A housefull

Devon collector Roger Robinson invited me to come round to his house and check his boards out. As you can see by the photos I was well impressed with a collection which spanned the cream of UK boards from the 60s and the 80s , with a few from the 70s.The boards were either very polished or waxed up and still salty wet - its a working collection which is often changing, and often surfed- as it should be. I've never seen so many Bickers or Bilbo longboards before so that was quite an experience - they had a real presence about them - a sort of 'we are the survivors of the 60s, we are surfing history' -the sort of gathering which couldn't be equalled for love nor money.
Here's a glimpse into the collection, I'll show some in more detail over the next few weeks.




Bilbo 5'4

Bickers straight edge fin with nice tailblock

early Bilbo with tailblock

Very early Bilbo with D fin

A pair of Bickers. The far one is a lovely five stringer gun. Quality mid 60s boards.

This Bickers fin has spots surfed written on, from '65 to '68

Bickers cigar

Bilbo by Chris Jones - I like the artwork.

Three Bilbo longboards - all by Chris Jones

1973 Freedom fish

Carwyn Williams personal 2 1/2 fin, early 80s

Vitamin Sea by Chris Jones with mad channels.

Fulmar quad by Graeme Bunt

'La La' jet fin quad

A nice bolt

This is one to watch on UK ebay - a late 70s Lightning Bolt singlefin in good original condition with the magic Gerry Lopez signature. Whether Gerry himself shaped it isn't so clear cut - a few ghost shapers made these Lopez models. But anyway its a great board and sought after - check the price so far ! The bolt logo has 'a pure source !' written by it, and note the board has no leash plug .Classic but not very protective boardbag. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120782108361&category=22710&_trksid=p5197.c0.m619

Welsh team in France '79

Tim was looking for his wife's car's service history the other day and found this...which took him back to the time when he was in the Welsh team getting ready to compete in a European champs which didn't happen -

''20 page program for Eurosurf '79, the contest never happened as untypically France went flat for 5 days, the day after it was cancelled it was pumping! I'd spent the 3 months in France surfing every day with Paul Russell and Miki Dora in preparation!

Here's the cover and a review of the '77 contest held in Wales (I've got the T-shirt from that somewhere), as you can see no expense was spared in producing the program! Also have my '79 Welsh Team jacket, shirt and board shorts somewhere too. Seems appropriate with Eurosurf 2011 starting next week in Ireland.''

A page for our French readers , with a pic of Ted Deerhurst.

The '79 Welsh Team, minus Linda Sharp (back row; Paul Ryder , Rawling Morgan, Mike Cunnigham, Chris Payne. middle row; Colin Bright, Dai Halpin, me, Pete Jones, Mark Fleming, kneeling; Arwyn Davies, Chris French)... I think I've got that right it was a life time ago. Paul made Spyder Surfboards here in Pembrokeshire


When that team picture was taken I was riding a 5'10" Safari twin fin I'd bought new at the Safari factory in Durban in '78, I really wanted a Larry Bertleman twin (in blue and red swirl!) that was in Shaun Tompson's dad's surf shop but he wouldn't drop on the price. I left a 6' Spyder single fin pin tail in its place. When I bought the twin fin back to the UK I was every shapers friend as they frantically took templates off it. I knew it was a mistake when I sold it year's ago, must be in a garage somewhere, I'd give serious money to get it back and up on the studio wall. I think all the rest of the '79 team were still riding single fins. I'll see if I can dig out a pic of the Safari.''

Thanks to Tim for sharing his memories - if anyone's got a 5'10 Safari twinnie in the garage send some photos in - would be good to reunite Tim and his old board.

A Welshman's singlefin

A Tris in Portugal

Its interesting to get emails about UK boards which have been unearthed in foreign countries. Goncalo from Portugal recently found this In Natural Flow singlefin and wanted to know more about it. Since I used to own one myself, I knew that it was Tris Cokes' label in the early 70s, which soon after became the classic Tris surfboards . It was probably shaped by Tris himself near Porthtowan in Cornwall. I love the airbrush on this board of the bird of prey ; Goncalo says the design is similar to the cover of the early 70s Australian surf movie 'In Natural Flow' ,so quite likely Tris got some inspiration from there.
It sounds like the board has been in Portugal for a long time as a local guy claims to have a photo of the board when it was new. Yet to be seen. I guess a surfer from the UK probably travelled down there on a surf trip and swapped/ lost / sold the board in the early 70s and its stayed there ever since. By the looks of it its been surfed a lot !

1973 from Surf Insight

Hendy and Harber surfboards

Hendy and Harber are one of those rare and short lived Cornish labels, who from '69 -'71 turned out shortboards with good quality finish. I met Rob Hendy at the vintage surf meet and have been in contact since then , and he plans to send me some photos and history from his H&H years. Rob is now a successful performing magician and member of the magic circle, but remembers his shaping days with pride.

So far all I have pieced together about H&H is -

They made around 200 boards, no longboards , lengths around 6 ft - 8 ft , most with Bilbo fin systems. I have only ever seen four survivors. They were sold at a surf shop in Hayle, and Maui shop and John Conway's in Newquay. The main shapers were Rob and Buttercup (Tony Holt) .Buttercup was an Aussie lifeguard working fistral beach, got his nickname because he was in the Australian olympic team doing butterfly. He spent summers in Cornwall and winters in France working at Barland surfboards , and brought new board ideas between the two. Gary Harber did the financial side , and provided the premesis above his Dad's shop in Roche, nr St Austell. The boards were well made, and had pretty solid glass jobs so most boards should have survived the years pretty well - but they still don't seem to turn up. The two boards below are from the Gul collection and have been fully restored, and the 'buttercup's mood' board was emailed to me through the blog , not such good condition and with a replacement fin.

This green 7'2 H&H is the one I bought from Tom near London. It was his dad's board and is having a bit of restoration done at the moment.

Watergate bay skate bowl

Here's a rare piece of cine film recently unearthed by Neil Watson. It was shot by him in 1977 at Watergate bay , and includes a young Nigel Semmens (in the white gloves) , Lenny Ingram, Steve Daniel and many others. Watergate bay was a pretty short lived bowl so its great to see how it used to look. Thanks to Neil for sending in this unseen footage, and to Ross Imms for reminding me to get it on here.




Watergate bowl during the 1977 Watergate surf open , with Rod Sumpter filming. Photos by Alex Williams.

Infinity singlefin by Rod Sumpter

Thanks to Jason for sending in pics of this new addition to his collection, a classic early 70s roundtail from the south coast with a great piece of logo art -
''Hi Al, a few pics of the latest board in the collection, it's on Bob Groves 'Infinity Surfboard' label but was shaped by Rod Sumpter. From what I can gather Bob Groves and Rod Sumpter had an agreement that if Bob shaped him a board for the 1968 World Championships in Puerto Rico ,that in return Rod would shape some signature models. Now there has been some doubt wether this actually happened, and that maybe Rod just put his name to the design of the boards, but this one does appear to be the real thing, it has Sumpters 'RS' initials written beside the stringer, these initials are the same as on one of my Bilbo longboards that has featured previously on you blog. The board's logo has Huey blowing in some swell with a figure locked in the barrel, which is quite different to the Infinity Surfboards logo's I have seen before ,and is shaped from 'Groves Foam!'

I got this board from a great guy called Nigel in the Southampton area, who for health reasons has had to stop surfing, he got from it new from a surf shop on the Mumbles on South Wales coast in 1974, So it's only had one careful-ish owner. Nigel used to surf alot along that coast in the 1970's and speaks very highly of the quality of surf there. The board had some great memories for Nigel and very much his prized surfing possession from his surfing youth, so it took a big fist full of dollar's to drag it away from it. But don't worry Nigel your board has come to a good home and is a welcome addition to my collection and my 3rd Rod Sumpter shaped board. ''

And there was another Rod Sumpter logo'd single fin on ebay last week , probably again Bob Groves had something to do with it and may have shaped it himself as a 'Sumpter' model. Sold for top dollar again. Cheers for the photos and info Jay.

Groves DIY surfboard kit 1973 - price £18.54

new show

Sunbather and singlefin , 90 x 90 cm

Just finished this last painting for my new exhibition, starting this weekend at Cornwall Contemporary gallery in Penzance and runs till 10 oct. More details on my painting blog http://www.acornishstudio.blogspot.com/ .
There's always a couple of singlefins dwelling in my studio and I think their prescence influenced this one, plus I vaguely had in my head this 1977 photo by Leroy Grannis below , of viewing past the board in the foreground. The singlefin in the painting started as a swallow tail , then became a pintail and ended up as a diamond tail.

memories of summer

By Rennie Ellis, late 60s. This is the same crew that stars in the blog title photo above.

Summer at the Splash, Jersey 70s.

and lastly if this was your memory of summer you had a good one

hip wiggler

Hip Wiggler Invitational 2011 from Insight Europe on Vimeo.

Last saturday's Hip Wiggler invitational , a traditional longboarding contest - no leashes - with 16 invited competitors at Gwithian. Organised by James Parry . Nick aka Frootful, the designer of our Surf Meet poster was one of the invited loggers.

heads up inland surfers

Here's an exhibition for all those inland surfers out there. The Museum of British Surfing and Coventry Transport Museum come together to celebrate the wide range of surf wagons British surfers have used over the years . Plus of course old boards and memorabilia. See here
I'd love to see it but I'm stuck here on the coast.

These two pics aren't part of the exhibition but are good examples of what surfers cars went through to get that all important mal on board. Above MGB with longboard roof, and below young Australian Clayton Dillon, 1966.

Bickers 9'9 longboard

When I opened this email from Christopher I had a quick heart flutter when I saw the board; was it going to be one of those ''I've got an old board in the shed please take it away '' emails which are sadly all too rare in my life. The answer is basically the opposite - he has owned the board since the late 70s and was told that it was collectable so wanted an insurance valuation.

My - albeit lazy - hunt for a Bickers continues . Still its very nice to see this board, what a mid 60s beauty in great condition. Its 9 ft 9, with thick stringer , nice artwork, wooden tailblock and beautiful finish all to be expected from cabinet maker turned surfboard maker Fred Bickers and French polisher Brian Schofield , with Mick Jackman, Dave Friar and young apprentice John Conway also part of the team.

Fred Bickers

Dave Friar with the first Bickers, near the island in Newquay, mid 60s. Dave rode it while he worked for Fred.

John Conway with a couple of new boards out of the workshop . Nose rider and conventional longboard.