Tim finds his first board

Here's a heart warming tale of a surfer finding his first board again 40 years after he sold it, and getting it restored and giving it a life again. The board being a Tigger Newling egg and the surfer being Tim Harvatt. Lots of surfers out there are looking for their first board, if you've got a nice story about finding it let me know, along with funny old photos if possible...

''I started surfing in the summer of 1969 on a 6'10" Bilbo pop-out that my sister bought from Dave Friar's shop in the Mumbles. This quickly became my property! (subsequently destroyed in a garage fire, but that's another story). However in 1971 (aged 15) I bough my first board, a little 5'9" made by a top local surfer (bear in mind there was only about a dozen surfers in Pembrokeshire then), called Bob Rogers, now in his 60s and still one of the smoothest surfers you will ever see, he now spends most of the year in his house in Mimizan! I kept the board for a year or so before selling it to a local family and buying a 5'10" Tiki from 'Surf Scene' in Swansea. Last Saturday I spotted that their family business was closing down (garden centre - finally beaten by the mega-stores!), and out of impulse went in and was greeted by the son who the board had been bought for... "Hi, do you remember that old surfboard your dad bought you back in 1972/3? Don't suppose you've still got it? It was my first board, I'd love it for my studio wall" "You mean the little orange one?" "Yes that was it" "It's in the shed, do you want it?" So half an hour later I drove home with this, my (very sad looking) first board...

Quickly started cleaning the dirt and wax off it and, as I thought, revealed

this signature:
''Tigger Newling - Magic Egg - Kit''

Bob had bought a couple of pre-shaped blanks from Tigger in Cornwall and had then glassed and finished them off himself back in Pembrokeshire. In fact I had hand drawn some logos for Bob on rice paper (I was doing o-level art at school !) but no sign of those (yet).

Tim doing ding repairs on the egg cir. 1971 (note, no leash in those days!). Stars and stripes T shirt courtesy of school trip to London!

 So here's my first board after a quick clean, shaped by Tigger and glassed by Bob:
The fun thing is other than the razor sharp rails (and lack of rocker), the plan shape is pretty current. Hopefully Grant at http://unsunghero.eu/ will be able to tidy it up for me and make it watertight.....and then I think it will be time to take it surfing again ! Mabye if Grant can remove the crease repair on the deck then that will reveal a Bob Rogers logo ?
Its never going to be perfect but worth more to me than any new board !
Watch this space !''

Thanks to Tim for his words and photos.