Former City Beach surfer Kevin Clarke (age 73) now lives in the state of Wisconsin in the USA. Wisconsin is located in the north-central United States, in the Midwest and Great Lakes regions.
These are Kevin’s ‘60s WA surfing memoirs.
Growing up in Perth in the fifties our Dad took us kids to City Beach and Scarborough a lot and it seems we always knew how to body surf. We lived in Wembley. In the Summer of 1962/63 I would hitch hike along Cambridge Street and always got a lift to City beach. I was 16 and would meet my mates there, and girls, of course, and it was that summer Malibu boards were becoming popular.
I can still remember vividly watching a group of surfers on their boards catching waves between the City and Floreat groynes. Everyone had transistor radios blaring back then and usually tuned into the same station. A Shadows instrumental called “The Boys” was playing and I watched the surfers, particularly Terry Jacks who was known to us as one of the best. He must have caught 4 waves in just over three minutes during the song. They were short rides, but it seemed he got back out and onto another as if he thought any wave he didn’t catch was a waste. Other surfers I remember were Paul Meinke and Michael Brown whom I went to school with. At school Michael would tell me stories of going Down South to Yallingup with Terry Jacks and others. That’s the first time I had heard of Yallingup!
It was that Summer 1962/63 a friend of a friend (can’t recall his name) was telling me about a surf board he was having made by Dibben-Cole in Subiaco around Salvardo Road. (I may be wrong on that point!). Anyway he showed me the surf board a few weeks later and kept it under the City Beach Tearooms because he was too young to drive. He said I could use it anytime, which I did early in the mornings. Other kids kept their boards under the Tearooms too. I would say five or six other boards. So that was my intro to board surfing.
I have fond memories of the Tearooms. Back in 1963 I was madly in love with a girl, and we would meet down at City Beach and sit in the tearooms drinking ice cold Cokes and take walks between the City Beach and Floreat groynes. We went to a Johnny O’Keefe concert too and I see a headline about O’Keefe on one of the news stands in the following photo!
Image: 1964 City Beach Tea Rooms. Photographer unknown.
In 1964 and ’65 the Bank I had joined after leaving school, transferred me to the bush. When I got back to Perth in 1966, as fate would have it, I bought that same D&C board second hand from a fellow who ran the Mobil Gas station on Grantham Street Wembley. Sadly he was killed in a car accident a year or so later.
Image: 1960s Kevin and his cat with his Dibben-Cole surfboard in his back yard in Wembley.
Me and my mates would surf the Cable Station and also Trigg and head on down around Mandurah to a place called Anstey which WA surf industry pioneer Len Dibben told me is now called Surf Beach and a full-on metro suburb. The early morning waves were nice, but it would close out by mid-morning. We also tried Avalon and Miami but were careful there because the really good surfers would make us look like beginners, which I suppose we were. It was a magic time. We would sleep on the beach and wake up with hangovers but ready to hit the waves again! My friends always said my Dibben-Cole board looked like a “real” surfboard compared to their flat deck boards. Mine had elegant rounded rails and nicely shaped. It was hard to master at first but would take off smoothly and was fun to ride.
Image: 1967 Surfing Falcon Bay in Miami (near Mandurah). Len Dibben pic.
Anyway as life happens, I got married in 1968 and was transferred back to the bush for another 4 years. My board hung in my parent’s house in Wembley. The marriage didn’t work out and eventually we got divorced. Then in 1974 I met Rosemary, who was American teaching school in Perth. We married in 1976 and I moved with her to her home here in Wisconsin and the rest is history.
My brother has had that surf board for years, and his daughters learned to surf on it. It now hangs above the patio at my niece’s house in Geraldton and is still looking good after 57 years.
Image: 2019 My niece Tegan Knowles (my brother’s daughter) and her husband Al are holding the board in Geraldton.
The D&C board dimensions are 9’2”x 3 1/2″ thick. The D-Fin is 24 cm long and 22 cm high.
Image: 1962-63 Dibben-Cole surfboard logo and wood & glass D-Fin. Tegan Knowles pic.
I was thinking about the waves at City Beach, I remember back in the 60’s that they would usually come in sets of three or four followed by a lull. The first wave would be small and then subsequent waves would by slightly bigger with the last one the largest of all. On my trips back home over the years I always went down to City Beach for a surf and found the same wave patterns were still rolling in. Just wondering if anyone else has noticed that!
Image: 2019 Kevin in the state of Wisconsin in the USA. Kevin pic.
It was only a few months ago that I stumbled upon Len Dibben’s facebook page, and next thing I know he sent me a message, For over 50 years I have thought of him as a kind of mystical figure from the early days of surfing in WA. I never thought I would be corresponding with him and also with you to tell my experiences, however small, back in those early days, those almost dream like days of our youth.
That’s my surf story. Like I said, it pales compared to other SDS posts describing Yallingup and Margaret River which I never attempted to surf.
Thanks for the opportunity to share my story, Jim.
Former City Beach surfer Kevin Clarke (age 73) now lives in the state of Wisconsin in the USA. Wisconsin is located in the north-central United States, in the Midwest and Great Lakes regions.
These are Kevin’s ‘60s WA surfing memoirs.
Growing up in Perth in the fifties our Dad took us kids to City Beach and Scarborough a lot and it seems we always knew how to body surf. We lived in Wembley. In the Summer of 1962/63 I would hitch hike along Cambridge Street and always got a lift to City beach. I was 16 and would meet my mates there, and girls, of course, and it was that summer Malibu boards were becoming popular.
I can still remember vividly watching a group of surfers on their boards catching waves between the City and Floreat groynes. Everyone had transistor radios blaring back then and usually tuned into the same station. A Shadows instrumental called “The Boys” was playing and I watched the surfers, particularly Terry Jacks who was known to us as one of the best. He must have caught 4 waves in just over three minutes during the song. They were short rides, but it seemed he got back out and onto another as if he thought any wave he didn’t catch was a waste. Other surfers I remember were Paul Meinke and Michael Brown whom I went to school with. At school Michael would tell me stories of going Down South to Yallingup with Terry Jacks and others. That’s the first time I had heard of Yallingup!
It was that Summer 1962/63 a friend of a friend (can’t recall his name) was telling me about a surf board he was having made by Dibben-Cole in Subiaco around Salvardo Road. (I may be wrong on that point!). Anyway he showed me the surf board a few weeks later and kept it under the City Beach Tearooms because he was too young to drive. He said I could use it anytime, which I did early in the mornings. Other kids kept their boards under the Tearooms too. I would say five or six other boards. So that was my intro to board surfing.
I have fond memories of the Tearooms. Back in 1963 I was madly in love with a girl, and we would meet down at City Beach and sit in the tearooms drinking ice cold Cokes and take walks between the City Beach and Floreat groynes. We went to a Johnny O’Keefe concert too and I see a headline about O’Keefe on one of the news stands in the following photo!
Image: 1964 City Beach Tea Rooms. Photographer unknown.
In 1964 and ’65 the Bank I had joined after leaving school, transferred me to the bush. When I got back to Perth in 1966, as fate would have it, I bought that same D&C board second hand from a fellow who ran the Mobil Gas station on Grantham Street Wembley. Sadly he was killed in a car accident a year or so later.
Image: 1960s Kevin and his cat with his Dibben-Cole surfboard in his back yard in Wembley.
Me and my mates would surf the Cable Station and also Trigg and head on down around Mandurah to a place called Anstey which WA surf industry pioneer Len Dibben told me is now called Surf Beach and a full-on metro suburb. The early morning waves were nice, but it would close out by mid-morning. We also tried Avalon and Miami but were careful there because the really good surfers would make us look like beginners, which I suppose we were. It was a magic time. We would sleep on the beach and wake up with hangovers but ready to hit the waves again! My friends always said my Dibben-Cole board looked like a “real” surfboard compared to their flat deck boards. Mine had elegant rounded rails and nicely shaped. It was hard to master at first but would take off smoothly and was fun to ride.
Image: 1967 Surfing Falcon Bay in Miami (near Mandurah). Len Dibben pic.
Anyway as life happens, I got married in 1968 and was transferred back to the bush for another 4 years. My board hung in my parent’s house in Wembley. The marriage didn’t work out and eventually we got divorced. Then in 1974 I met Rosemary, who was American teaching school in Perth. We married in 1976 and I moved with her to her home here in Wisconsin and the rest is history.
My brother has had that surf board for years, and his daughters learned to surf on it. It now hangs above the patio at my niece’s house in Geraldton and is still looking good after 57 years.
Image: 2019 My niece Tegan Knowles (my brother’s daughter) and her husband Al are holding the board in Geraldton.
The D&C board dimensions are 9’2”x 3 1/2″ thick. The D-Fin is 24 cm long and 22 cm high.
Image: 1962-63 Dibben-Cole surfboard logo and wood & glass D-Fin. Tegan Knowles pic.
I was thinking about the waves at City Beach, I remember back in the 60’s that they would usually come in sets of three or four followed by a lull. The first wave would be small and then subsequent waves would by slightly bigger with the last one the largest of all. On my trips back home over the years I always went down to City Beach for a surf and found the same wave patterns were still rolling in. Just wondering if anyone else has noticed that!
Image: 2019 Kevin in the state of Wisconsin in the USA. Kevin pic.
It was only a few months ago that I stumbled upon Len Dibben’s facebook page, and next thing I know he sent me a message, For over 50 years I have thought of him as a kind of mystical figure from the early days of surfing in WA. I never thought I would be corresponding with him and also with you to tell my experiences, however small, back in those early days, those almost dream like days of our youth.
That’s my surf story. Like I said, it pales compared to other SDS posts describing Yallingup and Margaret River which I never attempted to surf.
Thanks for the opportunity to share my story, Jim.
Cheers,
Kevin
Thank you Kevin for your contribution.
—————————————————————————————-
Share this:
Like this: