Keith “Tiki” Neville
Tiki’s Story
Well, boys and girls here is the DUNNY story. About 72-early 73 when Billy Mclean, myself( tiki) Blanchy and JT were the crew at San Juan. The Shop was owned By Ken Gootenswagger, from the gold coast, with Jt Managing, and both JT and Blanchy had become Jehovahs Witnesses, after leading pretty insane lives beforehand. Nat had roughly shaped some pintails before I even arrived and were sitting up in the racks in Blanchy’s shaping room, and had become a bone of contention, with Blanchy, and rightly so as space and storage was nearly non existent at the Shop, and Blanchy was constantly at JT to “get rid of them” or I will, I need the space”. JT ‘s reply was always” were going to do something with them so they have to stay there “, this went on for months and it was noticeable that Blanchy was getting more and more pissed off and one morning I arrived at the shop, Billy said “hey Tiki go out to the Dunny and have a look” I did and in the Can were the three Nat rough shaped blanks jammed into the can with shit all over them, JT soon arrived and went to have a look( after we coudn’t wait to tell him), came storming back to the Shaping room, and was really trying hard to hold back, yelled “Blanchy, tthat,tthat,( JT stuttered a bit especially when excited)was a bit uncool!!” Blanchy’s reply was, ” I told you,if you didn’t get rid of them I would”……It went on for a while with Billy and me enjoying the entertainment and throwing in comments like “gee JT we don’t have any brown tints to match” …It was hilarious with both of them trying so hard to refrain from swearing and completely losing there cool, and when JT started pulling the boards out of the Dunny, both Billy and I had tears in our eyes and Blanchy even had a wry smile…….Na I’ll never forget JT and the infamous Nats Boards in the Dunny, definitely a famous moment in San Juan’s, colorful history…….CHEERS TIKI
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San Juan
TIKI……When I started sanding at San Juan There was John Thomas, manager and pinliner and finish coater ( JT) John Blanch, Shaper (JB) and Billy Mclean glasser( who does those wonderful glass jobs at McTavish now).Both JT and JB had become Jehovahs Witnesses, and to a lot of degrees had cast away there wild and debauched ways and found a better way to live, but there still remained that twinkle in their eye that made them who they once were. Billy and I were the Pagans we still were into our WAYS and liked to party and a few chemicals, and with Nat poking his head in to get boards done there was always, some controversy going on between JB and Nat about stickers and whatever, on Nats boards so it was a lot of entertainment when these visits came, both Billy and I thought at the time Nat was cool and so we kinda sided with him when he visited, much to the disappointment of JT….. Blanchy didn’t get on at all with Nat and so you could imagine there was a certain amount of fire, but through all this the shapes and quality of the boards that were made there in these days were excellent. Blanchy’s pintails were wonderful, and went wonderfully, but there was a trend towards gunnier boards at this time and sadly not many “Hotdog” (wider tails and hippier) boards were made, which you needed for the Pass and for smaller days, (of which there were plenty of through the long summer) and there were quite a few hot locals, Grant Taylor from Broken Head was one, who were hangin out for the “hotdog ” kind of board…..this is all single fin and swallow tails were starting to come around from hawaii…….
