Allan Pease Lorne

An interview with Allan Pease by Janet Goud

I picked up on a post by Allan Pease on Facebook talking about his youth and surfing with the greats Wayne Lynch and Gail Couper at Lorne in the 1950s. I contacted him at his present home at the Sunshine Coast. He is a well-known motivational speaker and author (eg. Body Language, Why Men Lie and Women Cry ) several movies, and he has presented a Ted talk about Body language. He kindly replied. I asked him about his early life in Lorne.

How did you and your family come to live in Lorne?
My father married Norma Mill’s sister, Val, in 1955.  We then spent our weekends and vacations at Lorne.  Murray Mill owned The Ozone and my father would work there with him during the Summer.  We moved to live in Lorne in 1962 and I started school there. That’s when at age 11, I discovered surfboard riding.

Tell us some memories of Lorne and your teachers. Who did you surf with in the early days?
At Lorne HES in the early 60s, we had Lorne Point to ourselves.  Our schoolteacher, Mr. Boekamp, would regularly shout,
“Stop watching the surf and focus on your schoolwork!”
The everyday regular surfers were Wayne Lynch, Gail Couper and me.

We’d surf before and after school and right through the winter months.  I  recall Wayne and I standing back-to-back in the Surf Club’s 20 cent hot showers when it was only 5 degrees outside. If we didn’t have the money we could often convince Sharky to jig the machine for more shower time.  We’d sometimes be joined in the surf by Shorty Tully, Kim Muir, and Red and Colin Whitcombe.  Gail Couper was a few years older than us and was a warm weather regular (She hated the cold) and she formed the Victorian surf team with Denise Zanoni, Christine Coates and Kay Austin.  Gail went on to win just about every female surf title that came up. I still have visions of Denise Zanoni crashing through the Lorne shore break wearing a Geelong Cats jumper in an attempt to keep warm.  Why she never drowned was a mystery.

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