From the outset, I gotta say we were called ‘gremmies’, not ‘grommets’. ‘Grommets’ came a long time later – in the 70s, and out of Australia.
My Dad, who had flown in the RAF’s 12 Bomber Squadron in the Second World War, bombing the Nazis and fascists in North Africa, told me the word came from ‘gremlins’. If anything went wrong with a plane, it was the work of gremlins: mythical little creatures that caused trouble and played pranks.
Like us, I suppose.
We would dig holes in the beach, and cover the opening with newspaper and sprinkles of sand. Then we’d lie in the hot Durban sand watching the Vaalies run by in their Speedos, and crack up as they tripped into the holes.
Sometimes, we’d climb along the Patterson pier and throw stones at the surfers as they paddled by in the Bay rip, and then duck and hide behind the boulders. Fun and mischievous stuff for nine-year-old gremmies.
Then surfing sneaked up on me…
I can remember that first wave on a board like it was yesterday. It was 1965, at the Bay of Plenty in Durban, and I was nine years old.
