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Last Wave for Salty Dog
Raymond Alan Hawthorne A.K.A. “Salty Dog”
9th March 1943 – 26th December 2009.
Funeral held in Evans Chapel, Tuesday 29th December 2009 at 2pm.
Ray Hawthorne, affectionately known in the local surf scene as “Salty Dog”, came to live in Gisborne in 1970. For many years, and up until the time of his untimely death in December, he lived along Moana Road at Wainui Beach.
Ray was special to the local surf scene as he was considered the “oldest” active surfer around the local beaches. Testament to this distinction was the huge turn-out to his funeral on December 9, where surfers representing all ages arrived to pay final respects.
Greg Robertson of Makorori, commented how great it was to see the likes of modern surfing’s young starts – Maz Quinn, Bobby Hansen, Blair Stewart and others – showing up for the final farewell for the “Old Salt”.
On Waitangi Day this year Ray was honoured posthumously by the local surfing fraternity by being included as a “Lost Legend” at a local contest held annually in memory of surfers who have met untimely deaths.
Ray was born in Palmerston North on 9th March 1943, the third child and only son of “Chappie” and Agnes Hawthorne. He had two elder sisters, Velma and Shirley, and a younger sister Jan.
He grew up in a farm cottage at Massey Agricultural College, which later became Massey University. His father was a sheepfarmer, employed by the college and was instrumental in the development of the Drysdale and Perendale sheep breeds. Ray’s education began at Tiritea, a small country primary school near the college farm. He then went on to Palmerston North Intermediate and Queen Elizabeth College.
Ray’s sisters say he gained a reputation in the family for being a bit of a mischief-maker and for a tendency to have a go at what ever took his fancy.
By his late teens he was skilled as a tyre serviceman and had jobs with Reliance Tyres and then Firestone. At eighteen, he hit the road for Hamilton on a motorbike in convoy with some mates. He continued working in the tyre business in Hamilton. He had his 21st birthday back in Palmerston North but from Hamilton, he cast his eye eastward to the surf beaches of the East Coast.
Ivan Paterson remembers Ray from the Palmerston North days. He says he was a quiet guy, a little older than the rest, who was one of a large contingent of Palmy surfers who travelled in groups to surf the Wairarapa coast in the late 1960s.
In 1970, aged about 27, Ray packed his worldly belongings into his Hillman Minx and headed to Gisborne. He drove into town to find Gisborne the mecca for wave seeking surfers from all over New Zealand and Australia. He moved in to flat with a few with other nomadic surfers and quickly became entrenched in the local groove.
Later he moved over to Noosa Heads in Australia for a short time, where he lived amongst the expatriot Gisborne surf community there and also spent a time living in Sydney.
On his return to Gisborne, Ray was employed as the head cleaner at the Kaiti freezing works, supervising a large group of night-time cleaners. He worked at GRC for 16 years, up until the time of its closure and then went on to work at Juken Nissho for 9 years.
For a time he groomed the pool tables at the Cosmopolitan Club and was part-time cleaner at the Tsunami Bar in its day. In recent years he was self-employed as a house painter.
Ray played a bit of rugby for the GRC team in inter-freezing works matches and also played a few games as lock and line-out man for YMP. But Ray loved snooker and pool games best and was renown as a skillful and cunning opponent in pub pool competitions, chosing to travel with his own favourite pool cue. He often won the Thursday night derby at the local bar and was a deadly serious competitor.
As good friend Bill Brown said at the funeral: “If you were Ray’s partner and you were playing well, he would buy you a beer all night. But if you were playing badly he wouldn’t even talk to you.”
Ray also loved to surf and to hang about with other surfers. He could be observed most days at Makorori Beach holding fort in the carpark between surfs with the likes of Bob Hansen and Bill Brown. He was great mates with Gordon Sutton, Tom Swann, Teddy Colbert, Kim Poulsen, Bondy Morton and many others.
As a younger man, he was one of many surfers around the town that could at best be described as “keen”. As he got older, and being one of the oldest surfers in New Zealand, he was able to enter senior age-group contest divisions. At New Plymouth in 2001 he won the New Zealand Over-55 national surfing title thus achieving surfing’s “legendary” status.
It was at age 64 in 2005, that Ray’s long-standing life as a bachelor boy came to an end. While playing pool one night at the Tsunami Bar he was introduced to Anne Diehl who had come to live in Gisborne in 2004. Anne, the daughter of local musician Maureen and the late Tony Potroz, fell for the craggy old pool shark – and the feeling was mutual. They married on October 10, 2008. Bill Brown and Bondy Morton were the groomsmen and the wedding was celebrated by one-and-all at the Tsunami Bar.
It was only a few months later, in April of 2009, that a hip x-ray revealed Ray had advanced bone cancer as a result of undetected prostrate cancer, for which Ray had shown none of the usual symptoms. Five months later, the day after last Christmas, Ray died aged 66.
In the wake of his death Anne, an enrolled nurse and experienced caregiver, questioned Ray’s treatment at Gisborne Hospital and as a result Tairawhiti District Health has indicated changes will be made in the area of palliative care.
Anne is very sad to have lost her new husband in such a rapid fashion. She says Ray treated her like “the Queen” and told her he had waited for her all his life. But Anne says it was heart-warming to see the huge crowd of friends who turned up at Ray’s funeral and gave her many kind words of support.
Ray’s mates are also missing “Salty Dog” with his wry humour, good nature and straight-forward, genuine outlook on life.
As Bill Brown said: “He was a cool guy – he loved people and people loved him.”
