Long-serving Trigg Island Surf Life Saving Club members (from left) Brian Carthew, Kevin Whitley, Kerry Rix, Frank Parlevliet and Ross White.
Camera IconLong-serving Trigg Island Surf Life Saving Club members (from left) Brian Carthew, Kevin Whitley, Kerry Rix, Frank Parlevliet and Ross White. Credit: Supplied/Marcus Whisson

On the coast

Tom Rabe, Joondalup WeekenderWanneroo Times

The same year the club began patrolling one of Perth’s most dangerous beaches, it won WA’s Premier Club, the equivalent of today’s State Championships.

The club will celebrate its history at a diamond jubilee dinner on October 12, 60 years since its lifesavers changed in the dunes and scrounged equipment from clubs farther south.

Club convener Brian Carthew said he was proud of what the club had achieved since humble beginnings.

‘We started to think of the club in the late ’40s, there were a few drownings here and the surf was really good, so there was a breakaway group from the Scarboro surf club that thought it might be a good idea to start a club farther north and that’s how it all started,’ he said.

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‘They had to work really hard in the early stages because they met a lot of resistance from what was then the old Perth Road Board and the hierarchy of surf lifesaving that simply didn’t want to know us.’

Club member Kerry Rix said the club had meant a lot to him.

‘The surf club used to be a room about 3.5m x 3.5m ‘