By JO-MARIE BROWN
It was a case of history repeating itself when the Governor-General, Sir Michael Hardie Boys, posed for a photograph with members of the Karekare Surf Club in West Auckland.
Sir Michael was helping to recreate one of surf lifesaving's most memorable photos.
The picture, taken in 1935, showed the Governor-General of the day, the 8th Viscount Galway, in woollen togs with a wooden surfboard and flanked by Karekare Surf Patrol members.
Waitakere City Mayor Bob Harvey, a Karekare Surf Patrol life member, said numerous magazines and books on lifesaving had featured the photo.
The club had tried for five years to get a Governor-General to recreate the moment.
Sir Michael obliged while attending the club's 65th anniversary celebrations on Sunday. He posed with present club members in the same spot where the original photo was taken.
"We managed to work out where it had been taken from by the position of the sun and the hills in the background," said Mr Harvey.
But Sir Michael left some of the patrol's older members to don their 1930s woollen swimming attire, preferring instead to wear a modern rescue wetsuit.
Surf club seizes historic chance
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