soldiers of the surf

Bondi lifesavers are celebrating 100 summers of making the surf safe for bathers

WORDS SEAN BRAWLEY

Bondi’s men – and now women – in black have reached iconic status. Catch state and international clubs in action at the Surf Lifesaving Centenary Competition on 29 November to 2 December at Bondi Beach, Sydney. Free admission
Photos: Photolibrary/James Lemass

In 2007 – the Year of the Surf Lifesaver – the oldest surf lifesaving club in Australia celebrates its centenary. The event sees Sydney’s Bondi Surf Bathers’ Life Saving Club (SBLSC) commemorated as the first Australian club of the organised lifesaving era by Surf Life Saving Australia. The Bondi club’s formation was quickly followed by others at neighbouring Bronte and Coogee, and remains the oldest continuing surf club in the world.

Boats, the surf reel, sheer brawn
and quick thinking are the lifesavers
only tools In January of 1983, I was a young surf lifesaver on one of Sydney’s most secluded beaches, Burning Palms in the Royal National Park. I was on patrol one Saturday afternoon when a group of people burst out of the bush at the southern end of the beach, obviously having walked from the nearby Otford railway station. It seemed they were international tourists who, for some reason, had decided that Burning Palms was an important destination on their Australian holiday itinerary.

As they approached our flagged area, cameras started clicking. The young man who was leading the group approached me and in broken English asked if they could take some pictures with us and the surf reel – at that time, the main tool of the surf lifesaver. When pointing to my colleagues, the young man identified them as Bondi lifesavers. I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant, but then realised that regardless of what beach in Australia you might be on, it was understood that red and yellow patrol caps meant Bondi lifesavers. My colleagues did attempt to correct our visitor, explaining we were Burning Palms lifesavers. There was a nod of acknowledgement from our visitor who explained to the group that, in fact, we were “Burning Palms Bondi lifesavers”!

For 100 summers, the Bondi lifesavers have bravely volunteered to protect the surf bathing public. They occupy an important place in Australia’s national iconography – an essential ingredient in the fame of the nation’s best-known beach. If Bondi launched the lifesaver as a classic image of Australian masculinity, it was because he was seen to embody the qualities of the ANZAC in a peacetime persona.

Such status had its drawbacks, however. The Bondi lifesaver quickly gained a reputation for physical strength and prowess that many young men in 1950s Australia felt they didn’t possess. Recruiters had to work hard to debunk the myth that a Bondi lifesaver was an antipodean superman, rather than a well-trained volunteer.

Since 1907, thousands of bathers have been rescued at Bondi, with only five lives lost while the beach has been patrolled. Tragically, all five were taken within minutes of each other on what has come to be known as Black Sunday. On that sunny Sunday in February 1938, tens of thousands of visitors were enjoying an afternoon at the beach, when three large waves washed hundreds of bathers into difficulties. If not for the quick actions of the Bondi’s lifesavers, along with their brothers from the North Bondi Surf Club and the professional beach inspectors, the death toll could have been far worse.

A visiting American physician, who also played his part in saving many lives that day, later noted: “I have never seen, nor expect to see again, such a magnificent achievement as that of your lifesavers. It is the most incredible work of love in the world.” It was made more incredible by the fact that the membership refused to single out any individual to either the media or police for recognition. Neither the club nor any one member was the hero during the biggest mass rescue in the history of surf lifesaving.

Almost 70 years after that tragic day, the overwhelming majority of individuals saved from drowning continue to be embarrassed by the event and avoid any recognition of their saviours. This said, no one forgets the day they nearly died. It took Mrs D Casey 35 years to finally write a letter to the Bondi club thanking its members for saving her life on Black Sunday. Another woman rescued on that day could only express her feelings in death, when she bequeathed a sum to the Bondi lifesavers in appreciation of their efforts over 60 years before.

The Bondi lifesavers also remember. Regardless of their original motivations for joining the club, the big rescue always holds pride of place over the big win or the big party. Saving a life does affect the way an individual views the world, and for many of the thousands of men and women who have worn the Bondi cap, the club is always with them.

Members past and present talk of the privilege of membership, of the life lessons learned and the life-long friendships made. And, as it has always been, the young Bondi lifesavers of today pay for that privilege. They, including women since the early 1980s, pay for it in time and in their annual subscriptions. This remains the remarkable reality of the volunteer surf lifesaving movement, which has done so much to help build the social capital of Australia. Bondi lifesavers are better citizens and better human beings because of their association with the beach and surf lifesaving.

And whether near or far from the beach, Bondi’s sand is in their souls. This fact is evidenced by the simple request that hundreds of Bondi members and ex-members have made of the club over the years – that their ashes be scattered over the waters off Bondi from a surf boat. Keith Scott, who became a Bondi lifesaver in the 1930s, recalled seven decades later and shortly before his death: “I still look upon the Bondi surf club as my guiding star.”

The Bondi Lifesaver – a history of an Australian icon by Sean Brawley is available for AU$40 from Bondi Surf Club on Saturdays and Sundays,9am to noon. tel: +61 (2) 9300 9729, secretary@ bondisurfclub.com.

Sean Brawley says:
Sean Brawley is a sports historian at the University of New South Wales. His research into the Australian icon that is the Bondi lifesaver, supports the contention that Bondi is the oldest surf lifesaving club in Australia.

This means there are several Sydney beaches the former surf lifesaver avoids during summer – unless he is ready for a long argument.