Wally The Walker
Wally The Walker Just a little of my history of growing up at Bondi Beach, in the 40s through to 60s.
I learnt to swim at an early age in the small pool at Bondi Baths under the guidance of a well-respected coach by the name of Claude Seabrook, my father would take me down each morning sitting on the petrol tank of his twin Triumph motorbike before he went to work, rain, hail or shine, throughout winter too. Didn’t take long to get the hang of it all and then graduated to the rock pool at North Bondi, and not long after that into the surf at the North corner, aged about 5 or 6.
Later we would hire out surfoplane’s, mainly surfing middle Bondi and then a little later after watching the likes of Lee Tingles on his belly board carving up monster waves at Ben Buckler I made my own out of 5ply marine timber with two chrome D-type handles screwed into the front, also has a single fin, had a ball on that. After a brief introduction to the ‘toothpick’ longboard scene by a mate Ross Hamilton who owned a 16 foot racing board, the Okanui’s hit the scene in the early fifties, and Ray Young was turning them out in Ramsgate Avenue, also Gordon Woods had a workshop up in Grafton Lane, Bondi Junction, this virtually put an end to the toothpicks. My father who was a superb cabinet and furniture maker acquired a set of plans on how to make a ten foot three inch Okanui, he also worked in the timber industry so materials were no problem and we went ahead and build a beauty in the back verandah/workshop of our semi-detached home in Roe Street, North Bondi, took about a month all up to finish it off. Had to make a special billy cart type of setup to get it to the beach and launch it at the North Corner (happy days) alongside the likes of Ross Kelly, Bluey Mayes, Ray Young, Gordon Woods etc these were great times, but better was to come when a couple of years later balsa and fibreglass came along and changed it all again for the better. Before I go on, that sixteen foot toothpick that my mate Ross Hamilton owned was the first introduction to surfing for Mick Dooley, I first met Mick through Ross when we drove him to a tennis tournament at Manly, and soon after that we got him to the beach and onto the board for the first time and he was just a natural from the get-go, so that was the end of tennis for Mick.
The history of the Americans bringing out the balsa boards during the 1956 Olympics at Melbourne is well documented so I will leave that alone, suffice to say thank you guys.
I owned a few balsa and glass boards, one built by Noel Ward and Scott Dillon at their workshop in Wellington Place, right opposite my High School in Wellington Street, then known as Bondi Junior Technical College, the fancy name for a school full of sports mad and surf crazy Aussie larrikins. Another and the best balsa board I ever owned was built by Jimmy Brown at Gordon Woods workshop at Bondi Junction before he moved to Brookvale, it was an eight foot three inch pig board, as Jimmy called it, was made out of several segments of balsa laminated together and somehow had hollow sections in the middle so he explained at a later date of which I will get to in due course, that board could maneuver something fantastic for that era. It got stolen out of the South Bondi Surfboard Riders Clubhouse (cesspit) about a year after I purchased it and we all thought that was the end of that, so I bought Noel Ward’s own personal board as he was too busy building them to ride much back then. About a year later around 1959 a team of us including Jimmy Brown went for a surf down at Voodoo, for those that don’t know where it is then you will have to find out the hard way like we did, no 4 wheel drives back then, all out and push through the sand hills. However, during the day a few of us were out the back enjoying a nice six foot left when I heard all this yelling and arm waving from the shoreline, so thinking they must have sighted a shark we paddled in quick smart (would have out paddled ‘Nat’ Young). So Jimmy is jumping up and down waving his arms and going off his head like a madman, and the bloke copping all the abuse is a board builder from Cronulla (Graham) Can’t remember his surname now, anyway Jimmy says Wally that is your stolen board laying right there at that blokes feet, I looked and didn’t recognize it, then Jimmy says look at those panels, that was how I told you how I shaped the board to make it lighter, it’s yours now pick it up and we are heading back to Bondi as the southerly is starting to blow, with this the other bloke says hey wait a minute I bought that off a bloke and it was in poor shape and I have spent a fair bit of money on it, I need some compensation, of which Jimmy (who could fight like hell) said you can do it two ways, we go straight to Cronulla police station and report you for possessing stolen property or you and I will settle it right here and now so which will it be, needless to say, we drove back to Bondi with my old/new board all waxed up and ready for action.
The ‘Wally the Walker’ nickname was tagged onto me by the one and only Bluey Mayes, who explained that as I was always walking the plank to trim the board then that is the appropriate name for you, like it or not, and it stuck, so most of my old Bondi crew only know me as Wally and have long forgotten my real name. Some of my age group crew were Bob Fel – Geoff O’laughan – Jeff Rule – John Eccleston – Jimmy Brown – Col Collier – Terry Anderson – Garry Moffat – Andy Cochran – Mick Dooley to name just a few who called South Bondi home during that late 50s and 60s era, the younger ones coming through were Rob Conneeley, Kevin Brennan, Warren Cornish, Ronny Silcock etc, the older guys that we looked up to were Jack ‘Bluey’ Mayes – Barry ‘Magoo’ McGuigan – Scotty Dillon – Bob Evans – Barry Ross – Des Price – Des McMeekan, the list goes on forever just like the memories. We also did a bit of traveling over the years, mainly weekend trips to The Entrance (Toowoon Bay) Catherine Hill Bay (surfing through the pylons of the coal loading pier) hairy stuff, resulting in a few dings, then sometimes south to Voodoo, Garie Beach, Stanwell Park, discovered a few hideaway place of which are all well known today. So that is a little bit of my story, there is definitely more, but would take forever to put it all down, maybe a book one day. Cheers to all – Dave Newell aka Wally the Walker
