at the start of the golden era of Malibu boards, and just after transferring from Tewantin Public to Cooroy State High. He fell in love not just with the act of riding waves but the whole ethos and culture, alongside an equally unstoppable passion for motor vehicles, ranging from slick Ferraris to rust-bucket panel vans with a mattress in the back.
After studies at the University of Queensland, he became a journalist in Brisbane, eventually becoming chief motoring writer for the Sunday Mail, a position he would hold for 30 years. An avid collector of surf magazines, photos and memorabilia, he began collecting material for a book about the early days of surfing in Noosa in the early 2000s and published Noosa: Surfing the ’60s in 2007.
He told journalist and surfer Bill Hoffman: “It was magic in the ’60s. Our memories have forgotten about the sand flies and the sunburn. It was a much mellower place then. If you were going surfing, you’d first have to find someone to go with you. There would be more surfers along Main Beach which had perfect triangular-shaped sand banks. Life was really easy. Now it’s about where you can find a car park and somewhere there’s not 100 people in the water.”
A book about a surfing club established at Vung Tau in the late 1960s by Aussie diggers fighting the Vietnam War was his next project. Typically Stuart, Charlie Don’t Surf – But Aussies Do told the fascinating story of war-weary soldiers seeking an escape from their terrible realities through surfing. The Vans That Rocked, a homage to the panel vans of our shared youth in words and pictures, followed in 2013.
Although we began sharing emails and information when we were both writing books about surfing history in the early 2000s, I didn’t meet Stuart Scott in person until perhaps the last decade of his life when he became one of my best customers every time I held a garage sale to move on some of my vast collection of surfing magazines and books. (Stu always asked me to keep these transactions a secret from his loving wife Lynda, which was relatively easy since we hadn’t met.)
I was also blissfully unaware that he had been fighting lymphoma for decades. What I saw was the unfailingly sunny side of a guy who loved to reminisce, particularly about the passions we shared, for Noosa, for surfing and for journalistic adventures.
Recently we traded yarns about the rorts and junkets enjoyed by motoring writers (I had spent several years writing for 4WD magazines) which became a feature article for this newspaper.
When I wrote my Noosa history, Place of Shadows, in 2020, Stu was a frequent sounding board who often pulled me up on misconceptions I’d formed about the social fabric of Noosa in the ‘60s. Although he had a wealth of knowledge on these and many other subjects, he was never superior about it. He simply loved to share.
Stuart’s wife Lynda posted on social media last weekend: “He was brave to the end. Given only weeks to live without treatment, he chose to start a gruelling regime of chemotherapy which resulted in cardiac arrest soon after. He did not want a funeral. I am hoping at a later date his surfing pals will help scatter his ashes at his spiritual home, the waves of Noosa’s First Point.”
Vale Stuart Scott, a courageous life well lived.
Get involved
Noosa World Surfing Reserve has just released an exciting new participation program called Friends of Noosa World Surfing Reserve.
Become an individual or family member and you’ll go into a monthly draw to win some awesome products from our local surfing industry, valued at up to $450. But you’ll also become a part of an exciting program to make our World Surfing Reserve the safest, happiest, friendliest home of quality waves in the world.
This is a program that surfing parents and their surfing groms can enjoy together, participating in charity fundraisers, beach clean-ups and social activities, as well as surfing events.
Read the full story on Friends of NWSR in next week’s Noosa Today. Meanwhile, check it out at noosaworldsurfingreserve.com.au/product/friends-of-noosa-world-surfing-reserve/ or visit the Noosa World Surfing Reserve Facebook page.
