My Life Of A Surfer
For those that are not from a surfing background or are new to the lifestyle, let me enlighten you first by saying this story is from the perspective of a surfer of over 55 years and is only from extremely old memories.
I was ten years old and had watched some of the lifesavers standing on these incredibly long pointed boards coming from out the back they looked more alien than anything human. I soon learned that these were originally paddleboards and built for rescues. Most surfing in the early period was incorporated into a surf club atmosphere, it wasn’t until the early sixties the split between the regimented surf clubs and the free and easy surfboard riders came about and it was mainly because the surfers didn’t like being told they couldn’t go out until they finished their patrols.
I bought this up with my uncle who was a lifesaver at Manly Beach, and he told me that these were old style and he had a later model that was made from solid balsa wood, he then asked if I would like to try it? Well needless to say I warily helped him carry this lump of wood across the road to the beach. It was very heavy but worth the effort as he launched me onto my first wave, well more white water than wave but the thrill was all that mattered and I was hooked. From that day in 1962, I became a surfer.
I went to the beach as often as I could and my uncle eventually gave me this board as he had upgraded to the new foam and fiberglass model. If I remember I had to mow his lawn for a year. My life from that point revolved around the beach and surfing, in 1964 the world surfing titles were held at Manly Beach NSW, and I can remember vividly watching Midget Farrelly win the first world surfing title and then Phyllis O’Donnell win the women’s title. Wow two Australians as surfing world titleholders, amazing and only made me more excited to follow my surfing dream, everything I did became an avenue to enable as many surfing hours as possible.
I went to the beach as often as possible and soon my friends came and joined me, so it became a great group of grommets as we were called that spurred each other on to do more radical maneuvers than the other guy, and so nothing changes as it still goes on today. There were no surf schools in those days so the only way to learn was by trial and many errors, or to sit and watch the older guys and study how they did a certain maneuver then grab your board and practice, practice, practice.
As we got a bit older we were invited to go away for surf trips on weekends. It soon became the normal weekend to jump in the car on Friday night and head either up or down the coast to find secret or secluded surf beaches surf all weekend and drive home exhausted Sunday night. As you can imagine it soon became Monday night if the surf was good. This led to a bit of truancy and schooling took a back seat to the endless search for surf.
I was lucky enough to get a part-time job after school sweeping out the shaping bays at Bennett Surfboards. Thanks again, Barry. There was no apprenticeship for surfboard manufacturing and my parents put their foot down and said I had to get a trade, as most of us did in those days. I have to say of all the guys that did get a trade there was only two that made it their careers. I finished and never went back, I concentrated on learning how to shape surfboards and as it was piece work, in other words, you only got paid per board and in winter it was pretty tough going so I managed surf shops and store a board shops. Store a Board?? When surfboards were over 9′ in length and weighed 30 lb it was difficult to get them to the beach so the shops would let you store your board for $2 per week?
As more and more guys took up surfing the contest scene grew to have board riders clubs all over Australia with inter-club competitions and then State and Australian titles. This ended up being too regimented for me so I really didn’t compete much at all, just kept traveling finding more and more secluded breaks, it wasn’t that a lot of us didn’t like the contest scene, it was always a great time meeting like-minded people and the contests actually pushed you to get better.
As the surfing fraternity grew they needed more specialised equipment and along came the surf companies. From memory, I think it was Platts board shorts that came first with Mrs Platt making board shorts for her son and then all the guys asking for a pair. Very soon after we had wetsuits, tee shirts, all sorts of surf wax and the roof rack companies became very wealthy.
As surfing grew so did the adverse reaction to surfy bums as we were called. It always got to me a bit as I worked damn hard to afford my weekends away it was just we did odd hours shaping boards at night to surf during the day and as our hair grew and went blond so the abuse would follow. Yes there were some that went on the dole and never went to work but as with all negative publicity we all got tarred with the same brush. I was even made to wear a hair net to get my drivers license???? Yet my girlfriend at the time had hair twice as long and didn’t have to wear one?
It was around this time that we were old enough to have girlfriends and then it became a weekday friendship as weekends were for surf trips. You could say we were a bit male chauvinistic at the time, and our girlfriend’s parents were not impressed when we started asking if they could come away for the weekend. As a father now I can relate, but at the time it was just the done thing and most of us are still married to those same girlfriends, but as with all things in life there had to be compromises and as the children came so the trips became more difficult.
This was offset by renting or if you were lucky enough, buying a house as close to the beach as possible. If you have a look at the beachfront properties that are selling for millions today, a lot of them are owned by old surfers that bought land or a house on the beach in out of the way places that were considered holiday rental areas. Byron Bay, Lennox Head, Crescent Heads in Northern NSW, or for that matter anyplace with Heads in it name was the place to buy. It was still important to understand that the career or job you chose had to supply enough income for a family and a decent trip away at least once a month or you just surfed your local break most of the time. A lot of surfers were tradesmen with their own business to allow them time to go off whenever the surf was good.
