In the end it was fitting he shuffled off this mortal coil on St Patrick's Day. Lovingly called a “leprechaun” by fellow Dee Whyan and friend/patron Justin Crawford, he was that and also touched by a darker Irish fatalism. An artist in the vein of Shane McGowan, who incredibly made it to 60, it was both unsurprising and shocking when Herro fell down the stairs and did not answer the bell in the morning.

There were many moments since the turn of the century when it seemed Herro could not be much longer for this world. His orbit touched a lot of lives here in the Northern Rivers where he was a resident for most of the last 30 years of his life - almost the entire post-pro tour Herring existence - and you'll find it hard to find a bad word said about him.

I met him almost 30 years ago, shuffling down concrete steps from an old cottage in Harbord near the Diggers. The pro career was gone, sponsors left, prize money hoovered up. He was only 24, living as a recluse with girlfriend Tamera, but he had the mien of a much older man. Shopworn, you might say, by several hard years of tour life.

I spent the next couple of weeks on the road with Herro, material for a profile piece for the defunct Queensland magazine Waverider, which was intended to relaunch Herro's pro career. The title, 'Coming In From The Cold' was a false dawn. There was to be no comeback despite surfing I saw during that time that was still superior to anything happening on tour.

(Waverider Magazine)

He moved in next door to me at Broken Head. We tried to make a movie about him, still with the grand plan that it would serve as a vehicle for a Herring resurgence. Geoff McCoy made him a beautiful quiver of short, foiled out Nuggets; radical little platforms that absorbed and showcased Herro's full-power top turns - when you could get him in the water, that is. We'd beg and plead with Shane to surf but the bottle would usually win. 

There was never any drama, or malice or aggro in it - nor a shred of self-pity - Shane would simply state that he didn't feel like surfing. Occasionally he would hold an impromptu dry land technical class on the lino-floored laundry of the old workers' cottage (long ago torn down and turned into millionaire's apartments) whilst nursing a brown sandwich. 'Arms had to be held like this', 'the wave's power accessed via this technique'. He was an incredible theorist of the art form.

There were flashes of sheer brilliance. Physically he was still built like a small water buffalo. Still young enough to carry the residuum strength and conditioning of the Terry Day training years. Power-to-weight and centre of gravity was always superior to Slater - no-one could bury it off the top like Herro and hold the speed through the turn. Maybe even to this day. His top turn carve was purer than John Florence's.

His surfing at Angourie was superb. Timeless. He ran through historical eras with deep fade bottom turns and full-power snaps. Top to bottom with each iteration building amplitude up to a crescendo in the shorebreak. It was a complete repudiation of American New School tail slide surfing. The footage is lost, god knows where.

Taken in 2021, Shane poses with a quiver shaped by Jimmy Young-Whitforde and coloured by himself (Jimmy Young-Whitforde)

On a massive day we got Herro down to Lennox Point. It was huge, no-one out. Herro paddled out on a 6'8” McCoy semi-gun, my mate on an 8'5” Brewer. Half an hour, at least, for the paddle-out. They were ants struggling against cosmic forces. Lost in the glare of the morning sun. A slight tic of a movement caught my eye, way out the back. More than out the back. On the Pinnacle - a fishing reef a half mile further out from the furthest back takeoff. On the biggest of big swells it breaks top to bottom. Only surfed once, according to legend, by Bob McTavish on a cyclone swell in the early-70's.

It took a second to digest. A figure was scratching into a massive wave on the Pinnacle, and falling out of the lip. Herro! He made the drop, it must have been a 15 foot wave. He disappeared into an exploding glacier of whitewater. Gone. No! Still standing! He came within a beesdick of running over my mate, despite them having the entire point to themselves, and then he came in cackling like a witch.

Days when he would not go near another surfer we filmed him at isolated raggedy beachbreaks. On one bowly right I saw the best top turn I've ever seen. A turn so searing and complete I can still recall it as if it has just happened.

The movie was shelved, the footage lost.

Herro found many co-conspirators in self-destruction. He had mates and he made mates. There were old Dee Why connections. Some had a better handle on it than others. There were bizarre actions and I saw many of them. Others did too. Somehow, in the midst of all that madness there was no loss of the fundamental sweetness in Shane's character. He was gentle and sensitive - too much so for this world. On quiet days he would show up with a book of poetry he had written. People tried to help him too. Lots of people. All the way up to the end. He inspired that in others. They wanted the goodness in him to shine. But the darkness followed him as sure as night follows day.

He was like the brilliant scholar in Chekhov's Black Monk, visited by an apparition and thereafter doomed to destruction.

There were small comebacks. He suffered terribly from rotten teeth and pancreatitis. A stint in rehab bought him back to life. New teeth reduced the decrepitude. Yet there was no grand arc of redemption. What was remarkable was Herro's acceptance of this fate. It was as if he could see the future and had resigned himself to it.

I ran into him at random moments over the ensuing years. He showed up at my house the night after Andy Irons died, bearing gifts of beer. I'd see him on the street sometimes in Byron. Itinerant living became his defacto mode of existence and I saw him in a duplex at Lennox, a caravan park at Chinderah, heard he was in digs at Tweed, at a caravan park in Broadwater, living with Derek Hynd after he lost everything in the flood of '22.

(Jimmy Young-Whitforde)

People never stopped believing in him. This humble, shuffling figure still carried with him an aura. I used to wonder what might have been had he not been gobbled up in the maw of pro surfing. Could he have found happiness living a simple life somewhere as a complete unknown?

In the end there are just those people touched by genius, by tragedy - or sometimes both, as in the rare case of Shane Herring. I think that is why his story still resonates so strongly, particularly for those who were lucky enough to know him. He never blamed anyone for his downfall. He loved his family and credited them with everything good in his life. For the rest, he took complete responsibility. That's a strength of character you encounter only rarely in life.

His legacy will live on, as both a cautionary tale and the pinnacle of an art form.

Rest in peace, Herro.

// STEVE SHEARER