Bondi Local | Alan Gow
Bondi Local | Alan Gow
We see Alan just about everyday down at the Bondi Icebergs Pool. We actually don’t know what he looks like with clothes on. No kidding.
Melanie talked to Alan poolside at the The Crabbe Hole.
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Hi Alan, thank you very much for agreeing to do the BFD interview.
Can we get a little bit of your background. Were you born in Australia?
Yes, in 1948 I was born in Darlinghurst in the old St Margaret’s. My family lived in Blair Street down near Seven Ways. I lived there for the first eight years of my life. I learned to swim in the Bondi Icebergs pool, in the kids pool. Sep Prosser was my swimming teacher. And I went to Bondi Beach Public School.
So very closely attached to Bondi from a very early age.
Very. 1961 was my first year at Randwick Boys High. My mother and I lived up on Park Parade. So I did all my high schooling at Randwick Boys High. Following that I stayed on on Park Parade although my mother moved out and bought herself a unit elsewhere. I stayed there for a further 10 years. During that period, as I went off to university and went to work, I joined the Icebergs. That was 1973. And up until that time I’ve been surfing at South Bondi. Also Bronte, because going to Randwick Boys High I met a lot of friends over in that area. So I surfed a lot in the Bronte Surfrider’s Club.
Do you still surf?
Occasionally, yes. I have a Mal and I go out on it but I find it a little busy now at Bondi. Occasionally I go up to Crescent Head or somewhere like that for a week at a time and go surfing. When the kids were young we always took them up there as well.
So are they surfing and swimming?
One is still. Going back to the Icebergs, originally my father joined in about 1948 the year I was born, and he was the Secretary of the club for 25 years. He died in 1985. My son [Sean] was born that year and he also joined the icebergs later on. So I’ve been a member now, this would be my 44th year. My dad was in it for some 40 years before he died and my son has been in it since he was 18 so this is his 13th year.
What’s the record?
Ken Eastman, Jimmy Gillies, Frank Keys and some of the other fellows are well over 50 years.
Well you’ll get there!
If I stay alive I will!
You’re pretty fit. You’ve got a chance.
You gotta keep swimming. That’s the secret!
Keep it that as your goal. That’ll keep you going.
Over the years when surfing was all that mattered, when you’re a teenager nothing else mattered. Then as you grow and I got into swimming a bit later, certainly in my 30s and 40s. And now I do a bit of ocean swimming. There’s a group of us, a dozen of us who swim Bondi Bay every day, or every day it’s safe to swim, across and back. I’ve just come back from today’s swim. It was absolutely beautiful out there. We swim in a few of the organisational swim club ocean swims and that sort of thing. And the last few years have been interesting because through the Icebergs I took a swim team to San Francisco to swim with the South End Rowing Club, and we swam Alcatraz, from Alcatraz back to Fishermans Wharf. And also the Golden Gate Bridge from one side to the other.
What about English channel!
No that’s a bit advanced for me. I’m getting a too old for that sort of thing. But we’ve been over there [to the US] twice now and in fact we’ve got this sister club relationship between the Icebergs and the South End Rowing Club. They have a swim team coming over here this year to swim with us.
Great. Will that be the first time they’ve come?
No the second. We’ve been there twice and this will be their second time. Hopefully the two clubs will keep this relationship going for some years and give the members a chance to go across and do some exciting swims and meet some unusual people.
How long were you President of the club?
I was on the Board of Directors for 10 years and I was President for five years. I finished my term a couple of years ago to give somebody else a go. It was very interesting, it was good to be involved in the club. I have a background in business, so I was able to use my skills then to help the club in times of need etc. It all seems to be going very well down here now.
Does your son have ambitions to following your footsteps? And his grandfathers’?
Well he swims. But I think my dad was most involved. He joined the Icebergs at a time, just after the war, when it was in a phase when we had to come out of a purely amateur group into a licensed club, with all that it has to offer today. And he was one of the engineers of that change.
When they built the first concrete club the old wooden structure came down and he was heavily involved in that.
When was that?
That was about 1960. It was a bit before my time as an iceberg. The club became licensed in about 1962. Prior to that it was a bunch of guys on a Sunday coming down and swimming in the old pool and going upstairs to have beer from a keg afterwards. And they used to prepare all their own food up there. They had tables where groups of friends would sit on the same table and they all had a name: there was the Ecumenical Council, and the Law & Order table, all sorts of unusual names. And that still continues really til this day in a loose format. We have the table relay once a month down here in the pool to celebrate that tradition during the winter season.
It’s nice to keep those traditions alive and the history. It’s a great bit of Bondi culture and our history.
Absolutely. The Club has been here since 1929 which, considering Bondi was really one of the latest suburbs to be developed because it was all sandhills, I think the Icebergs has been instrumental pretty much all the way with Bondi.
It’s an integral part of the community.
There are over a 1,000 swimming members and 4,500 or so social members. But with 1,000 swimming members I know winter Sunday down here there’ll be 400 to 500 people swimming in organised events in the pool here. And all loving it.
It’s an incredible experience. If you want to get a sense of Bondi and the people here, Sunday morning in winter is the place to be.
Well that’s right. It’s about to enter is 87th season which is just phenomenal in that period that it’s now so strong.
And it doesn’t look like it’s gonna die off at any time soon.
Well it looked a bit dodgy in the late 70s, early 80s. There were a couple of things happened, probably firstly women joining the club as swimming members, that made a huge difference. And also the redevelopment of the club in the early 2000s did a lot to bring people in.
It’s by far the largest swimming club in Australia and in fact I think the junior Icebergs, the Ice Cubes, is about the third biggest winter swimming club. There’s a considerable number of kids swimming here every Sunday during winter.
What about your girls? Are they Icebergs too?
The two girls, whilst both good swimmers were never keen enough on cold water or winter swimming to join the Icecubes, but Stephanie also flats with her boyfriend in Bondi and is a Social Member of the “Bergs”. Ingrid left home at 16 to study Ballet overseas and joined the Royal New Zealand Ballet as a dancer. She is now a Coryphée with the Australian Ballet, based in Melbourne, but during the Sydney seasons at the Opera House, she can usually be found spending her days off hanging out with her sister in the cafes of Bondi.
Okay so now just a little bit about your Bondi experience. Is there anywhere that you go to eat regularly? Do you have a favourite place?
I spend a lot of time at the Icebergs obviously, but also North Bondi RSL. And the occasional restaurants around the place, I like Gelbison’s. And a few of the others here and there but there’s not one place in particular. Except maybe the RSL, it’s beautiful over there on a Saturday afternoon. The idea is you go and have a swim on a Saturday morning and lunch either at the Icebergs or the RSL in the afternoon. And then maybe go down for a late dip.
Pretty heavenly really!
What you do besides your involvement at the icebergs?
Originally I was a metallurgist and I was involved in the manufacture of motorcar parts and all that sort of thing. And I progressed through management. Now these days I’m a part time management consultant I’m winding down and I’m trying to help small new businesses get underway in the manufacturing business with quality systems, etc.
Manufacturing is fading out so all the skills are disappearing so people like me have come in demand to try and pass on some of that knowledge that was gained over all of those years. Most of my clients would be classed a small businesses with maybe a dozen to 50 people. I’ve got a construction company and I have a company that manufactures smart meters. And another one that makes camera equipment. All sorts of little odds and ends, little specialities they tend to have.
It’s heartening to know there are those kinds of businesses starting up when we keep hearing that manufacturing is dying out in this country.
Well it’s either made in China or you get it locally. To buy anything from China you need two buy millions. You’ve got to expect quality problems and long lead times. So if you make it yourself there’s a niche market there. And more of that the better as far as I’m concerned, and the better for Australia as well.
One last question, do you have a motto for life?
Haha! Just keep swimming!
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Full interview on SoundCloud below or HERE
