Bondi Local | Dean Parkinson
Bondi Local | Dean Parkinson
We’ve known Dean for a long time. Melanie, once an agent who represented photographers and makeup artists, met him maybe 30 years ago, in the early days of Honeywagons, a facilities vehicle supplier for television commercial production and editorial shoots that is still going strong today.
Dean was also a sponsor of our Lola’s Daisy Chain in 2004 … and that support was typical of his warm, generous and open hearted approach to life.
Melanie spoke to Dean at his home in Tamarama.
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Hi Dean. Thank you very much for participating in our Bondi Fresh Daily project. First of all can we please have a little bit of your background?
I was born in New Zealand. I came to Australia at 17 years of age in 1971, greener than the grass and still scared of the dark!
Did you come with your family or by yourself?
No, I came with a friend of mine who was running away from a girl he had gotten pregnant. More out of fear than anything. He just didn’t know what to do, and someone said to him, “why don’t you go to Australia?” And coming from Auckland in those days it was like hopping on a bus. No passport, you just went and bought a ticket and off you went. I had $400 in the bank and I had just broken up with someone. By the time I bought my ticket I arrived with change in my pocket. When I got here, I didn’t know anybody. We moved into the YMCA for 3 months. And then to Neutral Bay for 3 months and then one night I thought “I’m going to Bondi” – I’d heard so much about it so thought I’d go and check it out. I did and I walked into a hotel and there were half a dozen people who I knew from my old neighbourhood!
It was a real magnet for New Zealanders back then …
Yes, it sure was. That was only 6 months after I got here and within days of that first visit I had moved to Glenayr Avenue. And I’ve been here virtually ever since. I’ve lived on the Gold Coast, Melbourne, Adelaide, Noosa … but whenever I’ve lived anywhere else, there’s been this urge to come back. There’s this magnetic pull, and I always felt like I was missing out on something when I was living anywhere else, and so I have virtually lived in Bondi almost continuously since 1971.
I have lived most of that time a few hundred metres to where we are now.
So you’re a boy done good? After arriving with a few coins in your pocket …
Yeah [squirms!]. I worked pretty hard and at one point I worked for 15 years without a break. I was mentally and physically exhausted at the end of it. But I was young and I had the energy.
What were you doing?
Well I had a fish and chip shop and I sold that quite successfully then I started a removals business coz I was broke again. I met Martin Walsh in that time and then I started Honeywagons, which I am doing 30 odd years later. I remember speaking to Grant Matthews when I first started, and he asked me where I lived. When I told him Bondi he said, “Why do you live out there?” And I still remember my response which was “Because every time I come home it’s like being on holiday.” Where does everybody go for their holidays? To the beach!
And he [Grant] has since moved to the beach!
Everybody has! Nobody in the [fashion] industry lived down here in those days. They were in Paddington, Surry Hills, Darlinghurst and so forth. Since then there’s been a migration down here that I’d like to think I was responsible for!
We’re all here because of you Dean!
Also the thing about Bondi is that until the Greiner State Government we had the sewerage outlet [See related Bondi Fresh Daily post HERE.] and we had that streak of brown sludge going down the coast for kilometres and it was half a kilometre wide. And the Greiner Government improved it, took it out to sea, redid the sewerage station up there and it was from that point that Bondi’s character changed. The socio economic level went up. House prices shot up.
The great thing about Bondi, not just Bondi actually, the Australian beach is a great leveller. You can go to the beach and you can have your boardies on or your speedos and you can have a funny hat and zinc on your nose and the person next to you might be dressed identically lying on a tattered towel, under an umbrella – and could be a movie star; he could be your local squillionaire who’s made an absolute fortune, and there’s no real difference in you when you’re on the beach. There may be the odd tell-tale sign, a Rolex watch or something like that but generally you wouldn’t know if the person next to you has two yachts or cents to rub together. And that’s what I find extraordinary plus … Bondi, I’ve brought tourists here from other parts of the country over the years, and you’ll go down to Bondi with them and they’ll go “Oh, nothing special about that, I always thought there was this wonderful place – it’s not that fantastic”, but it’s the people. We all think we own it when we live here but I’ve come to realise that we don’t, we’re just the custodians. There’ll be new generations coming in after us and it was here long before we arrived and it’ll be here long after we’re gone.
But it’s a great spot, there are people here from all over the country and all over the world.
You look at the shopping precinct and you realise the tourists all eat in the Campbell Parade restaurants and what have you that are right there on the beach. Very seldom you’ll find locals. Of course there are a few exceptions like the Tratt and Macelleria. If you go a street or 2 back that’s where you’ll find all the locals.
Do you think it will always be so?
Who can tell. If you go to other places in the world, Bondi is one of the six most well known beaches in the world – but if you go to Waikiki or Copacabana or St Tropez, they’ve all got the high-end labels right on the front line but that doesn’t work here. In those places they line up the lounge chairs on the beach, the Aussies just dig a hole, put the towel down and are quite happy to do so.
There are a few banana chairs down there lately …
Yes, and I have to say when I’ve been to Mykonos or Bali I think why would I want a lounge? Why would I do that? But I’ve done it and I’ve actually enjoyed it – you pay five euro or whatever it is and they’re running up and down [the beach] giving you beer, giving you chips! What’s not to like! The service is great. You go to Bali and I think they’re more European than we are.
Tell us the Honeywagons story.
I tell people who ask what I do that “I have spent the last 30 years of my life with the most beautiful women in the world!”
And you’ve ended up with one of them!
Yes, I’m a very lucky guy. But it’s something that I fell into. I met Martin Walsh, who now owns and runs Chadwick’s [modeling agency]. I had a removals business and I was going to start a storage company. We were just sitting around talking and Martin said [about the storage company] “Oh, that’d be good, when I finish modeling it’ll give me somewhere to store my vans” and I said “What vans?” He told me about the Honeywagon-type vehicles that he’d worked in New York and Paris and wherever else he’d been working. And then a few weeks later he flits back to New York and I’m still carrying fridges and couches and moving people from place to place, mostly around Bondi and the Eastern Suburbs. But for the whole time over the next year I kept thinking to myself “hmm, fridges, couches [vs] pretty girls?” No brainer!
Have you ever had a moment’s regret about that decision!
Never!
Sometimes I’d struggle with a fridge that was so heavy that I’d let it slide down the stairs. There are a lot of stories that I can’t tell about that removals business!
I had started the removals business because I had no money, I borrowed some to buy an old truck and it just gave me enough to live on. But it was mostly so that I could surf. If people called to book me when the surf was up I’d say “Sorry, I’m all booked up. I can do it tonight or the next day or whatever …”
The entire time I kept thinking about Martin’s idea and almost 12 months to the day after he told me that idea I ran into a friend and she told me that Martin was back. I asked where he was staying and I rang him up and said “About that idea of yours …” he was over in 45 minutes and 2 weeks later we had bought our first minibus. And 2 weeks after that we did our very first job for Vogue Australia with Richard Bailey. He [Martin] stuck around for an extra month while we got it all up and running and almost to the day [when] he left, business stopped! But it turned out to be more a seasonal thing and it came back. Martin moved on as he had bigger fish to fry and I just kept running Honeywagons.
We see them all over the place. How many vans do have now?
Three. I stuck to three. Three’s great. Sometimes you don’t have enough to do all the work but when they’re all just sitting there getting rusty and the insurance and rego are just flying out the window then you really have enough. But it’s been a wonderful business. I’ve met celebrities, famous people. A lot of the models who have gone on to be movie stars, the wives of billionaires!
Well you got picked, didn’t you? What was the campaign that you did?
Oh I did a Panadol ad. I was in one of the Honeywagons one day and the client [Country Road] and the art director were talking behind me and saying that they needed a guy with a salt and pepper beard who is tanned and looks like he’s just come off a boat, to look weathered and what have you. And I was just sitting there reading the paper and thought but obviously said it out loud, “I must be invisible!” Anyway, they turned around and went “Oh yeah!” and called the photographer, Derek Henderson, over and asked him to take my photo. I called them later in the week to see if they still wanted me and they did and to cut a long story short, it became the shot of the campaign! There was Vince Colossimo and Claudia Karvan. Even Richard Bailey said the shot was fabulous!
And getting back to the Panadol thing, my Country Road shot was up on a billboard in North Sydney about where the old tollgates were and this girl [Panadol art director] was driving down the Pacific Highway towards the bridge. She had just written the Panadol commercial. She points to the guy on the billboard and says to the guy beside her, the director Adam Searle, “That’s who I want for Panadol.” He told her that he knew me and proceeded to arrange a meeting and it went from there.
It was a beautful ad and one that we remember!
People ask me still if I have any Panadol and I say “no but I can give you a fucking headache!”
And from that I had a sort of secondary career. I did the odd TVC [television commercial] but I’m no actor and I’m certainly not a model. I’m quite awkward. I do the odd character thing which, I have to say, I do enjoy. I’ve been working with the crews behind the scenes for so many years that when I’m doing something like that they go “What the hell are you doing!” It’s very rare that I get both the Honeywagon job and the other.
Back to the Bondi thing; do you have any favourite eating/drinking spots?
I do like the Bondi Tratt. The food is consistent, and the service is always fabulous. And as my wife will attest, I never want just what they have on the menu. I want it this way and I want a bit of that … My wife is always telling me off for it. I’m prepared to pay!
Good on your wife for telling off and good on the Tratt for doing it with grace!
Yes, they never object. They are always fabulous. So the Bondi Tratt, I love them for that. I also love Gelbison and so does my daughter. We go there and have the garlic prawns and Deb has the gnocchi and Rockie, she loves the margarita pizza with salami. Nick [Gelbison] is fabulous. And I walk in there and he always calls me by my name. It is the dearest pizza in the world when you add in the prawns and everything else. We keep going back. It’s always full of locals. And that’s just off Campbell Parade and if you go early, it’s full of families and they all know each other. I’ve been going there for years. It’s an institution now.
I also have to add the Icebergs Dining Room and Bar for a special occasion. I just love everything about the place. Maurice is just the most brilliant host.
There’s no-one quite like him, is there?
He’s fabulous. I’ve been there at the bar and he’ll come up and say “Hi Dean, you must try this” and give some taste of something special.
We go for any special occasion, and if he’s there we’ll say to him to order for us. He’ll bring something that I probably wouldn’t order as a red-blooded meat-eater. And he’ll fix the wines for us. It’s always a great eating experience.
I also like the RSL. I’m a pretty ordinary guy at heart. It’s a squillion dollar view. You know everybody there.
I’ve been a member of the Bondi Icebergs for 30 odd years.
Are you an Iceberg? Do you do the racing?
Yes, I am but I don’t do the races anymore. I’ve done my 5 years. I did them in the late 80’s, early 90’s. The camaraderie down there is wonderful. Again, the new generation is moving in and they think they own the place! It’s pretty good on a Sunday morning though when you’re hungover and you don’t want to go but you do and you dive in and do your 40 yards …
We talk in metres these days!
No but the races down there are swum in yards. That pool is 50 yards. And they cut it off for the 40 yard swim which is the minimum you can do. That pool was built well before metres came around.
One last question, do you have a motto for life?
I do. “Be happy. Live every day as if it’s your last.” But gosh I do have a motto that I’ve lived by for years but I need to think about it …
… I know: “Be prepared to take risks and back yourself!”
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Full interview on SoundCloud below or HERE
