Surf City, Sydney

photo sourced in contest booklet 1st World Surfboard Titles 1964 held by Manly Library

This great image of an EH wagon, parked in the thick of it, with a couple of boards getting pulled from the racks, appeared in a GMH ad in a booklet produced for the 1st World Surfboard Titles, held at Manly in May 1964 before a massive spectator crowd. Contest organiser and boardriding ambassador Bob Evans managed to snag a long list of top shelf supporters and sponsors including Qantas, Ampol, General Motors Holden, Nock and Kirby’s, TAA Travel, Farmers, Casben sports wear, the Sunday Telegraph and radio station 2GB, who even organised a special beach stomp. The keen interest shown by major motoring, airline, travel, fashion, retail and media players suggests the surf craze bonanza was just around the corner.

Jeff Carter’s stagey portrait of late 60s mod surfdom puts an oddly British spin on Sydney beach culture…in fact the roof racked mini deluxe made a few notable screen and print appearances around the time, most memorably in the opening bush bashing sequences to Bob Evan’s 1967 movie High on Cool Wave, alongside a mighty Morris 1100. Notice the bottom curve and deep raking, slenderous fins on this hip pair of late 60s pocket rockets. Photo sourced in National Library of Australia collection.

Mark Rothko, Ochre and Red on Red, 1954 © Mark Rothko / Licensed by VISCOPY 2010 www.phillipscollection.org

hide the keys
suck on a ciggie
stereos buggered
sand in the speakers
go for a surf

chip paper tumbleweeds
sun heralds and seagulls
and funny pages
wrap around railings
ring pulls and dust

beer gut roof
bulging in the sun
pitted with dents
from unsprung occies
and hail stones

hot gust from carpark
wryly unsteadies
badly leant board
slides sideways
blue metal shatter

burnt duco beach
oxidised shorebreak
red vinyl ocean
blown chrome horizon
smeared windscreen sky

…

mid 6os Manly photo by Herman Kalkreuter in Manly: South Pacific Playground 1967 Manly Council publication

Manly 15 year old, Dorothy De Rooy, (sitting on left) won the NSW open class women’s surfboard riding championship in April 1964 although was beaten in the World Championships a month later by Phyllis O’Donnell (wearing shirt). That’s Dorothy’s best friend Marilyn Bennett sitting on the right and star Californian surfer Linda Benson holding up the striped mal.

Pearl Turton avoids eye contact with globe trotting surfer Rob August at Palm Beach in a grab from The Endless Summer, 1964.

According to her brother Ron, Pearl Turton’s reaction to seeing herself in The Endless Summer was to shrink ostrich-like under the cinema seats. All she did on screen was tumble around in the soup and disconcert the travellers. If Paul Witzig’s footage captured any good waves at all, they didn’t make the final cut.

photo of Pearl Turton, 1963 national titles at Avalon Sydney by Vic Joice, sourced at Surfit.com

Sixteen year old Sydney surfer Pearl Turton won the first ‘recognised’ national surf meet at Avalon in May 1963. Next thing she knew, Australian Women’s Weekly put her on their cover and even made a TV appearance wearing a bikini. Around the same time Jack Eden’s Surfabout mag got her to do the first surf column written by a woman.

Textbook handstand, in Russ Howell’s popular Skateboard: Techniques, Safety, Maintenance published in Sydney 1975.

Around the same time, in the mid 1970s, young Bondi surfer Cheyne Horan was getting good at skating and starting to stand out in the new contest scene taking shape in Sydney. Copying hot US skaters like Stacy Peralta, according to Horan, Sydney surfers finally had ‘something to cause havoc on when the surf was flat.’* Pretty soon sponsorship, team membership, paid performances, autographs and media stardom began to infiltrate the elite end, while surburban streets, footpaths, arcades, carparks and stormwater pipes were maddeningly disfigured in tell-tale swirling track marks.

*Australian Surfers Journal V3, N2, Autumn 2000

Like everything now, and clearly then, this September 68 Surf International back cover ad, is absolutely bananas…

This classic 1950s Champion Annual For Boys cover predicts an OHS-free future of tow-in surfing where waves are about 9 inches high and involve a powered aquasled called a motobogan. Love the steering wheel.

Cool advert for Keyo’s summer of love “Plastic Machine” in Witzig’s April ’68 Surf International.

Its designer Bob McTavish must have been listening to heaps of Jefferson Airplane around this time.

Here’s a 1968 Surfing World advert for Gordon Woods Surfboards, at 208 Harbord Road Brookvale. Gordon is on the right, probably keen to move his old stock before the new vee-bottom craze takes off.