England

History The UK’s first surfer was quite possibly a lad called Nigel Oxendew, who learnt the sublime art in Waikiki in 1919 under the tutelage of legend Duke Kahanamoku. His Royal Highness Edward Prince of Wales was hot on his heels. In 1920 he also spent three days in Hawaii, canoeing and surfing madly, initially in tandem, later alone. Joseph Brennan recounts in his biography The Duke: ‘For several hours the Duke worked patiently, explaining and demonstrating. By later that afternoon the prince had become quite adept, falling only occasionally. He had quickly become a devotee and just could not get enough’. The day he left, April 14th 1920, a message was sent from the royal yacht Renown to the British consul. It read: ‘His Royal Highness has enjoyed his visit to Honolulu immensely. He was especially delighted with the surfing. He was frightfully keen about it’. After Nigel Oxendew returned he told some friends about his experience and the ‘Island Surf Club’ was formed on Jersey in 1923. Oxendew, Martin and Gordon rode the shorebreak at Five-Mile Road that year on short wooden bodyboards. The first recorded stand-up ride in the British Isles was by Archie Mayne sometime in the mid 20’s, but after these first fledgling efforts there appears to have been a dormant period for nearly four decades. Surfing became popular in Cornwall when two cultural elements fused. Firstly following the catastrophic number of drownings on West Country beaches in the 50’s, the Surf Life Saving Association was established. In 1959, Newquay’s Restormel council was the first to take on full-time lifeguards with their hollow surf skis and by 1960 the first wooden paddle boards had become widespread in lifesavers’ huts up and down the coast. Enter the Aussies. In 1961 Bob Head, Ian Tiley, John Campbell, and Warren Mitchell were four lifeguards from Sydney’s Avalon Surf Club, in Britain for the holiday season. One chilly April morning not long after arriving, they paddled out at Great Western beach on the first fibreglass and foam boards and gave a few enthralled onlookers a pioneering surfing display of style, power and grace. The SLSA kept growing while the Aussie lifeguards kept carving when in came Gidget, surf music and a greater awareness of the growing Californian ‘surf culture.’ As Doug Wilson says in his excellent book on the history of British surfing, You Should Have Been Here Yesterday: ‘It was around this time that a clean-cut, surf-riding band, the Beach Boys were taking surf to the suburbs. Suddenly every city kid without a wave to his name tuned into a youth cult that stormed out of California and rushed around the world. A new era had arrived, flower power was around the corner, and being a surfer meant plugging into a happening of indescribable fun.’ As soon as people realised that it was possible to surf in Cornwall, surfing was here for good. By 1965, young entrepreneurs had set about the task of satisfying demand for wetsuits, surfboards and equipment. Bilbo surfboards in Newquay and later Tiki in North Devon, became the first manufacturers in the country and played a crucial role in supplying equipment to trailblazers right across Europe. From the sixties through to the nineties surfer numbers, performance levels and the size of the industry rose steadily. Surfers like Rod Sumpter, Tigger Newling, Ted Deerhurst, Nigel Semmens, Steve Daniels, Nigel Veitch, Spencer Hargreaves and Russell Winter represented England at a European level and were at the forefront of European surfing. Russell became the first, and is still, the only born and bred surfer from Europe to qualify for the elite WCT world tour.

Today Surfing is hugely, some would say too, popular in England with an estimated 250,000 regulars and many more having tried it on their regular seaside holidays. The English have taken surfing to heart and the subculture of the last millennium has now been pushed firmly into the mainstream consciousness. Seeing surfboards on the roof of a car is commonplace and cheap wetsuits have liberated the masses from merely taking a quick dip in the cool Atlantic. Surf shops have popped up in most coastal towns and Newquay boasts some of the most technically advanced surfboard factories in Europe, although prices are comparatively high. Surf schools have mushroomed with the BSA approving 52, plus dozens more smaller operators who are introducing groups to the line-up. Surf photographers and film makers are documenting the sport in the British Isles like never before. England supports four domestic surfing magazines, The Surfers Path, Wavelength, Carve and Pit Pilot, plus a number of crossover titles. The idea of an English surf film seemed impossible a few years ago; now with a brace of movies (Land of Saints, Coast, The Elusive) featuring footage of classic sessions all around the country, it’s rare for a good day of waves at any of the name spots not to be thoroughly documented. A few riders do make a living purely from surfing: Alan Stokes, Sam Lamiroy and British women’s champ Robyn Davies are all salaried but don’t make anywhere near the money of their French counterparts. The dearth of international contests in England during the 1990’s ended in 2000 when the Rip Curl Pro in Newquay established itself as the start of the European leg of the World Qualifying Series tour. Now the annual event in August draws many of the worlds top pros and a weeklong beach festival accompanies the action in the water. The top flight women’s WCT tour made it’s debut on English shores in 2005 for the Roxy Pro in Perranporth, a bit of a comedown from the prior stops of Cloudbreak and Teahupoo.