Barrie Smith (Smithy) Bethells Beach 2003

A very good friend of mine passed away in March 2003 and I flew in from Australiato attend his funeral. In the short week I was in NZ. I managed to get in contactwith two Club members (Dave Meyrick and Mike Sheehan) who were in the SurfClub with me approximately 30 years ago. I also ventured out to Bethells Beach forthe first time since 1973. I thought I would have no trouble finding the beach as Ihad made this trip many many times in the past from Ellerslie but I did manage tolose my way a couple of times.

Bethells was basically the same with a small amount of development over the past3 decades, and it still was able to show its wild, rough, primitive self with its blackiron sand that used to get into every nook and cranny, as my mother used to tellme off for leaving black sand in the shower or bath after a weekend at Bethells. Iremembered that when you crossed the creek at Worleys house you just followedthe road and the 3 surf club buildings were on your left but I had trouble locatingtheir position, as there is now nothing there and the new club house has been builtcloser to the creek that runs into the beach. The clubhouse looks terrific comparedwith what we had; unfortunately I could not see inside as it was locked up andthere was no one around being a weekday. I wandered down to the surf with mywife Pam and this was obviously still the same with the boisterous unending whitewater rolling in, and a lot of memories came flooding back which is why I decidedto put the memories down on paper and the Club can display it and members canshare in a piece of history of who and what went before them.

Some of the photocopies of the old photos did not reproduce very well as therewas a mixture of black and white and colour shots.

Being such a long time ago, and the old memory not being as good as it was, Ihope I can give a fairly accurate account of the "Old Boys" time in the Surf Club. It is interesting to note that some of us old members of the late 1960's and early1970's are now aged between 50 and 60 years old!

The following are a couple of stories that may or may not be factual as I have onlyheard these in passing but I have never seen any photos or anything written down.

A long time ago John Bethell used to operate a guest house up on the hilloverlooking the beach, he would arrange to pick the guests up from the SwansonRailway Station and bring them out to Bethells Beach as a retreat. Sometimes theguests would like to go for a swim in the surf but due to the dangerous conditionswhich usually prevailed, they took precautions by tying a rope around their waistswhich was in turn tied to a stake in the sand, and off they went. Then after somedrownings the Royal New Zealand Navy started a Surf Club and they had a smallhut for their use which over time got buried under the shifting sand dunes; we knewwhere it was situated as a telegraph pole used to be sticking out of the sand dunesand it was not far from our 3 original surf club buildings. The Navy had to abandonthe Club due to a lack of members, with the Navy having to go on manouversoverseas, etc. they couldn't carry on. This must have been way back in the 1950'searly 1960's.

Sometime in the 1960's the Club was reborn with the help of some of the localresidents and others that came from nearby suburbs such as Henderson, Ranui,Waitemata. I cannot remember all the Club members but I do recall that:

John Bethell was the PresidentMike Hayes was the Club CaptainJeff Hope was the Secretary

Other members were Graham Hill, Alan Ingles, John Gardiner, Richard Gardiner,John Worley, Michael Worley (Sprog). I think that Graham Hill and Ross Bethell stillare residents at Bethells. Ross Bethell would have only been about 10 years oldwhen I came to Bethells Beach in 1967.

In 1967 a group of us, who were active members of Orewa Surf Life Saving Club,had heard that Bethells Beach Surf Life Saving Club were desperate for newmembers and through various club carnivals we got to know some of the Bethellsguys and we were anxious to belong to a beach that had some surf and hopefullysome rescues so we could put our training into action, and we moved over from theEast Coast to the West Coast. We actually went from Orewa Beach, which wouldhave to be one of the safest beaches in Auckland, to the most treacherous beachon the West Coast of Auckland.

Even though there was only about 8 of us from Orewa and some new locals, wewere still not large in membership, which required us to be on patrol Saturday andSundays of nearly every weekend throughout the summer.

It became a way of life for us and we had a great time, exploring the area, sociallyterrific, we all went out together to parties, etc. lot of laughs, friendships, and a realsense of achieving something worthwhile.

We started with only one small hut which was originally a chook house. Inside wehad a couple of chairs, small table, bar, fridge and a sink. We had an outsidedunny (long drop) with a sign "Here Tis" painted on the wall. Then next to this wasanother small hut which was the sleeping quarters and had 3 bunk beds in it.These 2 huts were given to us by the local residents but we needed somewhere tostore our gear so we built a large shed which housed all our equipment and wereally thought we had all worked hard and done well.

1967 - Original Club House andpreviously a chook house and a shop

Lenny Ethell,Dave Meyrick,Graham Hill,John Worley,Herb Merritt,Geoff Hope, Club Truck & ouroutside dunny (HERE 'TIS)

1967 - Framework for newgear shed going up

1967 - L to R. our 3 club buildings -gear shed, clubhouse, bunkroom

One of the rituals in the club was that when new members becamequalified, having passed exams and tests for their Royal Life SavingSociety Medallion and their Surf Life Saving Bronze medallion, eachmember had to shout the Club 6 bottles of beer (750ml) and we had acelebration in the small hut - so the idea was to get the 6 membersqualified so we could have a real good time when they passed. It was agreat moment when you became qualified as the training that you put inand your instructor's commitment to get you passed plus himself was verygrueling and time-consuming and the effort to get it perfect was veryfulfilling.

Back in those days, apart from the Royal Life Saving side, such as CPR,blood flow, arteries, pulses, etc, the surf side (bronze medallion) wasextremely hard as you had to know every position in the 6-man rescueand resuscitation team which was 1 beltman, 1 reelman, 3 linesmen and 1patient. The two worst jobs were the beltman and the reelsman. Also,swim 14 lengths of the pool under a stipulated time, retrieve a brick fromthe bottom of the pool swim with your patient in tow and some otheractivities. Back then the rescue tube had just started to come onto thescene and not a lot of clubs had them. Our two most effective means ofequipment for a rescue were the belt and reel and the rescue board. Weused to spend hours waxing the line for the belt because if you did notwax it then the line would sink in the water and the drag to get out to thepatient was draining and exhausting and you needed to be very fit and agood swimmer to complete the task. But when you are training to getqualified or compete at surf carnivals in the 6-man rescue andresuscitation you drew your position out of a bag (like a lotto draw). Soyou had to be fit as you would never know what position you would end updoing.

I don't believe the 6-man R & R qualifying is part of the bronze medallionanymore. But these days the equipment is far superior, such as rescuetubes, jet skis, helicopters, quad bikes, walky talkies, etc. and time beingcritical more lives are saved.

So you can understand why becoming a qualified surf life saver you havereached a high point and it was the greatest feeling of satisfaction. Wetook it very very seriously and I never knew of a failure. Also, the persontraining you to get qualified was usually going for his Instructor’sCertificate and the commitment was intense for everyone because if youfailed so did the instructor. However, it never happened in my time,everyone was a winner. One piece of equipment I have not seen for manyyears is the surf canoe which was manned by 4 people with paddles.

1968 - Herb Merritt by the surf canoe outside the newclubhouse

Waihi Northern Regional Surf Champs.Front: Red Hurley, Wayne LawrenceBack. Rex Harrison (Harry) John Bishop (Bish)

I always thought that it was pretty useless as a rescue aid, as every timeyou got onto a wave it would always broach sideways and end up rollingover and every one left in the water as their was no steering mechanism.We had a canoe at Bethells and some of the guys competed at carnivals.We had some fun out in the surf with it. It had a ballast area in the front andrear and was unsinkable but inevitably the canoe would end up on thebeach with the crew floundering around in the water, lucky we had lifejackets on.It was a good way of keeping the members occupied and there was no realupkeep compared to a surf boat and it was all we could afford back then.

Bethells had a very good relationship with Muriwai S.L.S.C. and not onlybecause they were our neighbouring beach but they knew all the hardshipwe had with a small membership and they were always willing to help out.Red Beach S.L.S.C. was also another helpful club, probably due to some ofus having come from neighbouring Orewa S.L.S.C. and one of Auckland'stop belt swimmer, Reg Harker, used to train at Bethells and lived atSwanson. Incidentally, Reg Harker's daughter is a member of MaroochydoreS.L.S.C. Australia and recently was in the Brisbane papers due to hercompeting in surf carnivals. My daughter, Brodie, was a lifesaver at KingsBeach, Sunshine Coast, Caloundra, Queensland. Do some of you oldmembers remember some of the members from other clubs you competedagainst - Butts (Muriwai), Jackson (Muriwai), Bray (Piha).

Moving along, we decided that we needed to build a club house so that wecould attract more members and ease the patrol workload, and obviouslynot having many funds we had to devise ways of tackling this problem.Some of our fund raising activities were pretty straightforward but with atwist. One way was the familiar chook raffles in the pubs - we would getabout 6 chooks donated and with the raffle books off we would go to thelocal pubs (Riverhead and others) on a Friday night, we always had BethellsBeach S.L.S.C. shirts on as they attracted more interest. But what we woulddo is have about 12 raffles with 6 chooks (we would raffle the same chooktwice) If anyone asked who won and what raffle ticket number, we wouldsay it was "someone in the other bar and I can't remember the number".

Another good money spinner was chook poop fertilizer. We made real gooddollars from this effort and it was a real effort - dirty, dusty, smelly. We gotthe chook poop from local farms. We had to clean out the chook pens thenbag the fertilizer but before that we would target a suburb with reply paidcards telling us how many bags each address wanted, we could never getenough chook poop to satisfy everyone. We would load up the bags intrailers, deliver them and collect the money.

Another time we had a hot chip stand at the Kumeu Fair and we were nottoo good at this as we forgot to drain all the fat from the chips and the bagsbecame soggy and disintegrated - the chips would either all fall out or thecustomers hands were covered in greasy fat, plus their clothes had fatstains on them.

Our new club house was built in 1968 (Opening Day 22nd December). We were fortunate that we had the help and guidance of a builder, JimGordon, who was Dave Meyrick's stepfather and also Ross Dallimore whowas a social member and held a management role with a building companyin Mt Roskill called Keith Hay Homes where all our materials came from.Two club members, Mike Sheehan and Cosscak (Greg Serhijenko) wereelectricians and some one else was a plumber and all the rest of us werethe labourers. We built the clubhouse in one winter and had the grandopening day on 22nd December 1968. We were very proud of the buildingwhich was 'L' shaped with a bunkroom, kitchen, showers, laundry and acommon room (lounge).

New Clubhouse - just the beginningL to R. Dave Meyrick, Glen Maria, Graham Hill

Geoff Hope - nailing, Smithy - watching, Herb Merritt - carrying wood

Opening day 22nd December 1968.Jim Gordon - our builder, receiving his life membership

All FINISHED!!! -

‘THIS PLAQUE SERVES TO MARK THEOFFICIAL OPENING OF THE BETHELLS

BEACH S.L.S.C. (INC) CLUBHOUSE ON THE22ND DECEMBER 1968.

MR L.J. FISHER - VICE PATRON AND THEOFFICIAL DEDICATION OF THE CLUBHOUSE

AND GEAR BY THE REV. R.H. MCKENZIEAND TO REMAIN AFFIXED HERETO TO

COMMEMORATE AND BECOME SYMBOLICOF THE EFFORTS MADE BY INDIVIDUALS

AND PARTIES IN THEIR CLUBHOUSECOMPLETION’

Just before the Grand Opening - 22nd December 1968Barrie Smith (Smithy) and Geoff Hope

Smithy’sAnglia

The old red Club truck.... once again bogged down in the sand by the creekL to R. Graham Hill, Mike Hayes, Alan Ingles

The old red Club truck again.... Alan Ingles, Lenny Ethell, Dave Meyrick and Herb Merritt.

It was still a long walk to the beach and the amount of times we had the redclub truck loaded up to take the gear down to the beach for patrols only to getthe truck bogged down to the axles in the sand, usually by the creek.We werelucky that we could get either the Worleys or the Bethells tractor to comedown and get us out. We used to charge the public $5.00 to get their vehiclesout when they became bogged, as a lot of them thought they could drive rightdown to the surf edge or along the beach.

I found some of the public would take us for granted. As I recall, one incidentwhere myself and Dave Meyrick volunteered to stay at the beach on a cold,windy, wet Christmas day and the beach was closed due to rips, we hungaround until 5.00pm, then as we decided to go home a group of peopleturned up, so we told them we were going and to keep out of the water - theysaid that they would do what they liked, so we stayed on until they left at6.30pm. We finally got to have Christmas dinner at about 8.00pm that night.

Another time, two young girls were supposed to be swimming in the creek notfar from where it entered the sea and they ended up going into the surf andhad to be rescued even though they were not far out. Their father turned upand told the girls off and didn't even thank the guys for saving them - makesyou wonder sometimes!

There were two other incidents that stand out in my mind and one was afisherman who suffered a fatal heart attack while fishing with his mate downthe southern end of the beach around the rocks. It was about 8 o'clock in themorning and we were ready for a Sunday patrol when his mate who wasexhausted struggled into the club to tell us his friend needed help. We drovethe surf club truck down to the cave at the southern end of Bethells and thenclimbed around the rocks which seemed to take an eternity and when we gotto him it was too late, but to get him back to the truck was a problem as wecouldn't use a stretcher, so we more or less man handled him back, he wasvery heavy, only a short guy but about 17 stone wearing gum boots.

We eventually got him back to the club house and had him on the stretcher.While we waited for the coroner to arrive in his station wagon to take himaway, I noticed something interesting or maybe strange. When the coronerarrived he asked us to take off his gumboots and none of us would do it! Idon't know if it was because we were standing around looking at him for quitesome time waiting for the coroner that we started thinking about what hadhappened and the manhandling of a dead person, it was a strange feelingand everyone was very quiet. Dave Meyrick kissed his forehead when we firstgot him back, which is apparently some custom in the catholic faith.

The other incident was very tragicand I was lucky to have thenewsclipping about it, but some ofthe story is missing so I haveadded it in to the best of myrecollection. Lenny Ethell and JohnWorley who both lived at thebeach were the first members tobe alerted to the missing surfer, itwas mid-week and late in theafternoon coming onto darknesswhen Peter Sadler, and PukeKainamu were having a surf andPuke came into the shore andnoticed his mate Peter Sadler wasnowhere to be seen. It wasfortunate that the two memberswere on the beach at the time toget rescue proceedings under way,by contacting police and the AirForce.

The executive members were having a meeting at Geoff Hopes' house inHenderson when the call came through to get to the beach as fast as possible,and then launched the club canoe to help search. But to add to the problem ofthe big surf, the fog rolled in and the aircraft couldn't see anything, even with itsstrong lights. I spoke to Lenny Ethell some time after and he was very upsetthat he couldn't save Peter Sadler, as Lenny was on the rocks by O'Neil'sBeach listening to Peter's cries for help but he felt helpless that nothing couldbe done. They found Peter's surfboard the next day washed up on the beachbut no sign of him. While they were searching for the missing surfer JohnWorley showed us some areas to look at such as an underground cave whichyou cannot see from the land. To get to it you had to go at low tide and dropinto a pool of waist deep water and move along a narrow passageway on topof seaweed and come out to a large cave which had some seals in there. Itwas dark and spooky and the only other way in would by by boat when the seawas calm, not much chance of that at Bethells Beach. Another area wesearched and found more caves was the northern end of O'Neil's Beach, thecliff face looks like a solid sheer face but it is actually split and allowed you todrop down by rope to more caves, again you can only do this at low tide.Unfortunately, the surfer was never found and the police and especially LennyEthell and John Worley searched for about seven days before it was called off.

To give you an idea of some of the huge surfat Bethells Beach there was a photo taken andput in the NZ Herald of a wave breaking overthe "island" before O'Neils Beach during astorm out at sea. It's a pity I never kept a copyof it, sounds unbelievable, but it was true. Thisis the island the wave broke over... not surehow they measured this, possibly included theback spray in the size

Another highlight was the weekend in January 1968 when we competed at theNorthern Regionals at Waihi Beach, against 13 other clubs and we hit theheadlines in the papers "Bethells Beach Boys Burn off Big Surf Race". Wehad four swimmers in the teams surf race and they all came in the top 10places which gave us the title - Zogg, Peter Kitchener (Kitty), John Gardinerand Glen Maria. These guys amazed all the other top clubs such as Muriwai,Piha, Mount Maunganui, as a lot of them from Waihi down did not really knowwhere Bethells Beach was.

1968 New Zealand NationalsTitahi Bay Ellington.L to R. Graham Hill, MikeSheehan, Barrie Smith (Smithy -nearest to camera), John Worley,Peter Kitchener.

March Team.

Northern Regionals Jan1968 Waihi Beach N.Z.

“What a fine body of Men”

L to R. Lenny Ethell, DaveMeyrick, Herb Merritt, GlenMaria, John Worley, PeterKitchener

1968 New Zealand NationalsTitahi Bay, Wellington

Herb Merritt- our flag bearer

Cossack (GregSerhijenko). Fresh WaterBeach N.S.W. SydneyAustralia 1971.

Orewa Beach CarnivalCossack, Herb, Alan

During the winter months Bethells Beach formed a soccer team andcompeted in a Sunday competition run by Henderson Soccer Club and wasorganized by Mike Sheehan. We had a lot of laughs on the field, most of ourteam had never played before. Mike Sheehan who played top grade forHenderson Soccer Club then Waitemata City football Club and myself (BarrieSmith) who played in the lower grades were the only soccer players in theteam but it kept the surf members together in the off season.

Bethells Beach Surf claimsanother victim- This was Mikes’ firstouting

Mike Sheehan surveys thedamage... to his ego!!

Dave Meyrick, Mike Sheehan,Twiggy

Dave Meyrick telling a story tothe boys in the original

clubhouse

hanging on every word...L - R. Michael Worley (sprog),Jim Harris, Graham Hill, Paul,Worley

Mike Sheehan may have had one too many I think !!

Graham Hill, Mike Sheehan, Herb Merritt

Back in our time there were no female Club members, as we had nofacilities to accommodate them; not like today where the females play justas big a part as the males in every aspect of life saving.

L to .R. Dave Meyrick, Glen Maria Lenny Ethell

Smithy - 1967

Smithy (left) and DaveMeyrick

Where are they now?

I often wonder what different paths members took along life's highway, wheredid they end up living, what do they now do for work, and what experienceshave they encountered - married, children, grandchildren etc. Below is someinformation I found out when I briefly visited in 2003.

Ross Bethell still lives at the beach and is president of the Club

Graham Hill lives at Bethells

John Bishop - ex Orewa S.L.S.C. and ex-President of Bethells S.L.S.C. moved to Keri Keri, now back in Auckland

John Gardiner was a local of Bethells, moved to Keri Keri.

Barrie Smith* (Smithy) lives in Queensland Australia since 1984, married to Pam for 34 years, has 2 children and 2 granddaughters.

Mike Sheehan lives in Swanson, ex-Electrician, Food Industry, Property Developer, has 4 children

Glen Maria* lived in England for 35 years, now in Auckland, married with1 child; PE instructor on the cruise ship Australis for 2 years traveling the world, then ran a camping supply business in England

Dave Meyrick* has 2 children, lives at Maraitai, successful businessman

Cossack* (Greg Serhijenko), married to Marie, 2 daughters and lives in Auckland.

Lenny Ethell,* lives in Ireland as a farmer, married with 3 teenage daughters, ex-professional life guard at Bondi Beach; competed for Bronte S.L.S.C; worked offshore on oil rigs around the world

I wonder where these guys are now - Peter Kitchener (Kitty), Nui Poindestre(Nui), Rex Harrison (Harry), Des Pooley, Herb Merritt, Geoff Hope, MikeHayes, Worleys, Zogg, and others that escape me at the moment.

* (ex Orewa Surf Life Saving Club)

“Four Muskateers” Smithy, Dave, Mike and Glen

Mike and Marilyn Sheehan

Des and Robyn Pooley

Rex (Harry) and Marie Harrison

Greg (Cossack) and Marie Serhijenko

Tina, Graham Hill, Lenny Ethell“Love me love my surfboard”

Barrie Smith (Smithy) and Pams wedding 1971

Back row L to R.Jim Hardy, Lenny Ethell, Julie Bishop, Robin Pooley, Rex Harrison (Harry)Herb Merritt, Dave Meyrick (bestman) Des Pooley, Marie Harrison, BarrieSmith, (Smithy - Groom) Pam Smith (bride) Ron Smith, Robert Riach, ConnieRiach.

Front.John Bishop (Bish) Glen Maria.

In writing this booklet, I had trouble to not make it read as my personal lifehistory, but to those of you who found it of some interest, I am glad I wasable to cast a small insight into our experiences in the surf life saving club atBethells Beach. I believe it gave us a healthy life style with lots ofchallenges and helped us to become better more balanced and caringcitizens ready to help our fellow man.

In conclusion, I would like to thank my wife Pamela and her friend Alyson forall their time, effort and computer skills in putting this booklet together.Hopefully, some of our paths will cross again one day and we can reminisceover a cold beer about the "good old days".

Thank you.

Barrie Smith34 O'Quinn StreetNudgee Beach Brisbane Qld 4014AustraliaPh. 0011 61 7 3267 3168

This is Nudgee Beach where I now live.... “couldn’t stayaway from the water for long”... ‘Smithy’