A Lovely Young Man

By Dan Hutton on April 25, 2011 in Other

Photo: Lee Mariano

On March 10, 2011, Coogee lost one of its most colourful characters. Rodney John Hore, better known as ‘Itchy Rat’, passed away at 34 years young.

Rodney was like a piece of the furniture down on Coogee Bay Road. I first came across him in 2005 while delivering The Beast to local shopfronts when the magazine was still in its infancy. He was one of the first people to grab a copy and compliment the mag and from then on he always went out of his way to say g’day and ask how things were going. Looking back, there have been very few months when we haven’t bumped into Rod grabbing a coffee on Coogee Bay Road while we’ve been doing deliveries, and it’s something that I personally am going to miss very much.

That said, I was more acquaintance than close mate to Rod, and to describe the true impact his life had on the local community I think the words of his mates best sum up the man in question:

Rod was an inspiration. He was energetic, spontaneous, loveable and spirited. His love for the sea and the ‘surfing way of life’ especially, was infinite. He loved the salt water, the sand, loved catching waves, body-bashing, skin-diving, swimming, anything to do with the ocean – he even liked bluebottles and jellyfish.

Growing up at the beach, he often said that he could never live anywhere else. When the weather was bad or the surf was crap, he’d sit at home listening to Social Distortion (his favourite band) and watching surfing videos or reading surfing magazines. It truly was his life.

Rod also loved tattoos and he had some awesome ink-work. He looked a little rough around the edges, but after talking to him for a minute or two, you could tell he was a big softy. He watched L.A. Ink and Miami Ink religiously.
He loved music: punk rock, ska, hardcore, heavy metal, hard rock, Aussie rock and even blues. He loved all music with energy.

Rod also loved ice cream – he’d disappear every now and then and return with some Baskin Robbins – and his coffee addiction singlehandedly kept some of the cafes in Coogee afloat.

He was right into the skating scene, he loved BMX and extreme sports, and while he didn’t really like mainstream sport he loved the South Sydney Rabbitohs.

During the day, he worked as a garbo and absolutely loved that too.

He was always very respectful of all the older crew and never had a bad word to say about anybody. He had tons of friends at all the beaches around here and surfed them all at one time or another.

He was simply a lovely young man that everybody wanted to be around.

On the morning of March 26, over 200 people paddled out at Coogee Beach in memory of their mate Rod. The sound of bagpipes filled the air to ward of evil spirits as he was laid to rest. He will be sorely missed.

Vale Rodney John ‘Itchy Rat’ Hore.