2007 marks the centenary of Surf Life Saving in Australia. One hundred years ago, beachgoers who were concerned about the dangers of ‘surf bathing’ formed themselves into clubs in an attempt to make the surf safer for all. The surf lifesaver has been an Australia icon ever since. Over 110,000 surf lifesavers patrol our coast each season, in 305 clubs, making Surf Life Saving Australia (SLSA) the largest volunteer organization of its kind in the country. In a commitment made by the Australian Government to mark the centenary of SLSA and to recognize the contribution Surf Life Saving has played in the formation of Australian beach culture, 2007 is officially known as the Year of the Surf Lifesaver (YSL).

To help give a sample of the tremendous history of the many great organizations that make up the SLSA we highlight the Byron Bay Surf Club celebrating their 100 years....

Byron Bay surf club celebrates 100 years
Reporter: Jane Munro - www.abc.net.au

Byron Bay has an international reputation for its beautiful beaches, so it is probably less of a surprise and more of a delight to learn that Australia's most easterly town is home to one of this country's oldest surf lifesaving clubs.

This month the Byron Bay surf club is celebrating its' 100th birthday. Interestingly, the club doesn't actually turn 100 until the first week of February next year. But the decision to celebrate early was not made due to over-eagerness, or even poor organization, but instead reveals much about the surf lifesaving credo. 

February happens to be one of the busiest months on the Surf Lifesaving calendar so the Club executive decided the only responsible thing to do was hold the celebrations just before the season starts. This way there would be no conflict with the core business of keeping our beaches safe.

Local historian, Colin Hadwell, stumbled across documents indicating the club was on the frontier of Australia's surf lifesaving movement a few years before the clubs 75th anniversary. He went on to co-write a history of the Byron Bay Surf Club, Byron Bay and the story of Surf Life Saving, with Harry E. Mercer. On the eve of the clubs centenary celebrations a quarter of a decade later, Mr Hadwell still clearly delights in his memories of researching the history of the club.

"I went to the Mitchell library in Sydney and looked at the photographs they had there and a newspaper that used to be published in Byron Bay called the Byron Record, it ceased publication in 1920. They had the microfiche of the entire publications, which I thought was amazing and I went through the letters to the editor and all the sporting results and picked out things."

"Byron Bay in those days was an isolated country community of 2000 people, which it was for many, many years, a small industrial town. In those days of neck to knee costumes you only went in ankle deep and there was a fear of the water and there was an obligation on the community to provide some safety. That was the same all over the state and the country, and reels were purchased and rescue organization were set up. It fell on our small community to provide that at a very early stage. Hence the club got together, there was a nucleus of civic-minded youth around that were healthy and anxious to perform those life saving services," Mr Hadwell said.

One of the Byron Bay surf clubs oldest members is 85 year old, Jack Wright. "I first joined the Byron Bay surf club in 1935, and the next year I got my bronze, and then I was in the 'R and R'. The clubhouse itself was just a shed, a big shed adjoining to the public dressing sheds, and that was attached to the kiosk at the time. That was our clubhouse, and I remember there were boxing gloves there, and a set of weights, that was our training schedule," he laughs.

Jack Wright's surf lifesaving career was interrupted by the start of World War II. By February 1944, Wright had enlisted and was serving in the Solomon Islands. He recalls there was a great need for a surf lifesaving club in the region, and a number of Australians, including himself set up the Solomon Islands Surf Club.

"We used to patrol the beach from various units, we would patrol the beach for a week and then be alternated to various other units at the time. Since the unit was formed in the islands, there was not a life lost. Prior to that the Americans were there in large numbers, and there were 88 lives lost in that beach, it was amazing, devastating, you couldn't imagine. When I was surfing there, the teams that I was associated with, we rescued so many people during our stay there, it was astronomical."

During the clubs eight months of beach patrolling 280 people were rescued. After the war life eventually returned to normal in the seaside town of Byron Bay and Jack Wright says he just felt happy to be alive and part of the surf club community during that time.

"It was a beautiful club, it created quite a bit of entertainment, particularly of the dances we used to have up on the top floor, and it brought every body together. Byron Bay in those years was a small knit town, and everybody knew everybody, and everybody went to everything, it was so colossal being alive in those years, it was good. Byron bay became very popular as a beach, the trains use to run from Murwillumbah and Casino, and there were times, right at its height when they would put three trains on." Wright became a life member of the Byron Bay Surf Life Saving Club in 1961.

Another of the clubs stalwarts, Brian Maughan, first arrived in Byron Bay on the passenger ship, the SS Wollongbar, with his family in 1926 - he was six years old. Brian Maughan, like Jack Wright, was drawn to the surf club at an early age and served World War II in the Middle East. Mr Maughan's widow, Joan Maughan, says her husband had an unflinching dedication to keeping the beaches of Byron Bay safe. 

"When they'd go away on their carnivals, Brian would never ever go on the carnivals with them because it would leave our beach unmanned. I have still got his whistle at home, he had one whistle, the family would come down and spend the whole full day, we had an umbrella, and I would pack sandwiches, and in those days we didn't have cafes and things, and we would spend the whole day down on that beach and he would just have the whistle in his hand and walk up and down the beach and just blow the whistle, come in, come in."

"That was his policy, he would never, ever leave our beach, because wouldn't it be terrible if somebody got drowned when these wonderful lifesavers were away winning."

Mr Maughan served the club for 48 years, he was awarded life membership in 1961. Jim Clark, a club member of fifty years lists Brian Maughan, along with Bill Haskew and Bill Wynter as the three outstanding club members of the past fifty years. Clark has held nearly every position in the club, including President, Secretary and Treasurer.

"Wynter was an Australian ski champion and taught all these younger people which still carries on today how to ride a surf ski. Barry Kelly was a famous one who went to the Olympic Games, and got a medal at the LA Olympics, with Grant Kelly, and also many of the Australian ski titles, Peter Clark would be the other outstanding ski competitor who won Australian titles, who coached at the Olympic Games, and last year he coached Byron Bay boy, Nathan Baggaley to silver medals."

"The club today is a great club, it still provides a great haven for people, keep them off the street. The surf club has been a very competitive club, they won the New South Wales country titles something like 20 times since 1971, they have won many state and Australian competitors, they have had many famous rescues, couldn't go through them all, but getting guys out of the surf at Tallows Beach." 

"One of the worst one that I recall was the tragic loss of a young policeman, his parents lived here, and he got drowned at Cosy Corner right on Easter one year. We had our boys out all day looking in a terrible sea, we thought we might have lost some of them, but we didn't, but we never found the policeman. We did have many rescues, thousands of them."

Clark says the club has seen it's fair share of challenges. "The defining moments in the club would be the cyclone in 1974, which completely wrecked the old clubhouse that stood over on the point at the front of the car park. From that date on we had to build a new clubhouse, we spent seven years getting the land, and finally got the land from Jack Ferguson who was the Deputy Premier of New South Wales, he granted the land where the clubhouse is now." 

For more information about the 100 Years of Surf Clubs - Please visit http://www.surflifesaving.com.au/surflife_cms