Colin Hunter liked the simple things – good surf, his mum’s cooking and solid, properly nurtured friendships – ones that would last a lifetime.
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He never made a family of his own. Instead he could sometimes seem like a peer to his friends’ children.
His boyish habits extended to picking the stickers off apples and fixing them to the weather shelter at Bellambi beach, where he would go most days to check the surf.
“I’m not a man, I’m still a boy,” he explained to his mother, when she encouraged him to grow up.
He was 60 then.
On Thursday hundreds of people farewelled Mr Hunter - better known as Colza, the unofficial Lord Mayor of Bellambi - at a warm and overflowing funeral service.
With his distinctive whip of white-blonde hair and unchanging lifestyle, Colza befriended a larger than usual portion of the northern Illawarra and become an icon of its surf scene. He died out in the lineup at Sandon Point on May 22, believed to have suffered a heart attack. He was 65.
About 600 people attended Thursday’s service at Parson’s funeral home in Bulli.
Colza was remembered as an uncomplicated and undemanding man, a gentle soul who never said a bad word about anyone.
He was so disinterested in material possessions he spent 35 years without a car, getting around on his pushbike, in his trademark “tracky daks, flanno, ripped tees, beanies and thongs”.
His wetsuit was full of holes and his old surfboard was patched in many places.
Feminism was lost on him. He lived with his mother and, at 90, she retained responsibility for the household cleaning.
But he was a devoted friend and son who remembered birthdays and hand-delivered his Christmas cards each year.
He was born in Kurri Kurri, one of three sons of Val and Clem, a coal miner.
The family moved to the Illawarra when he was seven or eight.
He excelled at sports – especially soccer and rugby league – and maths.
After school he worked as an electrician at Dynamic Engineering Unanderra, then at Australian Iron and Steel’s number five blast furnace. More recently he worked at a bike shop in Corrimal.
They played Stairway to Heaven to accompany a slideshow on Thursday – Colza wearing a kilt as a boy, sharing drinks on a friend’s porch, at the wheel of his recently purchased orange Commodore.
A petition is circulating, calling for council to rename Bellambi Pools Park, Colin Hunter Park.
“Col lived life on his terms,” the petition’s creators wrote. “What was special about his was the fact he never changed.”
Note: The Mercury attended Thursday’s service with the permission of family.