WATER WAY TO MARK A MILESTONE
Ski instructor to the stars celebrates 90th birthday
HAPPY 90TH BIRTHDAY NEVILLE PARKER
HE’S taught everyone from school kids to AC/DC how to waterski but Neville Parker never was one to get thunderstruck.
The Gold Coast icon will celebrate his 90th birthday on Friday, fittingly with a seafood lunch on the water with his family.
Mr Parker and his late wife Shirley opened the Carrara Water Ski School at Christmas in 1967.
The entrepreneurial merchandising officer decided to take the plunge after he and some of his fellow businessman friends had a wonderful time teaching themselves to ski.
Together with his daughter Anne and sons Kingsley and Lindsay (like his mother, Lindsay sadly died of bowel cancer) the family quickly became waterskiing royalty.
Other celebrities to visit the school in its 35 year history were Minogue sisters Kylie and Danni, Joe Cocker, Lionel Richie and the Prince of Dubai.
Commercials for Juicy Fruit and Pepsi were shot on Mr Parker’s patch of the Nerang River as was an episode of
Skippy and Ray Barrett movie Goodbye Paradise.
“AC/DC were all such happy and funny fellas,” Mr Parker said.
“They all learned to ski quite well. They were young and fit – at least they were back then.”
But perhaps the school’s biggest attraction of all was family pet Rex the German Shepherd.
“Rex just loved being on the water and we had a big pontoon where he used to lie watching us ski,” Mr Parker said. “He’d go over and stand on this board and one day I said, ‘I think he’s telling us he wants to ski’.
“Sure enough when we got him in the water he climbed straight on. He taught himself – he even learned how to shift his weight and lean.
“Japanese tourists used to come to the Gold Coast just to see Rex the Wonderdog.”
These days, Kingsley still has water running through his veins, operating KNP Marine in Southport.
Meanwhile Mr Parker has turned his hand to another hidden talent, producing beautiful paintings which have won a number of art prizes.
The Gold Coast icon is still giving back to the community with the former Broadbeach Lions president named as an honorary member of both Ashmore Rotary and Probus for his contribution.