The late Brian Felton and his mates surfed Metropolitan and South West beaches using hand boards, belly boards, kneeboards and wave skis from the 60s.
This article is based on Jo Felton’s memories of her Dad Brian, Mum Jenny and their surfing friends and families and contains Felton family photos through the late 50s to the end of the 80’s.
Jo Felton – Mum and Dad (Jenny and Brian) grew up in families that had a love of the water. Mum from beautiful Esperance with both parents that were keen fishermen and Dad in Mt Lawley. He was in the rowing team at school and spent most of his weekends fishing and diving at his families boatshed at Marmion Beach. He told me it took them hours to travel along Wanneroo Road and down a sandy track which is now North Beach road.
Image: Late 1950s a good catch of crays at Marmion.
L-R. Ross Douglas, Unknown, Dad and Mike McKimmie.
Mum and Dad met and later married in 1959 and enjoyed their honeymoon at the beautiful Caves House hotel. I guess their love for the area never left them.
Images: 1959 Mum & Dad
Left: Mum and Dad at boatshed at Marmion Beach with a nice looking feed of crays
Right: Honeymoon pics above the Ilmenite beach located near the creek outlet at Yallingup.
Dad bought his first car from his father (Pop built the car in 1938, he got a Singer chassis, designed the body and he built it in 8 weeks). I believe once while Dad was driving that car, I think down Yalls Hill, he was stopped by a roo sitting in the middle of the road. Dad nudged the roo to move it along and instead it jumped up onto the soft top of the car and kicked the crap out of him! It wasn’t one of his finest hours!
Images: 1950s Dad’s first car which I remember he had for years.
The late Garth Hammond told me that in the early days of Caves House, they would bring customers down the Ghost Track on horse and cart to our house for Devonshire teas.
Image: Circa 1959 Caves house and bare looking gardens with ghost track in the back ground.
Images: Early days at Trigg Point with friends. (I don’t know their names but have included photos because of background scenery).
Left: Mum on left, note the kiosk and toilets and surf lifeboat building and boat sheds.
Right: (Top) the old kiosk, note there is no 1st car park yet. (Bottom) more of the boat sheds on other side of the island.
Marmion Beach was great for fishing but not surfing, so during the early 60’s they started going to Trigg Point and met many similar families and became great friends. Most of the men body surfed, eventually they used home-made plywood hand boards and giant flippers which enabled them to surf the point and larger waves in the Yallingup area.
Images: 1960s Trigg Point
Left: Mum and Dad and our coolites at Trigg Point.
Right: Looking from Trigg Island north along the coast.
In the late 60’s and early 70’s Mum and Dad and friends, started spending holidays at Yallingup and enjoying many of the different surf breaks in the area.
I recall the families of – Brian Felton, Ron Fussell, Ray Fussell, Alan Minty, Laurie Roach, Alan Rich, Harry Kimber, Ernst (I can’t remember his surname), John Leggoe, Kenny Gimm, Ron Watts, Rod Baker, Ross Thomsett, Andy Carlin, George Tocas, Lance Twomey and later Murray d’Almeida and Barry Fehlberg.
Initially the families stayed at Surfside in the ‘luxury’ cottage and duplexes next door, with two families in each duplex and many more parents and kids in the cottage. A toilet and laundry block were located behind the duplex. Next to that I remember a big old wooden dance floor and that was where we and anyone else that lived in Yallingup, had many parties and dances.
Images. 1970s Surfside Yallingup.
Top: Inside Surfside Duplex L-R. Al Minty, John Leggo with girlfriend Vicki, Val Fussell and myself.
Bottom: (Left) Wooden dance floor behind Surfside luxury cottage with Harbo’s house in Dawson Drive in the background. (Right) Behind the Duplex you see how bare and undeveloped Yallingup hill was.
Images: Circa 1971-72 totem tennis in front of Surfside Duplex and Luxury Cottage at Yallingup.
Top: Richie and Ernst playing totem tennis on the lawn amongst the double-gees.
Bottom: (Right) Jim Farrell with Jos and Cathy, Richie, Harry Kimber & Ron Fussell.
Images: Circa 1971-72 at Yalls beach car park.
Top:(Left) Harry Kimber, Richie, Alan Minty, Ron Edwards. (Right) Lisa Kimber, Kris Fussell, Pat Roach, & unidentified.
Bottom:(Left) Ron Edwards (Right) Alan Minty.
In the early days, Alan Minty had the only 4wd and we’d all park our cars at the top of Guillotine track and put all our beach and surf gear in the 4WD. Most of the men hung onto the side or where ever they could, and all the women and kids walked or jogged up and down the track. It was horrible most of the time, either hot and dusty or wet and muddy, but always bIack and very long! Quite often we would catch up to the men bogged somewhere on route.
Images: Early 70s the crew on boggy dirt track to Guillotine surf break.
Top: (Left) Kerry and Kay Kimber (Right) John Leggo & girlfriend Vicky walking down dirt track with hand board & flippers.
Bottom: (Left) Val Fussell, Kay Kimber, Rod Baker, Jenny Felton, Vicky and Kerry Kimber (Right) Al Minty, Jenny & Peter Felton, Ernst, Val Fussell, Ron Baker, Harry Kimber & Vicky.
When the Yalls Caravan Park was developed, and as the families grew, some of us older girls (if I remember correctly Jenny Rich, Peta Earnshaw, Kerry & Lisa Kimber, Kris and Leanne Fussell and myself) were sent over to stay in a caravan surrounded by black dirt and double gees, pretty much the only van there I think. One Easter the van caught on fire and a couple of us ran over to the parents screaming for help and Richie and a few of the other dads just laughed and ignored us, it happened to be April Fool’s Day LoL. The fridge had caught fire and was put out without much damage, but we didn’t let the dads forget that for years …too busy getting ready for the days surfing and not saving their girls!
Soon after Tony Harbison started to build his Hideaway Holiday Homes, we stayed in the first Duplexes with the Fussell’s, Kimber’s and Minty’s. As Harbo built new duplexes, more and more of the families booked in till we pretty much took over the place at times. All the blokes would gather in the mornings with their coffees working out where the waves would be. There were no mobiles back then! The games room became the new party place.
Images: 1970s New Year’s Eve party in the games room at Harbo’s Hideaway Homes Yalls
Left: Brian Cole with Jenny and Brian Felton.
Right: Coral Harbison, Ian ‘Prive’ Morris and one of the House boys.
As the families and surf gear increased, more 4wds were bought and Dad got his.
I remember driving down to Yalls stuffed in the back of Dad’s Land Rover, 3 kids (& sometimes a friend each as well) and eventually our large dog Choya, along with all our food and drinks, luggage and surf and dive gear, not that much fun! The Landie had narrow padded sideways seats in the back, so you had to sit facing each other with our legs over all the luggage! The Landie was always full to the hilt as well when dad took his mates and us surfing. The old Landie was slow and it was a long, bumpy and rough trip on dirt tracks to surf breaks but always fun….so many jokes!
From hand boards most of the blokes progressed to home-made ply wood body/bellyboards, which lasted for a few years until they discovered wave skis or ‘goat boats’ as they were commonly called. Initially they rode hollow wave skis with a bung in the nose to empty out any water, before moving to foam and fibreglass boards. Dad’s first wave ski was lime green and he and his board were called the “Green Slime” by most of my board rider mates.
They all surfed in their short dive wetties with flaps under the crutch, until Steamer wetsuits were invented in the early 70s.
Images: 1960-70s surfing equipment.
Left: Dad rode this home-made plywood body/knee board at Trigg Point and Down South.
Right: Ray Fussell and Harry Kimber with their hand boards.
Image: Early 70s surfing South Point at Gracetown
Top: Dad body surfing.
Bottom: Dad, Ron and Harry body boarding.
Images: 1975 body boarding South Point
(Left) Dad and Harry Kimber. (Right) Harry Kimber.
Images. 1975 body boarding Baby Bears
(Left) Harry Kimber and Ray Fussell. (Right) Harry.
Image: Circa 1975 Dad on the ‘Green Slime’ wave ski at Bears.
Dad and Mr Fussell had a friendly rivalry in the waves with Dad complaining about Ronnie always dropping in on him or being in his way. It was the source of many great laughs on the trips home or arvo drinks on the verandah. Mr Fuss mostly just laughed with his mischievous grin and told dad to paddle faster! Their surfing tales were hilarious.
Image: A pic of the best friends, they are both smiling!
Image: Late 70s Dad & Ron Fussell surfing North Point, Cowaramup Bay on wave skis.
Top: Dad surfing on the ‘green slime’.
Bottom: (Left) Dad. (Right) Dad and Ron wave sharing.
Images: 1970s the usual gathering of wives and kids watching the days surfing.
Left: South Point, Cowaramup Bay.
Right: Yallingup Beach
In 1975 Dad bought the Hammond house – ‘The Big House’ on Hammond road, which he renovated with the help of Ron Watts and Ernst and then added a big verandah on the front (I think John Baldock built that). Ron and Val Fussell built around the same time not far from us on Hammond Road. Over time quite a few of the other families eventually built holiday homes on the hill including Uncle Laurie and Aunty Pat (Roach).
Dad always had someone staying with us at the house, it was always full of people and laughs. Murray and Lea d’Almeida stayed with us for years and years. Lea was a great surfer also.
Image: 1980s Felton House on Yallingup Hill (Hammond ‘Big House’) with Landie in the garage on the right.
Image: 1980s Yallingup surrounds – Beach car park with Surfside Store, Bali Hai surf hut and Surfside duplex accommodation in the background.
Images. 1980s Yallingup surrounds.
Top: (Left) unsealed Ghost track from Caves House L-R unidentified, Pat Roach, Jenny and Jo Felton & Laurie Roach. (Right) Murray and Zac on the ghost track
Bottom: (Left) looking towards beach from our house. (Right) Weekend markets at Yallingup Hall.
Images: 1980s SW beach goers.
Top: 1980s Lea D’Almeida and Mum (Jenny Felton) with Choya at an unidentified SW beach.
The late Brian Felton and his mates surfed Metropolitan and South West beaches using hand boards, belly boards, kneeboards and wave skis from the 60s.
This article is based on Jo Felton’s memories of her Dad Brian, Mum Jenny and their surfing friends and families and contains Felton family photos through the late 50s to the end of the 80’s.
Jo Felton – Mum and Dad (Jenny and Brian) grew up in families that had a love of the water. Mum from beautiful Esperance with both parents that were keen fishermen and Dad in Mt Lawley. He was in the rowing team at school and spent most of his weekends fishing and diving at his families boatshed at Marmion Beach. He told me it took them hours to travel along Wanneroo Road and down a sandy track which is now North Beach road.
Image: Late 1950s a good catch of crays at Marmion.
L-R. Ross Douglas, Unknown, Dad and Mike McKimmie.
Mum and Dad met and later married in 1959 and enjoyed their honeymoon at the beautiful Caves House hotel. I guess their love for the area never left them.
Images: 1959 Mum & Dad
Left: Mum and Dad at boatshed at Marmion Beach with a nice looking feed of crays
Right: Honeymoon pics above the Ilmenite beach located near the creek outlet at Yallingup.
Dad bought his first car from his father (Pop built the car in 1938, he got a Singer chassis, designed the body and he built it in 8 weeks). I believe once while Dad was driving that car, I think down Yalls Hill, he was stopped by a roo sitting in the middle of the road. Dad nudged the roo to move it along and instead it jumped up onto the soft top of the car and kicked the crap out of him! It wasn’t one of his finest hours!
Images: 1950s Dad’s first car which I remember he had for years.
The late Garth Hammond told me that in the early days of Caves House, they would bring customers down the Ghost Track on horse and cart to our house for Devonshire teas.
Image: Circa 1959 Caves house and bare looking gardens with ghost track in the back ground.
Images: Early days at Trigg Point with friends. (I don’t know their names but have included photos because of background scenery).
Left: Mum on left, note the kiosk and toilets and surf lifeboat building and boat sheds.
Right: (Top) the old kiosk, note there is no 1st car park yet. (Bottom) more of the boat sheds on other side of the island.
Marmion Beach was great for fishing but not surfing, so during the early 60’s they started going to Trigg Point and met many similar families and became great friends. Most of the men body surfed, eventually they used home-made plywood hand boards and giant flippers which enabled them to surf the point and larger waves in the Yallingup area.
Images: 1960s Trigg Point
Left: Mum and Dad and our coolites at Trigg Point.
Right: Looking from Trigg Island north along the coast.
In the late 60’s and early 70’s Mum and Dad and friends, started spending holidays at Yallingup and enjoying many of the different surf breaks in the area.
I recall the families of – Brian Felton, Ron Fussell, Ray Fussell, Alan Minty, Laurie Roach, Alan Rich, Harry Kimber, Ernst (I can’t remember his surname), John Leggoe, Kenny Gimm, Ron Watts, Rod Baker, Ross Thomsett, Andy Carlin, George Tocas, Lance Twomey and later Murray d’Almeida and Barry Fehlberg.
Initially the families stayed at Surfside in the ‘luxury’ cottage and duplexes next door, with two families in each duplex and many more parents and kids in the cottage. A toilet and laundry block were located behind the duplex. Next to that I remember a big old wooden dance floor and that was where we and anyone else that lived in Yallingup, had many parties and dances.
Images. 1970s Surfside Yallingup.
Top: Inside Surfside Duplex L-R. Al Minty, John Leggo with girlfriend Vicki, Val Fussell and myself.
Bottom: (Left) Wooden dance floor behind Surfside luxury cottage with Harbo’s house in Dawson Drive in the background. (Right) Behind the Duplex you see how bare and undeveloped Yallingup hill was.
Images: Circa 1971-72 totem tennis in front of Surfside Duplex and Luxury Cottage at Yallingup.
Top: Richie and Ernst playing totem tennis on the lawn amongst the double-gees.
Bottom: (Right) Jim Farrell with Jos and Cathy, Richie, Harry Kimber & Ron Fussell.
Images: Circa 1971-72 at Yalls beach car park.
Top:(Left) Harry Kimber, Richie, Alan Minty, Ron Edwards. (Right) Lisa Kimber, Kris Fussell, Pat Roach, & unidentified.
Bottom:(Left) Ron Edwards (Right) Alan Minty.
In the early days, Alan Minty had the only 4wd and we’d all park our cars at the top of Guillotine track and put all our beach and surf gear in the 4WD. Most of the men hung onto the side or where ever they could, and all the women and kids walked or jogged up and down the track. It was horrible most of the time, either hot and dusty or wet and muddy, but always bIack and very long! Quite often we would catch up to the men bogged somewhere on route.
Images: Early 70s the crew on boggy dirt track to Guillotine surf break.
Top: (Left) Kerry and Kay Kimber (Right) John Leggo & girlfriend Vicky walking down dirt track with hand board & flippers.
Bottom: (Left) Val Fussell, Kay Kimber, Rod Baker, Jenny Felton, Vicky and Kerry Kimber (Right) Al Minty, Jenny & Peter Felton, Ernst, Val Fussell, Ron Baker, Harry Kimber & Vicky.
When the Yalls Caravan Park was developed, and as the families grew, some of us older girls (if I remember correctly Jenny Rich, Peta Earnshaw, Kerry & Lisa Kimber, Kris and Leanne Fussell and myself) were sent over to stay in a caravan surrounded by black dirt and double gees, pretty much the only van there I think. One Easter the van caught on fire and a couple of us ran over to the parents screaming for help and Richie and a few of the other dads just laughed and ignored us, it happened to be April Fool’s Day LoL. The fridge had caught fire and was put out without much damage, but we didn’t let the dads forget that for years …too busy getting ready for the days surfing and not saving their girls!
Soon after Tony Harbison started to build his Hideaway Holiday Homes, we stayed in the first Duplexes with the Fussell’s, Kimber’s and Minty’s. As Harbo built new duplexes, more and more of the families booked in till we pretty much took over the place at times. All the blokes would gather in the mornings with their coffees working out where the waves would be. There were no mobiles back then! The games room became the new party place.
Images: 1970s New Year’s Eve party in the games room at Harbo’s Hideaway Homes Yalls
Left: Brian Cole with Jenny and Brian Felton.
Right: Coral Harbison, Ian ‘Prive’ Morris and one of the House boys.
As the families and surf gear increased, more 4wds were bought and Dad got his.
I remember driving down to Yalls stuffed in the back of Dad’s Land Rover, 3 kids (& sometimes a friend each as well) and eventually our large dog Choya, along with all our food and drinks, luggage and surf and dive gear, not that much fun! The Landie had narrow padded sideways seats in the back, so you had to sit facing each other with our legs over all the luggage! The Landie was always full to the hilt as well when dad took his mates and us surfing. The old Landie was slow and it was a long, bumpy and rough trip on dirt tracks to surf breaks but always fun….so many jokes!
From hand boards most of the blokes progressed to home-made ply wood body/bellyboards, which lasted for a few years until they discovered wave skis or ‘goat boats’ as they were commonly called. Initially they rode hollow wave skis with a bung in the nose to empty out any water, before moving to foam and fibreglass boards. Dad’s first wave ski was lime green and he and his board were called the “Green Slime” by most of my board rider mates.
They all surfed in their short dive wetties with flaps under the crutch, until Steamer wetsuits were invented in the early 70s.
Images: 1960-70s surfing equipment.
Left: Dad rode this home-made plywood body/knee board at Trigg Point and Down South.
Right: Ray Fussell and Harry Kimber with their hand boards.
Image: Early 70s surfing South Point at Gracetown
Top: Dad body surfing.
Bottom: Dad, Ron and Harry body boarding.
Images: 1975 body boarding South Point
(Left) Dad and Harry Kimber. (Right) Harry Kimber.
Images. 1975 body boarding Baby Bears
(Left) Harry Kimber and Ray Fussell. (Right) Harry.
Image: Circa 1975 Dad on the ‘Green Slime’ wave ski at Bears.
Dad and Mr Fussell had a friendly rivalry in the waves with Dad complaining about Ronnie always dropping in on him or being in his way. It was the source of many great laughs on the trips home or arvo drinks on the verandah. Mr Fuss mostly just laughed with his mischievous grin and told dad to paddle faster! Their surfing tales were hilarious.
Image: A pic of the best friends, they are both smiling!
Image: Late 70s Dad & Ron Fussell surfing North Point, Cowaramup Bay on wave skis.
Top: Dad surfing on the ‘green slime’.
Bottom: (Left) Dad. (Right) Dad and Ron wave sharing.
Images: 1970s the usual gathering of wives and kids watching the days surfing.
Left: South Point, Cowaramup Bay.
Right: Yallingup Beach
In 1975 Dad bought the Hammond house – ‘The Big House’ on Hammond road, which he renovated with the help of Ron Watts and Ernst and then added a big verandah on the front (I think John Baldock built that). Ron and Val Fussell built around the same time not far from us on Hammond Road. Over time quite a few of the other families eventually built holiday homes on the hill including Uncle Laurie and Aunty Pat (Roach).
Dad always had someone staying with us at the house, it was always full of people and laughs. Murray and Lea d’Almeida stayed with us for years and years. Lea was a great surfer also.
Image: 1980s Felton House on Yallingup Hill (Hammond ‘Big House’) with Landie in the garage on the right.
Image: 1980s Yallingup surrounds – Beach car park with Surfside Store, Bali Hai surf hut and Surfside duplex accommodation in the background.
Images. 1980s Yallingup surrounds.
Top: (Left) unsealed Ghost track from Caves House L-R unidentified, Pat Roach, Jenny and Jo Felton & Laurie Roach. (Right) Murray and Zac on the ghost track
Bottom: (Left) looking towards beach from our house. (Right) Weekend markets at Yallingup Hall.
Images: 1980s SW beach goers.
Top: 1980s Lea D’Almeida and Mum (Jenny Felton) with Choya at an unidentified SW beach.
Bottom: Choya at Yalls.
Continues Felton family and friends by Jo Felton Part 2
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