NEWS DESK
Surfer’s return to home break OBITUARY
Michael Owen Parkinson, 1954-2019 Surfer By Keith Platt
Beach farewell: Surfers in a paddleout for Mick Parkinson at Sorrento back beach, above, after a beach funeral service on Thursday 7 February. Pictures: Keith Platt
EAT your chips first; no one’s going to take your flake. Sounds like good advice, but did it come from personal experience or have a deeper philosophical meaning? Maybe it was just something passed down as part of the Parkinson family law. The short sentence about advice given to a friend by Michael “Mick” Parkinson was just one of many entries in a memorial book left on a table of empty glasses at Sorrento back beach on Thursday 7 February. The glasses, tables with plates of sandwiches and chairs lined up in the sand facing the sea were there for the funeral of Michael Owen Parkinson, born at Dromana Hospital on 4 October 1954 and died 28 January 2019. The beach was a place that had loomed large in Parkinson’s life. Fish and chips had also become a big part of his life as his parents, Des and Margaret Parkinson and grandparents Archie and Stella ran a family business, Parkinson Fish in Point Nepean Road. The family sold fish they caught in Port Phillip and the shop was “conveniently located for Mick to host - after hours- some of the biggest parties on the peninsula”, according to Kerrie Dixon.
Ms Dixon, celebrant, friend and neighbour for many years to Parkinson, his partner Darlene, son Jason and daughter Georgia, hadn’t known him during his “surfing glory days”, but invited mourners to “take a moment to invite peace where there are troubled thoughts, and give thanks for the gifts he brought into your lives”. Sorrento back beach was the home break for the keen and talented surfer that Mick Parkinson became. It was a place where he could paddle out for enjoyment, forgetting any problems he might be facing. On that sunny day of his funeral earlier this month, many members of his family and his friends gathered to say farewell. To scatter his ashes into the sea, inside a circle of people sitting on surfboards. In surfing terms, it’s called a paddleout, a farewell to someone who saw the sea and surf as filling an important role in their life. And so it was for Mick Parkinson, whose life and times were eulogised on the beach that day. In reading the family’s eulogy, Ms Dixon said Michael Parkinson was 14 when his mother died “leaving the three boys [older brother Keith and father Des] to continue their life, caring for each other and uniting in an inseparable bond to face the world together”. “As with many peninsula boys it wasn’t long before Michael discovered the surfboard and the back beach,” Ms Dixon said. “Michael became well known for his surfing abilities and was soon encouraged to enter many competitions, where he was a successful and aggressive competitor. A happy period in his life that he was proud of. Not boastful, but proud of his achievements and of the many friends he made in his surfing years.” Ms Dixon said it seemed “out of place” to described Parkinson as aggressive “as he was always a compassion-
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Southern Peninsula News 27 February 2019