Surfboard riding in various forms has been a popular pastime at Scarborough Beach WA since the late 1920s. Scarborough was blessed with good beach break waves and become the natural home of surfboard riding in the West.
McGovern’s beach front shop was hiring wooden ‘surf shooter’ boards in 1929 and home-made surf shooter boards were cheap to build.
Pioneer surfers introduced heavy ribbed plywood stand-up skis/boards just after WWII and SLSC clubbies rode plywood ‘Toothpick’ boards in the waves through the early 50s.
Everything changed after the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games where surfing was a demonstration sport. American and Hawaiian surfing teams demonstrated their now light weight balsa Malibu boards in Melbourne and Sydney and sold their boards to local enthusiasts. The lighter more manoeuvrable American Malibu’s soon found their way to WA and opened the door for women and children to also enjoy board riding.
In the 60s inflated black rubber surf shooters were also available on Scarborough beach for hire for one shilling for half an hour.
Early Surfboards
Scarborough in the 60s
The growing baby boomer generation drove the 1950-60s melting pot of surf and rock n roll culture which was on full show at Scarborough.
Scarborough surfers, WA surf industry pioneers and Surf WA Life members Tom Blaxell and Murray Smith recall early Scarborough life in the 60s.
Front: Jim Breadsell standing with his foot on Gary Granary.
Back: L-R Bill Stephenson in white t-shirt, Peter McGuire in black, Warren Smith scratching his leg, Peter Longley in great coat, John Pinch looking over Peter Longley’s shoulder, others unidentified.
Surfing WA used the following image on tee shirts and event invitations to promote their 3rd Decade Anniversary in 1994.
Changes to natural beach formations
Human-made changes to natural beach formations at Scarborough Beach for beach safety and erosion reasons have changed the annual natural sand movement and impacted on wave quality at Scarborough beach and Trigg Point.
In 1916 sixteen year old Kathleen Gornall of Mt Hawthorn and her five would-be rescuers were tragically drowned just after Xmas in 1916. Source Old Scarborough book Chapter 4.
State and Local Government politicians and staff met at the beach to discuss how they could address this tragedy. It was decided the army would be engaged to blow up a section of existing reef between Scarborough and Brighton to alleviate the situation. This was carried out and the wave height and frequency was reduced considerably in the area. When the tide is out some of the remnants of the rocks of the old reef are still visible and it would make environmental sense if the reef is to be redeveloped, that the existing footprint be considered and an artificial reef built on that foundation. Source City of Stirling history.
Before Scarborough Beach Rd went through to Scarborough Beach, Brighton Rd was the route to the beach front. The following 1914 Peet & Co land poster indicated the developers were keen to build enclosed baths and a jetty at Brighton Rd at the time. Perhaps WW1 intervened?
Manning Rocks and Manning Rd were named after the Manning family who were early settler at Scarborough in the 1890s.
In 1916 a busy bee was held to build men’s and women’s change-rooms rooms near Manning Rocks at the end of Poole Street (which used to be the old name of Scarborough Beach Rd).
In 1932 work commenced on a limestone rock wall built from the old surf club north towards Manning Rd and the Esplanade. The limestone rock wall was extended south from the old surf club south towards Brighton Rd in 1934.
Tom Blaxell (WA Surf Industry pioneer and Scarborough surfer). “I remember the setup on the massive sand beach at Scarborough in the 60s, before the Authorities put in the artificial vegetated dunes, which were installed to control the seasonal sand drift, which used to clog up the car park, and I think to help against beach erosion.
As a consequence, it seems that the underlying reefs, like Three Penny Reef, and even Trigg Blue Hole don’t get exposed nearly as much as they used to, in winter in the old days. The Rocky bluff that stands at Trigg Point used to separate from the beach in winter, hence it used to be called Trigg Island (the SLSC Club is still called that), but which has now become known as Trigg Point.
I remember around 1980 the City of Stirling working out that the beach at Trigg Point was growing by about half a metre per year. As a result, the point has become less of a point than it used to be.
The following images shows the vast white sand beach prior to the implementation of artificial vegetated dunes circa 1983. In pic 2 That’s the Brighton drain outlet in the foreground. Sometimes that turned into a river like at Smiths Beach Yallingup”.
Acknowledgement
The surf history material in this post has been sourced from North Beach historian Chris Holyday’s Old Scarborough book released in September 2024.
There are many more historic Scarborough stories, photos and images in Chris’s latest book available from Davey Real Estate at Flora Terrace, North Beach, and at their Scarborough office, also North Beach shops Post Office and at Scarborough – at Sandbar, Livid Skate Cafe and the Surf Boardroom.
A big thank you to Chris Holyday for sharing his Old Scarborough history material.
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