Richard delivering a tasty looking quiver of Creamed Honeys. Old photos courtesy of Richard Harvey.
Kevin Cross with a new batch of boards, mid 70s. Richard has written a book about his experiences called Spirit of Adventure, available from his website. Heres an extract from a chapter called 'winter shaper' about his time at Creamed Honey-
'Returning to England after spending Christmas in Morocco, it was a relief to be back in an English-speaking country. Kevin Cross and a travelling mate, Bruce Palmer, had offered me some surfboard shaping work. I needed money for the next adventure, so I took the job.
After getting used to the winter water temperatures in Cornwall I headed up to Braunton, just inland from a great surf spot, Croyde. My main assignment was to shape enough boards through winter to supply the local surf shops for summer, which was still about four months away. Working for a label called Creamed Honey, I settled into the factory. It was just on the outskirts, about 300 yards from where I was staying in the centre of town.
The factory was a mixture of old stone, possibly the remains of an old bakery, with a few more additions of corrugated iron forming a shed where the sanding and wet rubbing was done. My shaping bay was set way back in the bowels of the factory, only large enough to fit a set of shaping stands and not much more. I was shaping about 20 boards a week, or four a day, and with the surfboard blanks being quite unrefined in their shape, it meant that I had to cut off quite a lot of foam with the electric planer before being able to get down to shaping in the finer detail.
My daily plan was to do all the rough shaping in the morning, head home for some lunch, then back to the factory and have an easier afternoon, fine-tuning. It was still winter, the weather outside was freezing with occasional sleet and snow, so I didn’t mind spending my time in the shaping bay. Cutting four blanks down to size each day would leave quite a large amount of white foam dust around the walls of the small shaping bay. Foam shaped off the blanks by the electric planer would keep the bay quite warm and insulated from the cold outside. A pair of boardshorts and a singlet was all that I needed to work in. Most days I would run the few hundred yards back home for lunch as there was not enough time to get cold.
One particular day the air compressor wasn’t working. I used it to blow the white foam dust off me before heading home. Coming out of the factory I noticed it was snowing, not very heavily, just a few flakes floating down then melting when they hit the ground. I headed off at a fast jog back through the centre of town past its few shops.The next day was the weekend, so I had a break from shaping and decided to get some supplies from the local grocery store. On walking in several people stopped and looked sideways at me, pointing and whispering to themselves. After making some discreet enquiries as to what was going on, the friendly shopkeeper explained how the word had spread about the crazy Aussie surfer who was running around town in shorts and singlet all covered in snow.
From that day on I didn't bother to use the compressor to blow the foam dust off me, it kept them whispering. It wasn't until the weather warmed towards summer that the townsfolk realised I wasn't so crazy.
It was early June and we had just experienced two weeks of clear blue skies, I mentioned to one of the local surfers that it was going to be great when summer comes. With a wry smile he said "That was summer". I left England within the next two weeks headed for warmer climates much to the pleading of Kevin Cross to stay. He had sold our whole summer production of boards to a big surf shop and was left with no boards for himself.'
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Richard near the factory.
'Returning to England after spending Christmas in Morocco, it was a relief to be back in an English-speaking country. Kevin Cross and a travelling mate, Bruce Palmer, had offered me some surfboard shaping work. I needed money for the next adventure, so I took the job.
After getting used to the winter water temperatures in Cornwall I headed up to Braunton, just inland from a great surf spot, Croyde. My main assignment was to shape enough boards through winter to supply the local surf shops for summer, which was still about four months away. Working for a label called Creamed Honey, I settled into the factory. It was just on the outskirts, about 300 yards from where I was staying in the centre of town.
The factory was a mixture of old stone, possibly the remains of an old bakery, with a few more additions of corrugated iron forming a shed where the sanding and wet rubbing was done. My shaping bay was set way back in the bowels of the factory, only large enough to fit a set of shaping stands and not much more. I was shaping about 20 boards a week, or four a day, and with the surfboard blanks being quite unrefined in their shape, it meant that I had to cut off quite a lot of foam with the electric planer before being able to get down to shaping in the finer detail.
My daily plan was to do all the rough shaping in the morning, head home for some lunch, then back to the factory and have an easier afternoon, fine-tuning. It was still winter, the weather outside was freezing with occasional sleet and snow, so I didn’t mind spending my time in the shaping bay. Cutting four blanks down to size each day would leave quite a large amount of white foam dust around the walls of the small shaping bay. Foam shaped off the blanks by the electric planer would keep the bay quite warm and insulated from the cold outside. A pair of boardshorts and a singlet was all that I needed to work in. Most days I would run the few hundred yards back home for lunch as there was not enough time to get cold.
One particular day the air compressor wasn’t working. I used it to blow the white foam dust off me before heading home. Coming out of the factory I noticed it was snowing, not very heavily, just a few flakes floating down then melting when they hit the ground. I headed off at a fast jog back through the centre of town past its few shops.The next day was the weekend, so I had a break from shaping and decided to get some supplies from the local grocery store. On walking in several people stopped and looked sideways at me, pointing and whispering to themselves. After making some discreet enquiries as to what was going on, the friendly shopkeeper explained how the word had spread about the crazy Aussie surfer who was running around town in shorts and singlet all covered in snow.
From that day on I didn't bother to use the compressor to blow the foam dust off me, it kept them whispering. It wasn't until the weather warmed towards summer that the townsfolk realised I wasn't so crazy.
It was early June and we had just experienced two weeks of clear blue skies, I mentioned to one of the local surfers that it was going to be great when summer comes. With a wry smile he said "That was summer". I left England within the next two weeks headed for warmer climates much to the pleading of Kevin Cross to stay. He had sold our whole summer production of boards to a big surf shop and was left with no boards for himself.'
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Richard near the factory.
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