The curious influence of the Bleakley clan

I've managed to get back in the water a bit lately. In the past seven days, I've got in at Sennen three times. These were my first surfs in maybe two months, after a blitz in September. Needless to say, I overdid it back then and the discs in my bionic neck said 'Can you give us a rest, please, lest we, like the one at C4, have to be whipped out and replaced with a titanium cage?'

On Monday afternoon small but clean waves were coming through. Only a handful of people were out. I found the whole thing a struggle, as I had done the two preceding sessions. Being bionic just isn't an asset in the sea. I can't lift my neck properly when paddling for waves and so spend a lot of time expending energy in vain. Whether my left leg will work when taking off is always an imponderable.

On Monday, the left leg was not being co-operative and I'd only managed to get two waves in 45 minutes. Neither were anything to write home about. I was sinking into something of a woe-is-me mindset and asking myself whether I should just give up surfing once and for all, and maybe do something like throw my energy into helping a steering committee achieve great things for British surfing*, when Fuz Bleakley appeared in the line-up.

I like and respect Fuz and enjoy chatting to him whenever we meet. He told me he'd just about got over some jetlag after a recent trip to the States and asked me how I was doing. I said: "I'm struggling, Fuz. My paddle strength isn't there anymore because of the damn neck and my body just won't do what it's supposed to do because of residual spinal cord problems. It really is becoming a bit of a struggle and it's getting me down."

Fuz said: "Well, at least you're out here."

True, I said, and at that point a set wave appeared. I happened to be right on the peak, turned, paddled, caught it and, miracle of miracles, found that the left leg was in the mood to work properly. It was a waist-to-chest-high left-hander and I had a lovely ride in the pocket with two or three nice turns before a kick-out. Nothing radical, still less was it a big wave, but it did me just fine.

What is about the Bleakley clan? I used to lament to Jonty Henshall (who is married to one of them) that whenever Sam was anywhere near me in the water I would be clinically unable to surf. I'm sure this was a product of my usual accursed self-consciousness and deep-rooted feelings of inferiority, themselves explicable only by reference to a blend of Jungian and Freudian psychoanalysis and an incident, aged 10, with a lamppost. Whatever its prompt, it became a very real syndrome. I'd be there, in the line-up, and Sam would paddle over and say hi. I would then be unable to do a thing - and that was before the neck went wrong. To a degree, the same happened when Sam's wife, Sandy, was in the water, and also when Jonty was there.

The more this went on, the worse it became. It got so bad that I took to disguising myself as an oil can before paddling out. Even then, they recognised me. 'Hi Alex, how's it going?' they'd say, all smiles and friendliness (the fiends!). And then the usual would happen. I would be consigned to bobbing pointlessly about, wondering if another disguise would work. But whatever I did - even wearing a sombrero and pretending to be a metaphor from a Richard Brautigan novel - they always saw through it. Nothing worked.

But on Monday afternoon, the opposite happened. One of the Bleakleys paddled out, said 'Well, at least you're out here', and lo and behold I had a lovely, faith-renewing wave. And curiously, a few days before I saw Sam in the water, first teaching daughter Lola, then surfing on his own; then Fuz; then Sandy; and finally another Bleakley, this time Briony. I hadn't seen them for a while, and they were all as warm as ever. And although I didn't exactly have a rock 'n' roll surf, I did manage to force the left leg into action and get a couple of OK waves.

And what was it Sandy said, during that session, as I moaned about the cruel fate of cervical myelopathy? "Well, at least you're out here. You've got to keep going."

Strange, how certain people can have key but unintended influences on one's life. I'm sure that surfing will continue to be a back and forth, up and down enterprise for me - after all, my spine is not in top shape. The two discs below the metal one have slipped and also show evidence of myelopathy. The medico decision is to leave them and only operate again if the same kind of neurological mayhem as afflicted me two years ago returns; touch wood, these days I'm mostly free of electric shocks, pain, spasticity and the like.

Indeed, the neurosurgeon who operated back on 16 December 2009 always said it could take up to two years to get better. That two years is nearly up, and I feel the best I've been since the op. I even played football last night - gently, it has to be said - and scored a goal.This means nothing in the great, or even the not-so-great, scheme of things, but it was a triumph for me.

Who knows, at this rate I might even find myself on the peak and catching a decent wave when Sam, rather than his Dad, is next to me. (Don't be ridiculous. Ed.)

* All thoughts on the state of UK surfing gratefully received, either via comments here or to my email address: alex@alexwade.com.

Meanwhile, pictured courtesy of John S Callahan: Sam Bleakley in Haiti. Sam's next book, complete with Callahan photos, is called Surfing Tropical Beats and is due out soon.

Comments

[Oakley]

Good good! Have read your article I broaden the horizons, so I learned a lot, produced a lot of inspiration to write another article. I also wrote many articles, I like it very much! I really like your job. Thank you.

[rc helicopter]

Swich to wordpress, make your blogger nicer. -My 2 cents

[ティンバーランド]

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