Bernard "Midget" Farrelly interviewed by Neil Bennetts [sound recording]
- Bib ID:
- 238379
- Format:
- Audio
- Author:
- Farrelly, Midget (Bernard), 1944-2016, interviewee
- Online Version:
- National Library of Australia digitised item
- Access Conditions:
- Access open for research, personal copies and public use.
- Description:
-
- 1984 Oct. 30
- 1 sound tape reel (ca. 88 min.) : analog, 3 3/4 ips, half track, mono. ; 5 in.
- Summary:
-
Bernard "Midget" Farrelly, Australian international surfer and surfboard manufacturer, speaks about his surfing titles; his family background & early memories of surfing with his uncle at Bondi at age 6; his childhood spent overseas; first surfboard at age 12 when he first learnt to surf at Manly; how surfboards evolved from 1956 with balsa & later by 1959 polystyrene boards; the Freshwater Surf Club; making his own boards; how professional surfboard construction was introduced here with Roger Kieran as well as others; how he got into professional surfboard construction in 1959 after leaving school; how surfing evolved from a practice restricted to surfclubs to a sport in its own right; how early Bud Brown surfing films set an alternative lifestyle around surfing & attracted many competitors to Hawaii which became the centre of the surfing world from 1956-1964; the dominant American surfers in this period; the Australian search for big waves after exposure to Hawaiian surf; how he as the first non-Hawaiian won the Makaha International Surf Contest in 1963 & the fury of the Hawaiian response, sensational publicity in Australia for surfing in 1963/64; how surf clubs tried to suppress surfing by registering boards and banning giving rise to the Australian Surfriders Association in 1964 and the sponsorship offered by Ampol set up an Australian world amateur surfing contest at Manly from 1964; other countries following; starting his own surfboard business from 1964, his manufacture of skateboards; the impact of hard drugs on the surfing lifestyle motivated the rise of the professional surf athlete such as Mark Richards, rebirth through the Surfabouts in mid-1970s; his own involvement in hangliding at that time; the evolution of the surfboard since WWII; his view of how hangliding and sailboarding complement surfing as a sport; describes the art of surfing; Mark Richards; Tom Carroll; the dignified status of the surfer by 1984 and his expectations for the sport in the future.
- Notes:
-
- Recorded on Oct. 30, 1984 at Palm Beach, N.S.W.
- Also available online http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-203494363
- Index/Finding Aid Note:
- Transcript available (typescript, 20 leaves)
- Subject:
- Occupation:
- Other authors/contributors:
- Bennetts, Neil, 1943-2011, interviewer
- Copyright:
-
In Copyright
You may copy under some circumstances, for example you may copy a portion for research or study. Order a copy through Copies Direct to the extent allowed under fair dealing. Contact us for further information about copying.
- Reason for copyright status:
- Until 2054 [Created/Published Date + 70 Years]
Copyright status was determined using the following information:
- Material type:
- Sound Recording
- Published status:
- Unpublished
- Creation date:
- 1984
Copyright status may not be correct if data in the record is incomplete or inaccurate. Other access conditions may also apply. For more information please see: Copyright in library collections.
Request this item
Request this item to view in the Library’s reading room.
Feedback
Similar items
- Making a surfboard : the complete manual : the step by step procedures can also be used to make a kneeboard, sailboard, surf, ski, malibu or rescue board / by Howard Jennar
- Ernest Gallagher and Ida Gallagher interviewed by Rosslyn Finn for the Australia 1938 oral history project [sound recording]
- The core
- Hitting the dark trail : starshine through thirty years of night / [Clarence Hawkes]
- The brazilian boss's innocent mistress / Sarah Morgan