some early photos

Three interesting photos of beginnings from the late 60s to early 70s. Above is Graham as a young lad with his first boards, made in his home town of Newquay.

'It was taken by my Dad in c.1968 .Both boards are Bilbo, the pop-out cost £26 new, and the 8'4" was shaped by Chris Jones. I had it stolen off my VW in Newquay in early 1970, never to be seen again! I sometimes wonder what happened to my board. I went all over the place looking for it. I'd painted a black butterfly on the deck so it really stood out. The butterfly image came from the pages of "Surfer" mag.'





An early Alex Williams shot, a classic image of Bantham and the first shot by him to be used in a surf mag.

'It was taken in 1971-72. Steve Daniel at Bantham. I was taking a lot of wildlife photos as a lad. I had just moved from a Ilford instamatic to a Pentaflex camera which had the capability of changing lenses. So I bought my first short telephoto lens a 400mm Sologor lens. I was desperate to try it out. So after a surf I took my first roll of film with it, this was the best shot, which was later used in Surf magazine( Bez Newton's) in '73' I did not know who the surfer was? I only scanned the badly exposed slides a year or so ago and thought it looked like Steve Daniel.'
Steve recently replied to Alex about the photo - Looks like me on the 5'10 Surfline Hawaii I brought back from Hawaii with my parents when I was 16 (1971). Early days !

No prizes for guessing the identity of this future european champion. Taken in Newquay in 1971, proudly holding his first surfboard, a cosmic John Conway, and kitted out in towelling top with competition stripes and jesus sandals.