Saturday Extra

One of the most admired and successful volunteer organisations in the country has to be the surf life savers.

They've been patrolling the beaches and rescuing swimmers since the early years of last century, and in 2007 they celebrate their centenary.

To mark the occasion, the definitive history of the organisation has been published, it's called Between the Flags: One Hundred Summers of Australian Life Saving.

Transcript

Geraldine Doogue: .One of the most admired and successful volunteer organisations in this country has to be the Surf Life Savers. They've been out there saving lives since the early years of last century, and next year they celebrate their centenary. 2007 will also be the Year of the Life Saver.

So, is it possible they have their critics? Well, the answer is Yes, and No. Certainly they've not always enjoyed absolute hero status, and they've also struggled for survival. All of which is documented in a definitive history launched yesterday by the Governor-General, Michael Jeffery. It's called 'Between the Flags: 100 Summers of Australian Life Saving'. The editor is Professor Ed Jaggard; he's a retired historian, formerly from Edith Cowan University in Western Australia, and he's compiled this book as a labour of love, and I'm delighted to say he joins us now.

Ed Jaggard:.Thank you.

Geraldine Doogue: .Now this also ends up being something of a history of attitudes within Australia, wouldn't you say? So you learn about the development of Australian attitudes through looking at the history of the life saver. What struck you?

Ed Jaggard:.I think that's right. All of the authors agreed that surf life saving mirrored Australian society. Sometimes it got out of step with society, as I think it did in the 1960s, but in the early years of the century its militarism, its masculinity, I think really resonated with the Australian people, particularly the people in the city. That I think lasted until about the 1950s, and then surf life saving I think failed to adapt, and in the 1960s when the era of individualism, feminism, a whole series of changes in Australian society, surf life saving suddenly found itself out of the mainstream. It looked anachronistic and it needed to redefine itself, which it's done.

Geraldine Doogue: .I particularly was interested by how it had made the transition to this more individualistic society. Reading the book has made me realise what an incredible joint exercise it was, and how people had to opt in to it. That's the very thing that is not happening from churches to hospital volunteer organisations. That's the challenge at the moment. So how's life saving coping?

Ed Jaggard:.Yes I'm sure you're right. The supreme virtue of surf life saving was volunteerism, and people willingly getting into it. It offered the inducement of competition as well, but as the spirit I think of volunteerism began to decline, and as surf life saving looked more out of step, it started to swing its emphasis away from the team, to individual rescue methods. So instead of the reel, line and belt with five men needing to operate it, or five men and women after 1980, the rescue board, the rescue tube, the IRB, all of these -

Geraldine Doogue: .What's the IRB?

Ed Jaggard:.Inshore Rescue Boat. All of these could be operated by one or two people. So there was that, and then in competition the emphasis swung to the Iron Man, and Iron Woman. And these were individual events rather than the old team events like rescue and resuscitation and surfboat racing and so on.

Geraldine Doogue: .What's your own involvement in surf life saving? Are you an historian by training?

Ed Jaggard:.Yes, I am. I began n 1950. My parents were both in surf life saving in Western Australia. They put me into a surf club, Cottesloe, I left that after eight years and made my way to Swanbourne, and I've been involved ever since.

Geraldine Doogue: .Have you ever saved anyone's life?

Ed Jaggard:.Once.

Geraldine Doogue: .Once. Really? What happened?

Ed Jaggard:.He was caught in a rip at our beach, and we were training in the surf boat and we noticed him drifting out to sea, so two of us just swam out, we didn't use any rescue equipment, but we swam out and got him, and I recollect that when he got into shore, although I don't recollect, my friend tells me, that I gave him a fearful dressing down, told him never to do it again. He then promptly vomited and staggered off up the beach.

Geraldine Doogue: .I hope it wasn't my father. He used to swim at " Cot"quite a bit. Look, how many people have the life savers rescued in these 100 years of existence?

Ed Jaggard:.I think the figure now stands at over half a million.

Geraldine Doogue: .That's a staggering figure, isn't it? Really awe-inspiring, isn't it?

Ed Jaggard:.Yes, it is.

Geraldine Doogue: .So I think I read about 12,000 a year roughly are rescued.

Ed Jaggard:.Yes.

Geraldine Doogue: .There's been little interest in surf life saving as a movement from academics and historians. This is the first full national history. Why is that so, do you think?

Ed Jaggard:.I think sports history has always struggled to get into the mainstream. So sports historians battle to find places to publish. There are now some dedicated journals where they can do that. But in terms of Australian sport, cricket, football and a number of others, all take prominence. In terms of volunteer movements, surf life saving's probably the premier one, but it doesn't attract attention because it is a supreme example of volunteerism. Academics have been writing about it since the 1980s on and off; several of the authors in the book have written about different aspects of the history, including Doug Booth, who comes from New Zealand and is a surfboard rider, and an arch critic of surf life saving.

Geraldine Doogue: .Well my next question: you raise the fact that over the years it's most definitely had its critics, and that in fact it could be seen, it was in many ways, a privileged, rather elitist group of people. Develop that for us, please.

Ed Jaggard:.Well the view of people like Doug is that surf life saving's privileged position could be seen at a surf carnival, where it would in the 1930s, 1940s and '50s, erect hessian on the beach, prohibit the public from using large chunks of the beach, and run its own events, to the exclusion of the public. So that was one. I think another is the way in which surf life savers patrolled the beach. Very often they patrolled it in a way, or they placed the flags in such a way that the best waves for them in the heyday of body surfing. So they got the best waves, and the rest scrambled for what was left. You can see it in the position of their club houses; their club houses occupy supreme positions on the coast, where no-one else can go. Local Government has winked and nodded and said, 'By all means, build there, because you need to be close to the sand'. A lot of people accept this, but there are many other people who look and say, 'Why surf life saving? Why does it occupy this position?'

Geraldine Doogue: .Because they save lives, I suppose is the clear answer, but you think that's not a good enough answer?

Ed Jaggard:.Well again, the critics come back and say 'Do many of the members in surf life saving join to save lives, or do they really join for the competition? Are they really interested in saving lives? How many people that patrol the beaches are really competent swimmers? How many could save people?'

Geraldine Doogue: .What do you think the answer to that is?

Ed Jaggard:.I think today most surf life savers are highly trained, they're certainly proficient in the latest rescue methods, there are some who are in it totally for competition.

Geraldine Doogue: .But that doesn't matter, does it?

Ed Jaggard:.No.

Geraldine Doogue: .I mean enlightened self interest is reasonable isn't it? If they do then, I suppose they have to then be prepared to give their time to do the more boring task of patrolling the beach. Now what's the evidence on that?

Ed Jaggard:.All of the top competitors have to do 15 hours of patrols each summer before they can compete for example in the Australian Championships. So the argument within surf life saving has always been: You patrol first, then you compete. The emphasis is, the movement is about saving life; competition is secondary to the primary purpose of the movement.

Geraldine Doogue: .Let's look to the future, because we could go through loads of historical facts, but people will have to buy the book. Challenges in the future, the mixed use of the beach: you've now got all manner of body boarders, surfboard riders, swimmers, tourists, who may not be able to swim. I mean there's a lot coming to our beaches isn't there, and also people are moving up and down the coast particularly the east coast, less the west coast. How does surf life saving see itself?

Ed Jaggard:.I think surf life saving is now well into the phase where it sees the different sorts of beach users. Where once I think it grouped them as simply people who went to the beach, it now recognises the Japanese tourists who go to Bondi and may be very wary of the surf; it recognises people who've got no understanding of English and are very tentative; it recognises the fact that body boarders, surfers, all have their place on the beach. No-one has a right to the whole beach, and all of the different groups have to be accommodated.

Geraldine Doogue: .Do you take people in, by and large, are you welcoming people who are not necessarily from an Australian culture? I'm thinking particularly post-Cronulla, the great effort to actually attract young Muslims into surf life saving, so that we try to attempt not to have that happen again. Now is it very WASP, surf life saving?

Ed Jaggard:.It was, but I think surf life saving again has changed. It's been very conscious for the last ten years that it needs to appeal to a much broader section of Australian society, and I think since Cronulla again, funding has been given to try to entice people into the surf clubs, and to better reflect the mix in Australian society.

Geraldine Doogue: .What about women? It's extraordinary to realise that women were out for quite as long as they were. When were they admitted?

Ed Jaggard:.They were formally admitted in 1980.

Geraldine Doogue: .Oh, isn't that appalling.

Ed Jaggard:.So in 1980, they were allowed to go on patrol for the first time. But history has found that there were women in the clubs from probably the 1920s, and that in fact in some of the clubs, they were competitive members. For example, my mother joined North Cottesloe in 1925.

Geraldine Doogue: .What, competed in the races?

Ed Jaggard:.And she competed against men as well as competing in women only races. She competed right up until 1939. And all women in New South Wales clubs and Queensland clubs too, who've been forgotten, and they've been written out of history.

Geraldine Doogue: .So there's just a nod and a wink, they competed on men's terms?

Ed Jaggard:.Yes. They were there, the better organised amongst them organised their own carnivals, but the usual view of women in surf life saving is they were auxiliaries, they were pie makers and hall cleaners. Not true.

Geraldine Doogue: .And now?

Ed Jaggard:.Now they've got full rights. So they're patrolling the beaches; almost 40% of the active membership is female. And many of the office bearers in clubs, particularly the instructors, are women.

Geraldine Doogue: .So, very quickly, the final question: will we be able to celebrate a 150th anniversary of surf life saving? Because it's a really phenomenally big, quite complex organisation, this, isn't it? Is it going to keep pace with modern Australia?

Ed Jaggard:.I think it is because in the last six or seven years, it's really made an effort to modernise itself, and to recognise the fact that it has to live with life guards, it has to live with environmental groups, and a host of other organisations which have an interest in the coastline.

Geraldine Doogue: .What do you mean it has to live with life guards?

Ed Jaggard:.Life guards who patrol the beaches, and in many cases working side by side with the surf clubs on weekends.

Geraldine Doogue: .Oh, they're paid life guards you mean?

Ed Jaggard:.Yes.

Geraldine Doogue: .Oh, that's a whole different culture, you mean?

Ed Jaggard:.Yes.

Geraldine Doogue: .And what? Sometimes rather different types?

Ed Jaggard:.Yes. Sometimes too, club members who are professionals and work at other times of the week as life guards.

Geraldine Doogue: .All right, well look, thank you very much indeed. I must say whenever you do hear, you go to some of those old beaches up at Caves Beach on the New South Wales Central Coast where they have very much more traditional person and it bellows out on the megaphone 'Swim between the flags. That boy in the red bathers, swim between the flags!' You're reminded that surf life saving is very present.

Ed Jaggard, congratulations and thank you very much.

Ed Jaggard:.Thank you.

Geraldine Doogue: .And Ed Jaggard is an historian by training, from Edith Cowan University. His book is 'Between the Flags: 100 Years of Australian Life Saving'. UNSW Press again.

Guests

Professor Ed Jaggard
Adjunct Professor Edith Cowan University

Publications

Title: Between the Flags - one hundred summers of Australian surf lifesaving
Author: Prof Ed Jaggard
Publisher: UNSW press

Presenter

Geraldine Doogue

Producer

Scott Wales

Story Researcher and Producer

Ian Coombe