Surfers Paradise Surf Life Saving Club turns 100 with new book by Michael Jacobson
The stalwarts and legends of Surfers Paradise Surf Life Saving Club have been immortalised in a stunning celebration to mark a century. Read about the plans
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Claude Jeanneret is a little hard of hearing these days. Still, 76 years with the Surfers Paradise Surf Life Saving Club means Claude has pretty much heard everything.
Nonagenarian Claude is the club’s oldest living member, having joined as a teenager in 1948. He will be back at the beach today (Saturday 13 September) for the launch of Sky Blue and Gold, a new book marking the centenary of the Surfers Paradise SLSC.
Written by former Gold Coast Bulletin journalist Michael Jacobson and designed by another Bulletin alumnus, Bill Key, Sky Blue and Gold would have been much shorter without access to Claude’s prodigious memory.
“I came down from Brisbane in a recruiting boom after World War II,” he says. “I lived for those weekends in Surfers. If the old boatshed could talk, it would
tell some stories.”
Examples? Claude’s got a million of them. Like the day Trevor “Nippy” Wallace hit a bloke with his pith helmet because he refused to swim between the flags. Or when former club coach Fred Richards, who died at 99, left his estate to his older sister, who was already past the ton. Or memorable trips to Byron Bay.
“We’d load 20 mattresses on the back of Kev Bycroft’s truck, hook up the surfboat and we were off,” remembers Claude. “Not that we got far. First stop was always the Miami Hotel, then Ma Kelly’s at Billinudgel, then a few beers at Brunswick Heads. By the time we got to Byron, everyone was asleep in the back. Next day we would compete. Do pretty well too.”
These and scores of other anecdotes complement Sky Blue and Gold’s more serious brief to acknowledge a club history built upon 100 years of patrolling the beach, saving lives and championing the volunteer, community and competitive ethos of surf lifesaving.
What unfolds is both tribute and archive, with colourful stories enhanced by comprehensive statistics.
Highlights abound. For example, in 1947 – 33 years before women earned full membership status in surf lifesaving in 1980 – Surfers Paradise SLSC entered the first ever all-women’s March Past team for the South Coast Branch titles.
For another, one of the club’s most impressive rescues did not even happen in the surf. When Cyclone Bessie struck in 1954, a crew of eight was enlisted to save 35 people stranded on Macintosh Island. Conditions were so perilous it was decided that none of the crew could be brothers, in case of deaths during the rescue.
Fortunately, all were brought to safety, including a newborn baby wrapped in a shawl and nestled between club captain Bill Hookway’s feet in the bottom of the boat.
There are tragic stories, such as occurred in November 1958 when 21-year- old Peter Gerard Spronk, from Brisbane, was attacked and killed by a shark.
When the alarm sounded, a team of young lifesavers leapt into action. Ignoring the bloodied water and the shark gliding just metres away, they brought Mr Spronk to shore. Five received Meritorious Medals for Bravery, with club member Peter Brennan’s courage particularly noted.
There are quirky stories. Did you know that former club caretaker, Gary Myers, might have played James Bond? Or that his brother, Peter Anderson, is in his eighties and still doing patrols?
Then there are the competition triumphs – eight Australian club titles, waves of world, national, state and branch champions, and the rise of superstars who became household names.
Think of the likes of Trevor Hendy, Karla Gilbert, Cassandra Sedgman, Dwayne Thuys, Ali Day, Nathan Meyer, Courtney Hancock. Olympic greats Grant Hackett and Sally Pearson did their time on patrol for Surfers Paradise SLSC. Ironman legend Shannon Eckstein and multiple Coolangatta Gold- winning brother Caine started at the club. Their father Bill coached there.
Olympic representatives span from Mexico in 1968 to Paris last month.
Go back a little further and marvel at the dominance of Peter Lacey, almost unbeatable in his day, and whose statue stands on the foreshore of Surfers Paradise beach. Other great names too, like Claude’s, the four Hookway brothers and four Kitchener brothers, the Roslan lads, Max Christmas, Bill “Ganger” Neilsen, and so many more.
Then go back to the very beginning, to when the Gold Coast was a sleepy seaside hamlet called Elston, where enigmatic hotelier Jim Cavill and tireless businessman Charlie Walsh Sr were instrumental in the establishment of the in December 1925.
Since then, Surfers Paradise SLSC has become an icon at the heart of which is an inextricable link between club, community, and the city of Gold Coast.
As Club President Chris Haile says: “The reason our members come to the club is as true today as it was back in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s. Being part of our Surfers Paradise family is the essence of what it means to be a member of our club.”
Last weekend, young Surfers Paradise clubbie Finn Askew won the Oceanman title at the Lifesaving World Championships on the Gold Coast. What a wonderful way for Surfers Paradise SLSC to mark the end of one centenary and the start of another.
But it is fitting that Claude Jeanneret should have the last word.
“I don’t know what I would have done without surf lifesaving and this club,” he says. “It is the greatest movement on the planet, and I have been so fortunate to have been part of it, with this club, and in this place.”
Hopefully, Sky Blue and Gold captures that sentiment and rides it like a wave, all the way to the beach.
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