Today I had a chat with 1950s pioneer surfer/surf photographer John ‘’Budgie’ Budge at Trigg. Budgie’s photos are on display at the WA Surf Gallery and appear in the Surfing Down South book published in 2014.
1955 Yalls John Budge with his home-made ‘Nirvana’ balsa board
John is a lively 92-year-old retiree. He still swims and cycles daily and is actively involved in natural environment issues.
We chatted about the Eddie Aikau Story shown on NITV recently. Penguins the Family doco on ABC TV Mon and his love for Tuba Skinny a traditional jazz street band based in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Budge
has happy memories of the early surfing days down south and the late Bruce ‘Moonshine’
Hill (clarinet) and Don Bancroft (trumpet) playing trad jazz numbers under the melaleuca
trees at Yallingup Beach. “One time one of the boys (maybe Jim Keenan) bought
a wind-up gramophone down south and played Dixieland jazz music all night,
until the late Bernie Huddle couldn’t take it anymore and threw the LP records
into the lagoon at Yallingup.”
1956 Yalls surfers listening to trad jazz on wind up 78rpm gramophone player L_R unidentied & John Budge.
Budgie is a funny man. He lets people ahead of him in Supermarket queues & tells them “Its ok, I’ll live to be a 100.” 😊
Budge recalls fun days surfing Transit Reef at Rotto in the late 50s. “We used to paddle to the Island from City Beach and surf the inner reef at night-time and could see the people drinking at the Rotto Pub. I remember Ray Geary surfing outer Transit Reef on his home made 24 ft four-man ski and doing a ‘loop the loop’. The ski nose-dived on the wave and the front three fell out (Ray Geary, Colin Taylor & Neil Chapple) while the remaining crewman Mark Whittome was hurtled into outer space.”
1956 Ray Geary’s 24ft homemade 4 man ski on his Holden ute at City Beach. L-R Colin Taylor, Neil Chapple, Ray Geary & Rob Wakefield
Today I had a chat with 1950s pioneer surfer/surf photographer John ‘’Budgie’ Budge at Trigg. Budgie’s photos are on display at the WA Surf Gallery and appear in the Surfing Down South book published in 2014.
John is a lively 92-year-old retiree. He still swims and cycles daily and is actively involved in natural environment issues.
We chatted about the Eddie Aikau Story shown on NITV recently. Penguins the Family doco on ABC TV Mon and his love for Tuba Skinny a traditional jazz street band based in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Budge has happy memories of the early surfing days down south and the late Bruce ‘Moonshine’ Hill (clarinet) and Don Bancroft (trumpet) playing trad jazz numbers under the melaleuca trees at Yallingup Beach. “One time one of the boys (maybe Jim Keenan) bought a wind-up gramophone down south and played Dixieland jazz music all night, until the late Bernie Huddle couldn’t take it anymore and threw the LP records into the lagoon at Yallingup.”
L_R unidentied & John Budge.
Budgie is a funny man. He lets people ahead of him in Supermarket queues & tells them “Its ok, I’ll live to be a 100.” 😊
Budge recalls fun days surfing Transit Reef at Rotto in the late 50s. “We used to paddle to the Island from City Beach and surf the inner reef at night-time and could see the people drinking at the Rotto Pub. I remember Ray Geary surfing outer Transit Reef on his home made 24 ft four-man ski and doing a ‘loop the loop’. The ski nose-dived on the wave and the front three fell out (Ray Geary, Colin Taylor & Neil Chapple) while the remaining crewman Mark Whittome was hurtled into outer space.”
L-R Colin Taylor, Neil Chapple, Ray Geary & Rob Wakefield
They don’t make them like that anymore!
Related content.
1950s-trad-jazz-at-yallingup-beach published 14 Aug 2019
surfing-rotto-in-the-50s published 18 Feb 2015
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