Just reading an article from Surfing World (issue 290) entitled 'Surfy Scum VS Clubby Wankers' which details the long rivalry between the two sub-species of Aussie Beach Culture. When those red and yellow flags go up in front of prime surf breaks tensions flare and boards get confiscated - remember that choice stoush depicted in one of my all time favourite albatrosses 'Puberty Blues'?This article by Jock Serong (!) quotes Colleen McGloin defining the surf lifesaver as representative of "authority, social regulation and white heterosexuality" whereas the surfer is the "symbolic larrikin". However Jock concludes that "the queasy Darwinian truth is: we grew from the same stock". He goes on to list someof the more heroic feats performed by those dudes in their kinky rescue belts and reels including a nude rescue at Coogee beach in 1911 by Harry Baker. He also cites the hit TV show Bondi Rescue and predicts an episode when one of those buff lifesavers will have "to give mouth to mouth to a huge queen in boyshorts". We await that inevitable eventuality with baited breath.
I thought that Barton Lynch's piece about his father on Bombora which aired earlier this year on the ABC threw some light on the surfing /cubby divide.
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