25 September 2023

Surfing Roadies

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Reviewed by Rama Gaind.

Compiled by Chris Tola, John Waring and Brian Birkefeld, Woodslane, $16.95.

This Newcastle trio is onto a winner when it comes to the salient facts in preserving significant aspects of surf culture. Tola, Waring and Birkefeld knew that “unless road trip stories were collected and recorded, this important part of surfing folklore and history would be lost in the mists of time and other substances”.

Their first foray into the collation of surf road trip stories from “back in the day” decidedly invokes nostalgia – with more impact if you’re familiar with the generation, searching for the perfect location that began ‘the Roadie’ tradition. The memories, of course, are priceless.

Surfing Roadies is a collaboration of more than 60 stories from the 1950s onwards, and includes anecdotes from surfers including four times world champion Mark Richards, Mike Perry and Dr. Dave Jenkins.

In fact, Richards has written the foreword in this book. In it he says, “the Road Trip is a staple of every surfer’s life and something we all look forward to, regardless of age or how often the opportunity comes about”.

If these stories are not recorded now, in another decade they will be gone forever.

Chris says since surfing began in Australia in the 1950s or earlier there has been ongoing search for the perfect wave, location or experience.

Waring and Tola, both ageing “grommets … put out a call to the global surfing community to send in stories of their experiences, trials and triumphs, from when the surfing roadie was very much a case of raiding the pantry, grabbing a board and old blanket and heading off anywhere”.

“The search for the best waves, the offshores and disasters, the friendly surfer girls, police harassment, fights with the locals, the clubbies and fires in the bush … the list goes on.”

The stories are simply told, without annotation, but they richly intertwine the highlights of the surfing lifestyles of a time when the cultural norms were dissimilar to today.

A fact worth noting: 20% of the proceeds are being donated to SurfAid International and National Surfing Reserves.

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