Original Surfing exhibition in Newquay

Original Surfing exhibition takes place in Newquay until Sunday - How Surfing began in Newquay & along the Cornish Coast

The Revolver shop doors have opened again in Newquay to host the Original Surfboard Company's first exhibition of retro style wooden bodyboards and vintage surfing memorabilia.

The "Original Surfing" exhibition shows how surfing began in Newquay from as early as 1922 and was quite different to modern surfing as we know it.  Based at 76 Fore Street, near the harbour, The Revolver Surfing Emporium is en route to the Boardmasters surf festival if you are walking from the centre of Newquay town. The exhibition is open from today until Sunday 10.30am until 6pm. Entry is free.  

Items on display include prints of posters and books as well as more than twenty Newquay publicity guides dating back to the 1930s. There is also a collection of vintage swimwear which includes a 1920s silk bathing suit and a pair of bright multi striped skimpy trunks paired up with hand painted matching board.

Surfing in Britain in the 1920s and right up to the mid 1960s was not surfing as we know it today. In those days surfing, or surf riding as it was also known, usually meant catching the waves lying down on thin wooden boards about four feet long by one foot wide. No standing up was required.

Throughout the 1930s and 1950s Great Western Railways and the Newquay Publiclity Committee actively promoted Newquay as "Britain's finest surf riding resort"  with their eye-catching posters and annual publicity guides.                                                                

In 1934 The Art of Surf Riding on the Cornish Coast was published - the first instructional book about this new sport. In it the author Ronald Funnell describes  how "A new and exhilerating sport is rapidly gaining many fans in England: 'surf-riding' and deservedly so, for its health giving as well as invigorating relaxation and pastime.

A copy of this rare book is available to view at the "Original Surfing" exhibition.

The exhibition at Revolver is mostly from the private collection of Sally Parkin and until now has never been on public display. Sally set up The Original Surfboard Company in 2008 to help revive this Original British Surf Sport. 

Sally said, "What I love most about these boards is that you feel more in the wave than on a thicker foam board. It's also a sport that can be enjoyed at almost any age and ability from  five to eighty five. It's a fantastic form of exercise that costs very little - all you need to buy is a board and a bather - after that its free in the sea".  

"People quite often say to me this type of wave riding isn't surfing it's bodyboarding but it was called surfing for at least fifty years before stand up surfing took off in Britain. These guides prove that it was originally called surfing and it was how surfing began here."

Original surfboards are made in Britain and are currently at the Original Surfing exhibition at Revolver Surfing Emporium, 76 Fore Street, Newquay TR7 1EF.  Also at www.originalsurfboards.co.uk