Trolling through my old hard drives looking for a particular shot from the 1960s on a surfless, devil wind spring day last week, I rediscovered a photo that says so much about my long ago misspent youth which was largely spent avoiding any kind of responsibility while revelling in the newfound joys of the surfing lifestyle.
I promptly lost the next few hours to a search through old books and magazines and archive boxes full of cuttings kept since I was first published in a surfing magazine 54 years ago.
But the picture that sparked so many memories was not a hero surf shot of a silky Midget cutback or Scotty Dillon plunging down the face of the Bare Island bommie. It was a shot of a group of middle-aged blokes in sharp suits, handing over a bunch of surfboards to an army officer.
Now the property of the Australian War Memorial, it was probably taken by the tea lady at Sydney’s Victoria Barracks, but if you’re around my vintage you would have first seen it in the back pages of Jack Eden’s Surfabout magazine in August 1966. The blokes in suits were Australia’s leading surfboard manufacturers, all based on Sydney’s northern beaches and later known as the Brookvale Six, then riding the crest of the first surfboard boom. The guy in the foreground, shaking hands with Colonel Peter Tancred, acting Army chief of staff, is Denis McDonagh, the business brother at McDonagh Surfboards, standing in for shy shaper Greg.
Spread left to right behind them are Lance Platt, Australia’s first boardshorts manufacturer, Denny Keogh, Scott Dillon (obscured), surf retailer Bob Brewster, Gordon Woods, Bill Wallace and Barry Bennett. What a wonderful lineup of rogues, rascals and absolute heroes! When the magazine appeared I remember showing the page to my dad, with whom I was having a weekly row about whether catching the right tide and getting ahead of the nor’easter should be a higher priority than mowing the lawn, presenting it as proof positive that not all surfers were peroxide-haired bums. Since the Brookvale Six all looked like him on his way to Rotary, he could only agree.
These were the dying days of the Menzies’ era, with Harold Holt now echoing the platitudes of his former boss, and while we still only had troops on the ground in Vietnam as “logistics advisors”, within a matter of months Holt would have gone “all the way with LBJ”, sparking frontline deployments for our boys and fiery protests on the home front.
In the meantime, however, the logistics advisors had time on their hands and the Army had asked for the industry to do their bit and send them surfboards.
I’d written about this briefly in a surfing history, but our late friend and true Noosa local Stuart Scott had filled in the gaps in 2009 in a great little book called Charlie Don’t Surf – But Aussies Do. Stuart covered not only the donation of $500 worth of mals, boardshorts and a kneeboard, but the surf culture that subsequently grew around the Peter Badcoe Club on the back beach at Vung Tau, once the Task Force officer in charge had announced on 6 September 1966: “Units are advised that a limited number of surfboards are available for loan from the Australian R and C centre.”
Despite the presence of sea snakes and the rude interruptions of the Vietcong, Aussies continued to rule the waves at Back Beach until the end of the war a decade later.
One of my favourite lines in the book comes from the inimitable Scotty Dillon, who told Stuart: “I can’t even remember where I got that suit from. I remember I had one when I got married, but from then on I just wore board shorts and thongs”.
When Shaun Cairns and I made the Foxtel documentary Men of Wood and Foam in 2016, all of the Brookvale Six were alive. Now Denny Keogh is the sole survivor, but the famous brands live on.
Owie goes vintage for charity
If surfing generosity began with the story above, it continues with big-hearted surf artist Owen Cavanagh who is opening up his Studio 53 in the Coolum industrial estate this Saturday for a Vintage Board Exhibition, swap meet and chat show plus music, in aid of the Noosa World Surfing Reserve.
Leading board collectors will be talking story about their favourite boards and I’ll be interviewing legendary artists and shapers Garry Birdsall, Richard Harvey and Hayden Kenny about their contributions to surf culture here and elsewhere over more than 60 years. Plus there’ll be live music and a DJ and a beautiful Mitch Surman Custom with art by Owen to be raffled on the day. Everyone welcome.
Saturday 28 October at Studio 53, 53 Quanda Road, Coolum.
FOOTNOTE: And speaking of Coolum, congratulations to local ripper Isabella Nichols requalifying for the 2024 WSL championship tour after some nail-biting moments in Saquarema, Brazil last week. A proven performer at the top level, Bella joins fellow Aussies India Robinson and Sally Fitzgibbons in requalifying.
