The Bay Boys

In this documentary, presenter, poet and lifelong surfer Gary McCormick reunites the 'Bay Boys'— a gang of Pākehā and Māori surfing buddies who grew up in Titahi Bay and often had "seawater dripping out of their noses". In the early 1960s Porirua was a rapidly growing city with 2,700 state houses and a young population. It also became a city of two halves; in the late 1960s gangs began recruiting in more deprived areas of Porirua East. McCormick meets up with friend George Harris, a "snappy dresser" and hard man who broke a cycle of domestic abuse and pain when he became a husband and a father.

I'm 44 and should be forgetting about those things, but you know the damage was done...and it's your past and you can't let it go.

– George Harris can't ever forget the violence and abuse he endured while growing up in Porirua

Key Cast & Crew

Keith Ballantyne

Composer

Gary McCormick

Presenter

Ken Sparks

Editor

Brian Edwards

Subject

William Grieve

Producer

Bruce Morrison

Director