Bellyboarding: the Roots of European Surfing
Bellyboarding: the
Roots of European Surfing
by
Sam Bleakley
Summertime 2015 celebrates 97 years’ of
bellyboarding in Cornwall and on Sunday the 6th of September Chapel Porth, St Agnes will host the 13th annual World Bellyboard Championships. Riding waves prone on the surging whitewater on flat
wooden bellyboards planted the seeds for stand up surfing in Britain.
Immediately after the First World War Cornishmen George Tamlyn and William Saunders returned
home from the Western Front and started bellyboarding at Perranporth. They were
inspired by allied South African soldiers, who relayed stories of surf planing
on their similarly wave-pounded beaches in Durban and Cape Town. In the British
seaside tourist boom of the 1920s the Great
Western Railway was dubbed the ‘Holiday Railway’, able to transport large
numbers of people to the Cornish coast for a low price. Here they could see
Perranporth locals like Jenny Rilstone sliding to shore on wooden boards. They
cost ‘two bob’ at the local coffin-makers, TB
Tremewan. 150 miles to the southeast, bellyboarding was introduced to
Jersey in 1922 by Nigel Oxenden, following his travels to South Africa,
Australia and Hawaii. In 1923 he formed the Island Surf Club at St Ouen’s (the
first of its kind in Europe). Nigel became famous for attaching a rope from the
tail of his board to the back of his belt and paddling out to catch the
green-faced sets.
Nigel Oxeden 1923
Post Second World War on a steamy summer’s day there
could be hundreds of people bellyboarding on a Cornish beach. The Surf LifeSaving Association was formed in 1955 to combat the rising number of drownings,
and nearly all the people who later developed an interest in stand-up surfing
were members of the Surf Life Saving Clubs. By 1957 two South Africans, Bobby
Burden and Cliff Honeysett, were working as lifeguards in Jersey. They made two
hollow 14 foot boards out of plywood and the following year were spotted
slicing across waves at St Ouen’s standing up. The sight fired up the local
watermen, the craze quickly gathered momentum, and Peter Lea and Charles
Harewood formed the Jersey Surfboard Club in 1959. By August that year the
club had 20 members and 14 boards. No other place in Europe at the time could
boast a similar gathering of surfers and boards. Only Biarritz had a rival
handful of stand-up riders, centred on the Waikiki Club formed in September
1959.
Jersey Surfboard Club 1959 - photo John D Houiellebecq
Jersey began to organise large
international contests with lucrative sponsorship from alcohol and tobacco
companies, and a reigning Miss World, Penny Plummer from Australia, to present
the trophies. Jersey Surfboard Club aficionado Dave Grimshaw soon spearheaded
the birth of the British Surfing Association (now Surfing GB) in 1966. Pete Griffin, Mike Carr
and Tony Hole ran it from Tony’s clothes shop, Modern Man, in Penzance. By now the UK was the new driving force
in European surfing. Remember, it all started on those flat wooden bellyboards
built by the local coffin makers. Try one sometime, you’ll be surprised, maybe
re-born, soon ‘extreme’ bellyboarding and entering the World Bellyboard Championships.
