Community farewells popular newsagent

Every Friday without fail for 52 years of his marriage, a Tweed Heads South newsagent bought oriental lilies after work, took them home and gave them to his wife

EVERY Friday without fail for 52 years of his marriage, Tweed Heads South newsagent

John Curtis bought beautiful oriental lilies after work, took them home and gave them

to his wife Beverly.

But John didn’t buy his favourite flowers for Beverly on Friday, December 20, 2019,

because the former champion water skier and swimmer died unexpectedly two days

earlier from a suspected heart attack. He was 72.

It was the saddest day of Beverly’s life, as it was for her three

children: Christopher, Katrina and Rebecca; and four grandchildren: Jasmine and Tiah

(Bec’s daughters); Oliver and Flynn (Katrina’s sons).

Their heartbreak, their grief and their many tears were clearly evident at John’s

funeral service the following Monday at his “second home”, the Coolangatta & Tweed

Heads Golf Club.

Such was the admiration and love for this devoted family man and maker of many

friends that the club auditorium was packed with what somebody said was “half of the

town”.

They came from near and far to say their final goodbyes to a man of substance who

was known for his kind heart, friendly demeanour and dedication to his work.

He never took a day off sick and on his early morning newspaper runs not even floods

nor cyclones could halt his progress. He even delivered papers by boat and once

swam a creek to make “a very personal drop-off”.

He was a rock as a decades-long active community service member and businessman

and long-time executive committeeman of his golf club, as indeed he was a rock to

his family. He was the glue that held them together, which was so obvious by the

outpouring of love his children and granddaughters voiced in their tributes to their

beloved “Poppy”.

Funeral celebrant Liz Jesse more than once spoke that one word which aptly

described the feelings the family had for John Curtis: “beloved”.

John Michael Curtis, known to his golfing mates as “Curly”, never appeared in media headlines for any heroics; he never received any Australia Day awards; he was never on the Queen’s honours’ list.

That isn’t what he was about. He just went about doing what any caring and kind

human being would do and what a patriarch should epitomise. He was, in essence, a

good man, a good provider, a good deed-doer who always seemed to have time for

everyone.

Curly Curtis never boasted about his sporting achievements in the 1960s as an

Ipswich Boys Grammar record-breaking swimming champion, nor his talent as a

professional barefoot water skier and one of the stars of the 60s and 70s ski troupes

at the Surfers Paradise Ski Gardens and Chinderah Ski Lodge on the Tweed River.

One of his stunts involved jumping through a “ring of fire” that always thrilled

spectators, which numbered in their thousands.

The Surfers Ski Gardens starred the best skiers in the country – there were high-risk boat sequences culminating in boats launching through flaming barricades at the top of jump ramps.

NEWLYWEDS: Beverly and John at their wedding reception in 1967 in the Brisbane Tower Mill restaurant.

John also demonstrated his “have a go” attitude when he raced dragsters at the

Surfers Paradise International Raceway, owned and operated by the Ski Gardens’

proprietor and property developer Keith Williams.

In fact, many of his old mates only found out about these feats when it was eulogised

at his funeral by good friend Ken Bennett.

Ken also told of Curly’s ardent support for “his footy team”, St George

Illawarra Dragons.

An email to Beverly from the Dragons Team read: “Our sincere condolences to you,

Christopher, Katrina and Rebecca and your extended family over the loss of a

beautiful man and a passionate St George supporter. We will do our best to bring

home a premiership in 2020.”

John had a personal association with St George, a fishing buddy by the name of Harry

Bath, one of Australia’s rugby league legends and the 1977 premiership winning

coach for the Dragons.

Bath, who died in Sydney in 2008 aged 83, owned a 35ft flybridge cruiser and on his

fishing trips to Queensland he had as crew John and good mate Arthur Sears.

As Bath supplied the boat, “Captain Curly” insisted that he and Arthur supplied the

“beer, prawns and oysters”.

When Cessnock-born John Curtis finished high school he started a job as an

apprentice butcher in Kingscliff and it wasn’t long before he met the girl of his dreams

in 1965 at Coolangatta’s famous The Patch beer garden.

The teenage sweethearts were married on July 29, 1967, in Brisbane at the Mt

Gravatt Presbyterian Church, and in 1975 John took over the running of his father

Cleve’s Tweed South news agency and worked as a team with Beverly for 20 years

before selling and later retiring to live in Terranora.

The Minjungbal Drive news agency was a later inclusion to the Curtis smallgoods

“corner store” built in the early 50s by Cleve and his father Walter. The original

building was extended to also include the Tweed South Post Office which was

managed by John’s mother Enid.

John Michael Curtis was cremated at the Tweed Heads Gardens and Crematorium

where his ashes were laid to rest beside his father and mother Clarence and Enid

Curtis, his grandparents Walter and Grace Curtis and his uncle Keith Curtis.

• Peter Murphy is a journalist, author and former golfing mate of John Curtis.

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