That Summer at Boomerang

by Phil Jarratt

  At the Stockholm Olympics, Longworth had represented in both the 100 metres and the 1500 metres, but was unable to swim in the finals of either, owing to an ear abscess. Now, as they battled it out in the columns of The Referee, former teammates Healy and Longworth gave no quarter. ‘For five nights before the (Stockholm) Games I was unable to sleep,’ Longworth wrote. ‘… it was a matter of life and death with me, having had to go under [sic] an operation for abscess between the brain and the ear. Of these facts Mr Healy knows, and he ought to know I was unable to show my best form.’

  Healy responded: ‘The serious operation Mr Longworth was obliged to eventually undergo makes an irresistible appeal to one’s sympathies, and renders it both unpleasant and hard for me to give my candid opinion. But in order to justify my contentions, it is incumbent upon me to mention that, to my belief, his ear trouble did not affect his capabilities in the water to any great degree.’

  The sledging match continued into February, but the situation seemed to be resolved, at least as far as the Hawaiians were concerned, when Frank Beaurepaire threw down a counter challenge to Longworth. The boy wonder of Australian swimming a few years earlier, Beaurepaire had failed at the London Olympics in 1908 and was barred from the team for Stockholm in 1912 because he had been working as a physical education teacher and was deemed to be a professional. By 1915, however, the decision was under review by the International Swimming Federation, and Beaurepaire appeared to be on the comeback trail. He wrote to The Referee:

  I notice in your columns the statement that Wm Longworth has challenged DP Kahanamoku over 220yds, or a greater distance, the proceeds to go to the Patriotic Funds of your city. This is very fine on the part of Longworth, particularly after he has noted that ‘the Duke’s performances above the sprint distances are not record-breaking ones’ … I am ready to accommodate Longworth and help in the fulfilment of his patriotic desires.

  Longworth immediately accepted. On the same day, however, Jim Taylor of the NSW Swimming Association issued a statement saying that Beaurepaire could not swim in the state as an amateur while his status was still under review. ‘We can’t have anything to do with it,’ he concluded.

  Asked to comment on Longworth’s seemingly doomed challenge when he stepped off the Newcastle train on the afternoon of 9 February, Duke said: ‘I have a suggestion for Billy. Why can’t he make the trip to San Francisco for the Exposition this summer? He could stop off in Honolulu and I’ll swim him there, then we can race again in the Exposition games. I can guarantee him a good time and plenty of good sport.’

  Longworth apparently couldn’t wait that long to prove himself. Sounding increasingly desperate, he was quoted as saying: ‘I may go to New Zealand and race Duke there.’

  Newcastle was almost unbearably hot when the Hawaiians arrived mid-afternoon, accompanied by Ernie Marks and Bill Scott from the Swimming Association, and Freddie Williams, who would man the megaphone during the carnival but typically had come early for the party.

  ‘Good working-man’s town, this, Paoa,’ Williams told Duke as they helped lug the bags across the wide street to the Great Northern Hotel. ‘And they do enjoy a bit of fun. Hope you brought your little guitar whatsit.’

  Duke laughed. ‘Never travel without my ukulele, Freddie. When you got no money, it’s amazing what a song can buy.’

  ‘I’d better make note of that,’ said Freddie Williams, who more than once had been warned by the Swimming Association that his conviviality might cost him his job. ‘And learn to sing or play an instrument.’

  After a brief rest, the visitors were escorted to the harbour where a motor launch was waiting at the ferry wharf. It was a little cooler now, particularly on the shaded aft deck where cold drinks were being passed around, and Duke quite enjoyed the view as the launch puttered deeper into the harbour, where Newcastle’s development as an industrial port was clearly laid out. On one side was a long line of coal loading wharves, with the boats the locals called ‘60-milers’ (the distance by sea to Sydney) taking on their filthy cargo or else anchored and waiting their turn to load. Beyond the wharves a dozen or more factory chimneys belched thick black smoke into the golden afternoon light.

  ‘This is the future of Newcastle, right there in front of us,’ announced Tom Blackall, the big, friendly president of the local swimming association. ‘These are exciting times for us, but I won’t go too much into that for now. I think the chaps from BHP are going to show you over the plant tomorrow.’

  Francis groaned. River tours, factory inspections … enough was enough. But Duke actually liked seeing what made a town live and breathe, and the sights and sounds of the working waterfront excited him almost as much as the sight and sound of sparkling waves rolling over the reefs of Waikiki. He could not explain to Francis, whose life was conducted in an office, why a ship belching soot from its funnels was attractive to him. Perhaps you needed to spend your life surrounded by swaying palms, blue water and white sand to appreciate the balance.

  The evening’s entertainment was a ‘smoke concert’ in the large ballroom of the Great Northern. ‘That sounds wonderful,’ Duke said to Freddie Williams as the launch motored back down the fast-flowing Hunter River in the twilight. ‘But what is it, Freddie? I don’t have to smoke, do I? Only tried once, never again.’

  Williams cackled as he downed a beer. ‘You don’t have to smoke, Paoa, but a lot of people will be. Smoke concerts are a great tradition from the old country. The men of the town get together and smoke, drink, talk about serious matters, tell jokes, sing songs, drink toasts, maybe there’ll be an entertainer or two. It’s a relaxing time for all, away from the disciplines of mixing with the fairer sex.’

  ‘Oh, well that’s a relief.’

  ‘Yes. Bring your mandolin.’

  ‘Ukulele.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  The ballroom was already bathed in clouds of blue smoke when the Hawaiians walked in just after nine. Shading his stinging eyes, Duke saw that the room was packed with men in various interpretations of dinner attire, and they were all standing and applauding.

  ‘Three cheers for the Duke!’ someone called.

  ‘Three cheers for the Hawaiians!’ shouted another.

  When the guests were finally seated, Freddie Williams called for quiet and introduced the first speaker, Tom Blackall, who thanked everyone for coming and introduced Ernie Marks, who in turn introduced each of the guests, concluding with Duke, who once again received a round of applause and three cheers, as beer jugs were sloshed around and refilled at an alarming rate.

  After the umpteenth toast, a pianist and a dapper fellow in tails climbed onto the small stage. Following a dramatic piano introduction of the kind you might have heard in any Hotel Street burlesque hall, the dapper one launched into a spirited rendition of ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’, with most of the men waving their beers wildly and joining in on the lines, ‘Goodbye Piccadilly, farewell Leicester Square’. ‘Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag’ followed, with the chorus line, ‘Smile, smile, smile’ encouraging the same sloppy cacophony of boozy voices.

  Another toast, this time to our boys at the Front, and in the split second of silence that followed, Freddie jumped up and introduced ‘a very special performer, direct from Sydney’s Tivoli Revue, Miss Lola Hunt’. Lola, a buxom lass with a broad Yorkshire accent, came prancing on stage in a daring pantaloon outfit, her ample cleavage spilling forth despite a man’s black waistcoat buttoned in front of it. The men were singing along to ‘Ta Ra Ra Boom-De-Rey’ before Lola had even started:

  A sweet tuxedo girl you see

  A queen of swell society

  Fond of fun as fond can be

  When it’s on the strict Q.T.

  I’m not too young, I’m not too old

  Not too timid, not too bold

  Just the kind you’d like to hold

  Just the kind for sport I�
�m told.

  The all-male audience loved it. Lola’s three risqué songs brought the house down. A wonderful way to finish the evening, Duke was thinking, but Freddie was back on stage, whipping up the audience. ‘Duke! Duke! Duke!’ Duke gathered up his ukulele case and slowly ambled to the stage as the chanting receded.

  He blinked into the blue smoke and said, ‘Thank you so much, it’s been an enjoyable night, and Miss Lola is a very hard act to follow, so I think I’ve just got one song for you, and I’m going to ask George to come up and help me out here.’

  The Hawaiian swimmers launched into a reprise of Uncle Sonny’s ‘Honolulu Hula Girl’ that had been so appreciated at Cronulla, George again performing an exaggerated hula, and then from stage left came Lola, a smirk on her lips, a lone flower behind her right ear, her hips grinding lustily. The men of Newcastle were ecstatic, Duke and George not so much, as Lola insinuated herself between them and draped herself over their shoulders while flipping her derriere from one to the other.

  The song was over. The audience wanted more, but Duke had disentangled himself from Lola Hunt and returned the ukulele to its case while the last chord was still hanging in the thick air.

  The next afternoon the skies were black and the wind was howling along the beachfront as Duke and George walked from the hotel to check out City Baths, the venue for the evening’s carnival. While the 100-yards baths, concreted into the existing rock platform, was impressive enough, the only seating for spectators was a couple of rows of concrete benches cut into a retaining wall and open to the elements.

  ‘Where are people going to sit?’ asked Duke. ‘Gonna be cold and wet here tonight. Hell, it’s cold and wet now.’

  ‘Mr Blackall told me they started building the baths before the war, but they didn’t get around to building a grandstand before they had to stop,’ George said. ‘Beats me how they can build that big steelworks in wartime but they can’t finish this.’

  ‘I guess in a war you need steel more than you need a roof over your head for people to watch swimming. And speaking of that, let’s get out of this rain.’

  The rain lashed down and the vicious onshore wind was blowing dogs off chains as the carnival began in front of fewer than 100 spectators, many of them officials, huddled in the bleachers under raincoats. George raced first in a 100-yard handicap, coming off scratch to pass the field and finish in 57 seconds, despite the chop on the water. The feature race, a 150-yard handicap, was meant to pit Duke against the best locals and the cracks from Sydney, but in the event only Albert Barry had made it, and notwithstanding their neck-and-neck finish at Drummoyne, Duke mowed him down by three yards, despite giving away two seconds. His time was a new Australian record, although handicap times could not be considered official.

  Freddie Williams, struggling to be heard on the megaphone over the gale, did his best to stir the spectators into a state of excitement, but in truth, no-one, least of all the swimmers, wanted to linger outdoors, and soon enough they were back in the comfort of the Great Northern lounge, telling each other stories about the incredible swims that nobody had seen.

  St Kilda Baths, 1915. Photo courtesy State Library of Victoria.

  ‘We’ve had a fine time in Australia,’ Duke told Cecil Healy in an interview before leaving Sydney for Melbourne. ‘Though I may say that the program has been almost too severe a tax upon us. I don’t say this in a complaining spirit, but to point out that we didn’t expect this tour of pleasure to be marked by so much hard work.’

  ‘Nevertheless the Duke did not look as if he had wasted away,’ Healy wrote.

  The Duke looked very fit ... He had just returned from the surf at Bondi, after some hard battles with the rough breakers, which he explained, were vastly different from those of his beloved Honolulu, which roll in with a long, steady, sweeping roll. The Duke likes the surf play here; though it is different to cavorting on the waves at Honolulu.

  Cecil’s normally astute powers of observation must have deserted him if he had not realised that Duke was exhausted. The fact that seven columns spread over three different pages of the 17 February edition of The Referee were dedicated to coverage of the Duke Kahanamoku tour was indicative of the pace at which it had been conducted. Cecil Healy was weary, and he was only writing about it! The weekly sports paper often had three or four separate appearances of the Hawaiians to cover in addition to the ongoing news stories concerning them, such as the Longworth challenge and the reluctance of the Victorian Swimming Association to accept fiscal responsibility for the Melbourne visit.

  The close friendship between the star of the tour and the paper’s star swimming reporter did, of course, result in a greater depth of coverage (although Healy’s closeness to his subject did not prevent him from writing some savage critiques of Duke’s poor form over distance, nor from expounding his theory that the Kahanamoku kick was the reason for it), but the daily press also covered the tour in great detail, with The Sun’s Bill Corbett writing particularly extensive articles. As the tour went on, the press coverage became greater, and the pressures on Duke to perform in and out of the pool were beginning to show.

  On the morning of his interview with Healy at Bondi, Duke had arrived at Central Station with the rest of the team just before nine in the morning after a pre-dawn departure from Newcastle. Cecil had organised for Tommy Adrian to play chauffeur again, picking up Duke’s board from the Oxford Hotel and meeting him at the station. While the other Hawaiians went off to the hotel to rest ahead of the all-night journey to Melbourne, Duke drove with Tommy to Bondi. Although he had a week left of the Australian tour, Duke knew this would be his last chance to shoot surf, so he put his exhaustion to one side and paddled his remaining new board into the break at the southern corner of the beach. A small crowd immediately gathered to watch, and after riding several long waves, Duke cajoled Adrian into swimming out and joining him. The beach crowd burst into applause as Duke successfully pushed the young swimmer into his first standing shoot.

  ‘Paoa, you look buggered, mate,’ said Adrian as he drove Duke back to the city. ‘Getting enough sleep?’ Duke laughed at the young man’s frankness, but conceded that the tour was beginning to wear him down. ‘Don’t worry, mate, we’re all coming down to Melbourne to look after you.’

  ‘I heard you were swimming the 440, Tom, but what do you mean, “we’re all coming”?’

  ‘Manly Life Saving Club. Jim Miller has organised it. We’re going to give some rescue exhibitions and be there to cheer you on and keep you out of trouble. Big mob of us, on the Express tonight.’

  Duke knew what this was about. Tommy, Harry Hay, Geoff Wyld and other Manly swimmers who had got to know him had sensed that the Hawaiian was near the end of his tether and, well aware of the political tensions that had arisen between the various authorities over payment for the Victorian leg, they had decided, at their own expense, to form a human shield around Duke to ensure that he was protected from any outside pressures for the remainder of the tour. As the realisation dawned on him, Duke was almost speechless. He reached over to the driver and punched him lightly on the shoulder. ‘Thanks, mate,’ he said, mocking Adrian’s broad accent.

  At the Oxford Hotel, Adrian started to pull the surfboard out of the back of the car, but Duke stopped him. ‘You guys have it, please. It’s the least I can do. Keep it at the club for everyone to use.’

  A big crowd was waiting on the platform at Spencer Street Station to greet the arrival of the Hawaiians. The Manly Life Saving Club members formed a protective shell around Duke through the platform welcomes and the inevitable civic reception and luncheon that followed. Having checked into the Esplanade Hotel, opposite the baths in St Kilda, however, the Manly boys were ready for some Friday-afternoon fun.

  ‘You guys go right ahead,’ said Duke. ‘I’ll just rest up at the hotel for a bit.’

  ‘We really think you should stick close to us, Paoa,’ said Harry Hay, w
ith such sincerity that Duke meekly consented, dragging George Cunha along.

  On a gloriously sunny late afternoon, it seemed as if all of Melbourne was out promenading on the St Kilda seafront, children in sailor suits, men in summer suits and Panama hats, young ladies in ostrich trim and sleek ‘Directoire’ dresses that highlighted the figure, and here and there young fellows in the various uniforms of the armed forces. The swimmers followed the throng past shabby amusement arcades to the recently opened (and soon to be closed for the duration of the war) Luna Park. Although he feigned reticence to try the ‘Scenic Railway’ roller coaster or the ‘American Bowl Slide’, with the encouragement of the Manly lads Duke was soon making more noise than anyone else.

  Later, they passed a corner pub with a handwritten sign promising, ‘Roast Beef; Ham; Cheese; Fish; Rissoles; Sheep’s Trotters; Ox Tongue; Corned Beef; Sausages. Vienna Rolls or Bread Slices; Pickles and condiments—your choice of these viands with a full pint of Beer, all for SIXPENCE!’

  ‘That’s too good to be true,’ cried Duke. ‘I’m in!’ They took over a long table in a corner of the noisy, crowded bar, and soon the beer and food were flowing, with the singing not far behind. After tea, Jim Miller and Geoff Wyld were keen to visit the Palais de Danse next to Luna Park, then perhaps go on to Café Francatelli in the city, where illegal drinking and dancing were said to carry on into the wee hours.