Hooked On Eddie From The Start

Illawarra Mercury

Friday November 19, 2004

By PETER NEWELL * Peter Newell is a former managing editor of the Illawarra Mercury and one of Eddie Taylor's lifelong friends.

'I'm sure where you are today the big snapper are taking the bait, you're on plenty of long-priced winners, the beer is cool and the weather perfect.'

THE East Woonona Fishing Club has lost its favourite son. This week's passing of Eddie "Seagull" Taylor ends an era for me of great fun, great times and three great mates.

It also means the end of an era for the Illawarra Mercury, and the legions of fishermen who took the bait Seagull tossed them in his weekly fishing columns over the past 20 years.

There were only ever three members of the exclusive East Woonona Fishing Club. They were Seagull, who always laid claim to the presidency, my late mate and colleague, former Mercury editor Peter Cullen, and me.

Seagull revelled in the club's supposed exclusivity, claiming to have knocked back membership bids from such sporting luminaries as Sydney Swan Plugger Lockett. He even told stories to people silly enough to believe them about begging letters of application containing $100 bills, which we splurged on the horses before graciously telling them no.

We'd always call an annual general meeting of the East Woonona club, where Seagull would report to the other two present on the number of membership applications received that year. The latest AGM was across the table over a glass (or two) of red at Janine's last Black and White Ball. With the numbers down to two, I thought I'd have a crack at the presidency and nominated myself. Quick as a flash, Seagull immediately quoted a recently discovered club "constitution" which gave the president a casting vote on all matters - end of story.

All of this was absolute nonsense, made all the more silly coming from three grown and supposedly intelligent and responsible men. But that's what mateship is all about.

And Edmund Taylor, known to all as Seagull or simply The Gull, was a mate's mate.

Our fishing stories, many with Woonona-Bulli RSL Club early on, were legendary:

* Like the day Seagull nearly died of laughter when Freddy Paul and Sam Cronin zoomed out from the Austinmer beach ramp - only to have their boat steering jam and finishing halfway up the rocks below the Headlands Pub.

* The day he turned his back on a bucketful of beautiful flathead fillets on Bellambi ramp - only to have a hungry pelican guts the lot.

* The day he and PC agreed with police to organise the burial of an old lady at sea, and nearly wound up buried there themselves when caught on the Sandra K in a cyclone right out off the Continental Shelf.

* The day we dropped anchor at "Spot A" out from the Coledale and Scarborough pubs, and started catching them hand over fist. Seagull scratched a cross on the bottom of the boat, "to remember just exactly where this spot is".

Seagull's other great sporting loves included the trots, the races, rugby league (he revered King Wally and the Maroons, but had a soft spot for the Steelers), the Hawks and the Sydney Swans.

He regaled in telling stories of the Gordon Vale races in his native Queensland, and downing a beer at Connor's red "Labor Truck" at the Bulli trots.

Among many other things, Eddie was:

* The man who jumped to his feet at Rosehill one day as Johnny Marshall crossed the line on 160/1 winner Star 'O Lanka, slapped PC and I on the back and shouted: "Well done boys, the mail was right, 160/1, you bloody beauty!" We were sitting with Geronimo Franks, Danny Ryan, Frank Borgo and Bill Gibson, to see their good mare Jubilee Belle run later in the day. Of course we hadn't had a penny on the bolter, but it all went too far too quickly.

"The bastards," I heard one of the other group growl. "They got the mail on that and didn't say boo. Hell, we're all from Wollongong!"

* The man who had us dumbfounded in a Rosehill bar one day when he started shouting "Go Maurie! Go Maurie!" We worked out later he had backed a Melbourne hurdler named Mr Hickey after our great mate Maurie Hickey and it had just got the cash.

The man who always backed No 19 in big races like the Doncaster and Epsom, and who cleaned up when Tommy Smith's roughie Iko won a big mile carrying that saddlecloth.

* The man who did the impossible with me one June long weekend and got the Oakbank Grand National Steeplechase trifecta. (A field of 100 over fences for 4800m.) We were devastated when it paid a miserable $106.

* The man who got the daylights kicked out of him by a Shetland pony which caught him between the shafts and the front of the gig and backed him up against the fence in a Bulli charity race one night.

Seagull had a wonderful sense of humour. Like the night we had a former Mercury court reporter, who lived in awe of judges and other bench-bound luminaries, convinced Mr Edmund Taylor was a visiting magistrate from out of town. Our scribe bowed and scraped to Seagull all night and to this day I don't think he knows the difference.

There was the night the NSW Energy Minister, the late Paul Landa came to Woonona Bulli RSL to present the Mercury's Tooth Medal sports star award. The state's electricity grid was in crisis at the time and blackouts were common. Just as Landa was to name the winner, Seagull threw a switch and plunged the whole auditorium into pitch blackness. The good minister and his local minder Laurie Kelly were not too impressed!

There were two particular things in my 34 years with Seagull that I did not achieve and I regret them to this day. The first was that he, PC and I often talked of registering the name Strictly Seagulls and opening up a fish and chip shop. The second was when I tried to buy the block of land on Woonona Beach next to Seagull to build a house 20 years ago, but when it went to auction I couldn't afford it. Naively perhaps, I had visions of Seagull, PC and I all living together in a near-perfect world, but it was not to be.

Like so many, I will miss Seagull greatly. He was a special human being.

When PC retired a few years ago, before his death at far too young an age, I sat down to write a "short" Mercury piece on our three decades of perilous punting, much of it naturally also involving Seagull. I wrote: "When he finally reaches the Pearly Gates, that Seagull will have a lot to answer for."

Well Seagull old mate, I don't think you'll have much trouble providing satisfactory answers. I'm sure where you are today the big snapper are taking the bait, you're on plenty of long-priced winners, the beer is cool and the weather perfect. I know you're with one good mate, and I trust in God you are both resting in peace.

In the meantime, I'm faced with a dilemma - do I now stand alone in the East Woonona Fishing Club, or throw open the membership to all-comers? Ah, to hell with them Seagull, they can continue to wait their turn!

Mr Taylor, 75, of Woonona East, died peacefully in hospital on Tuesday night.

He is survived by his wife, Claire, sons Daniel, Glenn and Neil, daughter Renee and their families.

His funeral service will be at St Columbkilles Catholic Church, Corrimal, at 1.30pm on Monday.

© 2004 Illawarra Mercury

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