Over the recent Labour Weekend Lyall Bay Surf and Life Saving Club celebrated a centenary of service to the community with a parliamentary function, gala dinner, surf carnival and the launch of its very own history book.
Historian Dr Gavin McLean has written Blue White and Dynamite which details the club’s first 100 years. The book was launched at parliament on Friday 22 October by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Rt Hon Dr Lockwood Smith, a former club chairman and boat rower.
“For decades, Wellington was the heart of surf lifesaving in New Zealand, and no club played a bigger part than this one,” says Dr McLean, “Formed in 1910 to serve the city’s new marine suburb of Lyall Bay, the club was not the first lifesaving club incorporated in New Zealand, but it was the first to patrol a Kiwi beach. And it’s still doing so 100 years later.
“As I was researching this book I discovered many interesting things about the club’s development and the people who ran it,” he says. “From former Governor General Bernard Freyberg, to New Zealand’s most decorated naval officer, Lieutenant Commander Jim Macdonald, to the current world record holder of the fast two and three way swim of the English Channel, Phil Rush, Lyall Bay Surf and Life Saving Club has had some highly successful members.
“But it wasn’t always easy. The sea swept the first clubhouse away even before it was finished. And just a few months after the club was established in 1910, an argument during a display prompted some members to break away and form rival club Maranui. Early lifesavers also had to fight prudish city councillors’ views on beach attire and public decency.
Photo above - Early days in front of the clubhouse. Who can believe that lifesavers had to battle city council suggestions that such attire was indecent?
“However the club survived and thrived. Many Lyall Bay men (and women after the merger with Wellington Ladies in 1976) became top competitors and administrators at both national and international levels.”
Blue, White and Dynamite records these successes as well as the club’s social life through the years. It contains details about family connections that span generations, club hi-jinks, the impact of new technology such as rescue tubes and IRBs, and the ongoing challenge of blending running a topflight sports club while offering a public service – and doing so on the smell of an oily rag.
Based on extensive documentary and oral research, Blue White and Dynamite tells the exciting story of Lyall Bay Surf and Life Saving Club and Wellington Ladies at Wellington’s most popular surf beach. A beach at which, for the past 100 years, no one has drowned while swimming between the flags.
The book is available at a cost of $60 plus P and P through the Lyall Bay Surf and Life Saving Club website www.lyallbayslsc.org.nz, through the Lyall Bay SLSC PO Box 14-615,Wellington 6241 and at selected Wellington booksellers.
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