They say that the longest journey begins with one small step. Although at the time it seemed more like a big step, travelling along the south coast of England from Brighton to Cornwall. I was with my brother and two friends in a Mini Minor on our way to Newquay in the summer of 1966. I had no idea it was only the beginning of an adventure that would take me half way around the world.

Newquay opened up before us, revealing itself to be a peaceful seaside haven removed from the cares of the world. My God! They had sand on their beaches and there was an air of grandeur to be felt, emanating from the shoreline’s dark rugged cliffs, towering up to hold the lie of the town perched scenically along the precipice edge.
I fell in love with the place instantly. Cornwall’s countryside oozed with charm, lending itself easily to the warm summer days and surfing lifestyle that had sprung up in the town. This, after all, was what we were here for.

Unlike today with surf shops all over Newquay there was only two of them when
we first rolled into town. Bilbo had a surf shop opposite the Sailor's Arms; that notorious watering hole for wetting the whistle and rowdy behaviour. The other surf shop was Maui, next to the Blue Lagoon and was run by an Aussie called Mick Jackman. John Conway (now deceased) the founder of Wavelength surf mag worked there as well.
The thing that I liked about Maui was that you could give them your measurements and a local lady was enterprising enough to knock you up a pair of custom made board shorts in whatever design you chose. You just don’t get that sort of service today. It reeks of community spirit and I just love that.

We persevered with the heavy 10ft hire boards lugging them through the town and up to Fistral Beach or down to Western Beach which became our local hang. My Brother Tom and a friend Steve Thatcher were the first among us to buy their own boards at a cost of 20 pound each. Steve’s board was a custom job but my brother’s board was a heavy 10 ft pop out, weighing as much as a pocket battleship. They bought them from Bilbo’s when they had the old factory up behind the railway station, where we were to meet Chris Jones and Roger (Grem) Mansfield who were working there at the time; both of them being star performers on the long boards in the 1960s. Chris Jones is still shaping surf boards in Cornwall and Grem was teaching people to surf the last that I heard of him.

The West Pier on Brighton Beach front was our local surf break, and it could produce some surprisingly well-shaped waves from time to time. West Beach, a few miles further along the coast at Littlehampton was another spot we frequented, as there was always a good chance that it would have a wave when other places were flat. We weren’t the first people from Brighton to become interested in surfing. The Mahoney brothers Sean and Jerry along with some of their friends had been surfing in Brighton for about 2 years before us and were no strangers to the beaches of Cornwall.

The photo below shows Sean Mahoney c1965 at Brighton's Palace Pier with his Bickers longboard - a surfboard that's now in The Surfing Museum's collection.

Completely hooked on surfing by now, we sojourned back and forth to Cornwall over the next few years, with many friends from Brighton joining us, making the long and often comical trip through winding country roads that would eventually lead us into Newquay. The travelling times have been greatly reduced these days with the advent of a ring road system bypassing some of the towns we used to pass through. I’m also sure that some of those towns are glad they no longer have to play host to our raucous cries as we sped headlong down their streets on our passage towards Newquay.

I’ve included a list of some of the people from Brighton - Eddie (Shoulders) Clark, Vince Ward, Steve Thatcher, Lumpy, Tom Hanley, Tony Bartle, Trevor Hart, Gren (Wingnut) Miller, Doh the Bottler, Russ and Greg Davis, Big Harry, Gillman, Leon (Gunga-Din) Smith and Phil Sutton.

In the three summers that I spent in Newquay from 1966 to 1968, I had a short and chequered work history. Preferring to spend as much of my time in the surf as possible. Most seasonal people looking for employment worked in the hotel industry either as waiters or maids or labouring in the kitchens. This was where I found myself in the Hotel Beresford, employed as a dishwasher or kitchen porter if you’re trying to impress someone.

Working there was like being in an episode of Fawlty Towers. The hotel guests used the front door enjoying the services their money had paid for. Meanwhile at the rear of the hotel it was a different story. There was an endless stream of non-paying friends coming in the back door for a free breakfast and shower, and somewhere to sleep for the night. Lumpy, Wingnut, and Shoulders dossed down in my room until the night watchman surprised us all by conducting a 'search and evacuate' raid on the staff quarters in the wee-small hours of the morning. He shone his torch through the window and lit up four pairs of startled eyes looking back at him instead of one pair; and as Basil Fawlty would say, “That’s it the games up!” Stripped of my apron and scourers, I was shown the door by Roy Brewer, the owner, “Get out ya’ bugger and never come back.” And with those parting words my career as a dishwasher came to an end.

Sometimes we’d stay on the campsites around Newquay, usually with all of us trying to crowd into one tent. I don’t remember which of us owned the tent; just that it seemed to be there when we needed it. I can remember parties being held on the campsites with large tents being erected and barrels of beer with music blaring out into the evening, attracting crowds of people from all over to come in and dance the night away.
Newquay had its share of visiting surfers from overseas travelling through the town so there was always a colourful procession of different characters.

The Aussies were always a strong presence with the likes of Peter Russell and Johnny Mcilroy; both of them riding the Cribber in 1966 (a widow maker of a wave that rises off Towan Headland when the conditions are right). It was running at about 20 ft when they rode it.

Keith Paull (now deceased) put in an appearance in 1968 after winning the Australian Championships, knocking Nat Young off his perch. So there was always plenty of inspiration to be found watching these guys surf and listening to their stories of places that you’d probably only ever see in surf mags. But all that was about to change.

In September of 1968 I emigrated to Australia with my whole family to live in Manly. Not long after settling in, we were to be joined by a steady trickle of friends from Brighton. We were also joined by a New Zealand surfer called Kevin Dyer whom we met in Newquay, and also a surfer from Truro in Cornwall called Mike Butt, whose nickname was “gas man” because every time he got excited about something he would say “it was gas, man”. But we called him Nodge. Why did we call him Nodge? I don’t really know, we just did!

One of the first locals we made friends with in Manly was a guy called Stuart Entwistle (now deceased) or Twizzle as he was known by. He was a rather humorous and speedy individual who seemed to have an endless supply of energy whenever he was in the water, as he caught twice as many waves as anybody else. He became very interested in Newquay after listening to our tales of surfing in Cornwall. So in the mid seventies he set off for England and made quite an impression in the Newquay surf with his 360s and radical cutbacks. Later on he was to become the world long-board champion in 1987.

Throughout the seventies we were to surf on many of the beaches between Sydney and Noosa heads in Queensland, stopping off at places like, Seal Rocks, Crescent Heads, Angourie, Lennox, Broken Head, Byron Bay and Snapper Rocks to name but a few.
Our first trip away was to a place called Green Island down the coast from Sydney. A magnificent stretch of beach with sweeping sand dunes that disappeared into the distance. We had to paddle out over a spot called the Shark Pit to reach the line-up, where a beautiful left hander was rolling calmly around the headland as it peeled off towards the shoreline. There was no one else in the water, it was just us. It was one of those magical moments when you’re with your friends and you have the whole place to yourselves.

We took turns catching waves and yahooing at each other as we slid across the glassy walls. That night we lay out on the sand dunes beneath a clear sky with a canopy of stars scattered like jewels across the darkened heavens. We gazed up at the spectacle in the sky, just feeling buzzed out by it all; until tiredness overcame us and we fell contented into sleep.

Looking back now, it was wonderful to have been a part of that surfing era in Australia and to have seen and surfed at a lot of those classic places before the developers moved in.

Noosa Heads was and still is a longboarder’s paradise. Blessed with a variety of breaks, running from the furthermost headland at Granite’s, then sweeps down into a point break at Tee Tree Bay, then across to the headland at Boiling Pot, then turns down through National Park and Johnsons, finishing at First Point on Main Beach.

Sounds idyllic doesn’t it. That’s exactly what I thought when I first laid eyes on the place. Noosa in the seventies was like a country town nestled quietly by the sea. Hastings Street (the main street) had its restaurants but it was nothing like it is today with all the building that’s been going on. I slept in my station wagon on the caravan site at the bottom of Hastings Street, where you could gaze out towards the headland at Boiling Pot, which at the time was lining up with 4ft walls, rolling continuously, with only the odd lull to disturb their mechanical procession down towards Johnsons.

There wasn’t a breath of wind to be felt and it was as hot as hell; it was like walking around inside an oven. The swell had just begun to rise and so had the crowds. I lay my board in the water and paddled out towards the other surfers, already scattered like dots across the break, and counted myself lucky at having arrived here at just the right time. I bopped untiI I dropped, surfing myself silly on the long rolling walls, taking time out between waves just to sit on my board and watch the locals tearing the place apart. It was all very laid back and tranquil, just another perfect summer’s day under the scorching sun at Noosa Heads in Queensland.

The Beach Boys have a lot to answer for in the Sixties, encouraging impressionable youth to grab their boards and go surfing. It set me and some of my friends on a course that still runs through our lives to this day and hopefully into the future. Where we’ll be shaking an arthritic leg as the geriatric johnnies shuffle down to the water’s edge with boards in hand for another go at the shorebreak.

Terry Hanley, September 2004

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