Lawyer says 'Surfing is not for mature people'

In what I am confident is a first for surfing journalism, I am about to link the Reform Club and surfing. Here goes...

I was in London for much of last week. On Wednesday evening, I attended a Times party at the Reform Club. For this, not only did I have to dust the mothballs off my suit but I also had to put it on and wear it for the night. I met many excellent people but one eminent QC was a bit of a joker. He asked me the predictable questions at such functions - who are you? what do you do? why have they let you in? what are you for? - and seemed satisfied with all my answers save for the one in which I confessed that I write a fair bit about surfing. This did not meet with his approval.

"Surfing? Oh dear. My son's 24 and he's had a flirtation with surfing. Thankfully, it seems to be over now. It's not an activity for mature people, is it?"

I replied that he was wrong on that front. "I surf every time there's a swell," I said. I even mentioned that my surf diary for the year amounted to evidence - for lawyers like evidence - that I'd surfed on average once in every two and a half days in 2008.

I returned home yesterday to encounter little by way of surf but to have the pleasure of a chat with Fuz Bleakley, father of Sam and a man who is approaching his 45th year of surfing (Fuz started at 15 and his 60th birthday is imminent). Fuz is pictured above wearing a suit and almost, were it not for his obsessive surfing of the last 45 years, looking convincingly mature.

Likewise, Jonty Henshall, from whom I picked up my custom-made Winged Stub today. Jonty is pictured here bequeathing me the board, which I'm looking forward to baptising this week. The forecast promises cracking surf down Sennen and Gwenver way, but should Jonty and I really be spending so much of our time going surfing? After all, we're in our 40s - shouldn't we have grown out of it by now? Perhaps we should settle down in a nice comfortable bus shelter, like the one pictured below, which I encountered while in the Shetland Isles?  Mature people get buses, don't they? And if there's a TV provided in the shelter, so much the better, for watching television is, decidedly, not an activity for the immature.

Meanwhile, in what I am confident might be another first for surf writing, here is a picture of a Howler monkey in Mexico.

It, along with the two children also shown below - but excluding their mother - was of the right age for surfing when this shot was taken, some four or five years ago.

Since then, however, the monkey has evinced no interest in surfing, while one of the children has gone on to write for Pit 'Welcome to our website if you think it's shite we'll give a fight alright' Pilot. Watch this space for the evidence. Unless, that is, you're either a lawyer who's too mature for surfing - or you're out there catching waves.

Comments

[allie]

if age is meerly a state of mind what kind of state is your mind in, and why is fuz auditioning for a part in "resevoir dogs" ( he would have to be mr blue) Stop harping on about how old you are and get in the sea you wus! see you in there at chrimbo and thanks for the books

[Costa Rica Surf Camp]

My dad always said that I should grow up, stop surfing and get a job! I figured that growing up would eventually happen over time, so I didn't have to worry too much about that.

Now, there was no way on earth that I was going to quit surfing. So, I decided to make a compromise for dear old dad and get a job... teaching surfing! I'm pretty sure he's not proud of that, but I'm mature enough to make my own decisions, or at least I think I am.

Somehow, over time, the surf instructor job has evolved into surf resort hotel owner.

So, to all the immature surfers out there remember that "immature" and "I'm mature" are spelled the same (except for the punctuation).

[Avadis and Co. Lawyer]

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