goodbye Midget

rest easy legend
www.theaustralian.com.au/nocookies?a=A.flavipes

too young......his legend will live forever. RIP Midget

Yes sad news instead - I had seen him still working and surfing around the place in recent years. I hope he went peacefully - especially after that infamous quote of his "When you're comfortable, you're dead" all those years ago.


I always loved this pic of him





MIDGET FARRELLY: YOU DESERVED BETTERAn overdue apology from surf media's past

Read more at http://www.surfermag.com/blogs/eos/midget-farrelly/#0xOruqfVoFW8x6bA.99

The epigraph for Midget Farrelly’s 1965 autobiography This Surfing Life is brief. “When you’re comfortable, you’re dead.” The man was 21 years old, reigning world champ, and the toast of Australian sporting—yet he chose to introduce his book with that little nugget of gloom. Here’s what I’m getting at: The bitterness that would come to at least partly define Midget Farrelly in years to come—that was inborn. Some of it, anyway.And some of it was forced down his throat. For almost 50 years now, Midget has been surfing’s most ill-treated figure. Most surf media tastemakers lost interest in Farrelly not long after This Surfing Life was published because, A) he didn’t get stoned, and B) he was roughly 85 percent less charismatic than his protege-turned-rival Nat Young.Farrelly was made to pay for these crimes. Young, the 1966 world champ, cast some kind of surf media voodoo that made everyone ignore the fact that Farrelly was actually the better contest surfer during the shortboard revolution. (Midget was runner-up in both the ’68 and ’70 world titles; Nat placed 4th and 6th, respectively.) Farrelly’s treatment as a boardmaker has been even shoddier. Who knows what was happening at Palm Beach in ’67, when Farrelly and Bob McTavish were riding side-by-side during the birth of the deep-vee. Twist my arm, and I’ll say McTavish (with Greenough as his muse) got the jump on Farrelly. But if Midget didn’t make the world’s first shortboard, I would argue that he did, consistently, over the next four years, make the world’s best shortboards. There’s footage out there from the ’67 Bells contest, and the ’68 and ’70 world championships, and Midget always has the fastest, smoothest, most user-friendly equipment under his feet, by miles in some cases.Still, year after year, decade after decade, Midget’s star continued to fade. How far? In a 1992 Australia’s Surfing Life list of the “The Top 16 Shapers of All Time,” McTavish is on top, while Midget didn’t even make the cut. SURFER’s 2009 “Fifty Greatest Surfers of All Time” issue found room for Christian Fletcher, Mike Stewart, and Taj Burrow, but not Midget.Bob McTavish talks about the Midget he knew in the early ’60s as being almost a different person than what came later: laughing easily, borrowing riffs from his favorite comics, pub-hopping, double-dating. Farrelly later developed a kind of grimace, which he seemed to use as a kind of protective shield. But in the early day, McTavish says, Midget had a quick, easy, unaffected smile. I kept that smile in mind while making this video.

Read more at http://www.surfermag.com/blogs/eos/midget-farrelly/#0xOruqfVoFW8x6bA.99

I never knew Midget personally, but like so many others, he was pivotal on my love of surfing. Prior to 64, there was very little a kid from the western suburbs of Sydney could do to get close to surfing in its golden era. Midgets world championship win changed that for a short period, as the newsreels of the day were flooded with stories of his win, but still it was of little use to a kid like me, stuck 20 miles inland, no money to buy a board, and even if I did have one, how was I going to lump it to a beach. Somehow that did not seem to matter quite so much in 64, because we had a world surfing champ.

I finally got my chance to learn to surf in 66 during a 2 week vacation in Woolgoolga on a borrowed/stolen board that was taken from me once the boyfriend of the owner discovered I could surf better than him (my brother). I don’t know if I had images of Midget in my head as I was turning, trimming and crouching under the lip, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I did. What I’m most grateful for is the fact that I got to experience the final days of that classic longboards era that Midget was so much a part of.

30 or so years of work, home & Family then passed by in a flash and I found myself with the desire to surf again, oh was it hard, just so incredibly hard, and I gave up many times, occasional for years and whenever I went back to it, it became even harder, because I was older. Most of this learning, retiring and relearning was, thankfully forgettable, but one aspect was not, those were the times I shared the water with Midget, at either Palm Beach or North Avalon. He was inspirational and I would strain with my hearing impairment to get close enough to listen to the banter he was having with his friends, I would miss most of it, but it did not matter, I was in the water with someone I found to be inspirational and it probably help me persevere with my incompetence.

Although he appeared to me to be somewhat laconic and laid back, giving little of himself away, there were times when a window would open. One very small day out the back at Nth Avalon, a mate of his had a board that was large enough to allow him to sit on with both legs on the same side of the board. Whilst he was doing this, he said to the others, including Midget, “hey look, Mick Dooley”. Other than seeing his name on surfboards, I don’t know a lot about Mick Dooley, so I can only assume that he had a reputation for sitting that way on a board when waiting for a set.

Everyone laughed at the comment, but Midget just smiled dropped his head slightly downwards, tilted it to one side, shook it slightly and with a sideways grin, and under his breath, uttered the words “Mick Dooley” and then some more nodding. The gesture spoke to me of a man that could have said much more, on that, or perhaps any subject, but felt the need to say no more, it gave me the feeling that small talk may not have been one of his strengths, he had bigger fish to fry.


I was also very impressed with the way he ran his West St business, it was very ordered and the people in there were always helpful, I would even go there to buy supplies when I knew it would cost me a dollar or two more. It was not just the service that impressed me, the boards and blanks he had on display were beautiful. It was only 3 days ago that I popped in to get some white and black pigment and I saw a longboard blank in the stack with an X stringer in it and on the floor in the corridor was an orange pintail that was sheer poetry to look at. I wanted to take a picture of both, I now regret not doing it.


As sad as it is, I can’t see his passing as leaving us with a void, he left us with such a richness of life.

Great story OB..

Sad News...
Did a lot and never asked to be praised for it..
R.I.P Midget..

Top notch OB....RIP Midget

I had the good fortune to have a one to one conversation with Midget about 3 years ago re someone trying to sell me an old mal that had his signature on the stringer and to me looked like a blatant rip off, which it was.

We talked for about 20 mins re various surf topics as one does with a fellow surfer, dispelling a few urban myths about himself and what he did/didn't shape back in the day and he struck me as a very humble man without airs or graces...and he ended the conversation with "if I come through your way I'll give you a call and maybe have a surf" !!!!..I still have his mobile number in the phone..

RIP Midget .

Today I said Goodbye to a friend, surfing and fishing mate and an excellent shaper I built boards with in the 1960's. I paddled out at Pambula Beach where I now live, laid a circle of 6 flowers in the water, just a few minutes later 6 Dolphins swam slowly under my board and the flowers. I then decided to catch 6 waves for Midget. That was my "special" moment I will always remember. Goodbye old friend! John Cormack

Great post.
Condolences for your loss.

A Legend of our time RIP Midget!...

That wave 2.49 mark Great find Chrispy one of your best.

Any news on a paddle out yet?

70's Yellow one

Yep the yellow one.....

Only if the shortboard revolution means more than his world title on a longboard to him.