About 500 people gathered at Glen Beach on Saturday 12 January 2002 to pay homage to the man revered by many as the grandfather of surfing in South Africa. John Whitmore, 73, died on his farm near Elands Bay, one of many surf spots he pioneered. By Tony Heard
They came in their hundreds – from ho-daddies to lighties – to pay their respects, in a unique and watery way, to the legendary surf great. It was a meshing of generations in a single, sad cause and it was duplicated in Durban, where Baron Stander organised a surf wake, and in other spots on the coast. Whitmore died of cancer after a valiant battle, showing the casual courage of someone undaunted by a monster ‘backie’ heading his way.
The beach gatherings were the surfing community’s way of saying goodbye. Glen Beach was wilder and more towering than ever – the rip sucked towards the rocks. Nature seemed to add a powerful eloquence to the remembrance of John.
Standing there on the beach were longboarders, goofies, Atlantic-side gremlins, Corner hot-doggers, the heavily dinged from the Kom, and a few survivors of Sunset or Dungeons.
The surf community turned out in force early in the morning as a furious summer Atlantic storm made way for a burst of sunlight. And with the active surfers, of course, were the surf widows and widowers and the sons and daughters and the parents, those co-heroes of surfing who now do time onshore while the surf is up – and who take refuge from the southeaster or northwester in the shelter of cars, and flick the car lights when it is really time to go. There were reminiscences by those who had known this remarkable man – stories about how he befriended a Californian surf hitch-hiker in 1959, Dick Metz, who saved John’s board from the Glen rocks, and became a guest of the Whitmore’s at Glen Beach for months.
It was Metz who helped open John’s business to the import prospect of Clark foam, branded boards and boogies. Whitmore was able to put surfing on the map with these and other contacts – and always employing his meticulous professionalism and sense of perfection. The rest is history. There was mention of John’s indomitable grit and sense of optimism, not only while ill and apparently refusing chemical relief, but how, when told of someone’s death, would show no sadness, but would comment that death is just part of life.
He had a way of inspiring others. On the beach, the surfers, old and young, stood out in the crowd, with their wide shoulders, as if propped by giant coat hangers. The relative fitness of Whitmore’s generation, in their seventies, was obvious. The familiar Cape surf names were in evidence: Paarman, Strong, Menesis, to mention but some.
There was special music, and some tears. And, after the people had time to remember John and what he did for young and established surfers, the time came to commit the wreath to the waves. Towering Jonathan Paarman – whom I shall never forget in the cusp of a massive wave years ago at Kom Outer, his board a shaking leaf in the high wind as he took off right in front of me – gathered the wreath and took it gently to the beach, placed it on his board and ‘hit out’.
He was followed by a dozen surfers there to join the ‘paddle-out’. It was perilous, and the MC and others expressed concern, but these were Glen surfers, he announced reassuringly. They deftly ducked under the pounding white water and made their way far out, past the treacherous rocks. The wreath was consigned to the very waves which, years ago, I had seen John tame, using his powerful style. It was no ordinary wreath. It was bulky, beautiful. It was kelp.
| < Prev |
|---|
