Who is the best surfer ever to have emerged from Watford? There are many who would say that there's no contest: it has to be Rodney Sumpter, born there on 27 May 1947, and, despite such an unprepossessing start (if surfing's your thing), a man who went on to be an Australian, United States, British and European surfing champion. There is more to this than meets the eye, for Sumpter did not hone his smooth and elegant style in the streets of Watford but on Avalon Beach, near Sydney. His parents emigrated to Australia just before Sumpter was five, but absence only made the heart grow fonder. Sumpter, a surfing prodigy down under, yearned to see his country of birth, and returned to the UK when he was 16. Almost at once he was blowing minds when he took to the water, and in 1965 he cemented his reputation as the UK's best surfer with a win at the first British championships in Jersey, in 1965. Then began a lifetime of surfing and travel, the early years of which are captured in Sumpter's beguiling film Come Surf With Me.