El Maestro

"We had everything here, everything here inside.
All of our kit was here. Look – inside this women’s hat box was everything:  Goggles, leather gloves, t-shirt, and helmet – all here. You see?”

Juan Manuel Fangio

In the first decade of Formula One racing, before races were filmed or televised, Argentinian Juan Manuel Fangio won five World Driver's Championships - a record that stood for 46 years.  In the 1950s drivers wore minimal protective equipment, racing with no harness and often on circuits with no safety features.  In the clip below (from a 1980s documentary film), Fangio is in his sixties driving a Lancia-Ferrari D50 around a "temporarily closed" Monaco street circuit.  The car's fuel tanks were housed in the side fenders (between the front and rear wheels), just in case sliding sideways around a corner wasn't spicy enough in a vintage racing car wearing just a t-shirt and open face helmet.

"When a car goes well, and the engine note is harmonious, the noise makes a form of music; the driver is like a conductor…”

And what a conductor.  I guess that's why he was nicknamed "El Maestro".

Top image taken at the 2014 Goodwood Revival event.

Come Ply With Me

"I don't know of anything so exciting as getting a perfect surf. Timing one's shoot off from the waves, and riding along on the crest and coming far inshore.  By jove!"

John Betjemen

The first Sunday in September each year is really rather special around these parts, and today was no exception.  The World Bellyboarding Championships is a wonderfully "British" event; a competition celebrating traditional wooden prone surf riding (judged primarily on smiles and length of ride) with the air of a vintage village fête.  Wetsuits are definitely not allowed, the Junior category is for the under-60s and the cake bake-off is as hotly contested as the surfing.  It's a day rich in bent plywood and cups of tea.

The Polzeath contingent; my former housemate Matt and Andy Cameron, who runs bellyboard company Dick Pearce and Friends.

Today I took three photos.  Last year I took about a thousand.  I had been commissioned by Coast magazine to document the champs and the article that I produced appeared in the September issue this year, which because of their slightly funny publication schedule was on newsagents shelves for the duration of August and has recently been replaced by the October issue.  It was great fun shooting the 2013 event and having an excuse to really research the fascinating history of prone surf riding in the UK - I geek out pretty hard on the history of surfing, vintage surf-craft and stuff made from wood - as well as getting to sit down and chat with so many of the people involved in the champs.   

The Expression Session

This year I entered again and had a thoroughly enjoyable and really quiet uncompetitive ten minute heat as the high tide started to push up into the cove.  The water was warm and I wore a pair of mid-century US navy seal canvas swim shorts in keeping with the spirit of the event.  I have no idea how I did.  I don't think any of the entrants outside of the podium finishers do, and most probably don't care.  It's not really about the competition, you see, but more about sharing the enjoyment of wading out to waist depth with a group of smiling folk (whose ages probably span 44 years), turning around and pushing off to ride a wave back towards shore on a flat piece of wood - the design of which hasn't really changed much in more than fifty years.  

These are some of my favourite images, shot at the World Bellyboarding Championships over the past few years.  They were all shot on 35mm film and I like them because, to me, they are the ones that really capture the spirit of the event.  I hope that some of you have had a chance to pick up a copy of Coast and check out the article that I produced (and that you enjoyed it!), and I hope to see some of you at Chapel Porth on the first Sunday of September next year with a thermos of tea in one hand and a bent plywood bellyboard in the other.

Jenni is the sister of the event's founder, Chris Ryan.  Chris (who works for the National Trust who own the beach) and local head lifeguard Martyn Ward held the first competition to celebrate the life of regular visitor and surf-riding enthusiast Arthur Traveller.

Photographer and bellyboard revivalist John Isaac, leaning on his Model A Ford.

Sally Parkin of the Original Surfboard Company (who very kindly lent me a lovely board to compete on this year) and John Isaac, next to the Museum of British Surfing's old van.

Chapel Porth

The Starter's Claxon

The opening spread of the article that I produced for the September issue of Coast magazine.

It was great to see so many competitors this year riding bellyboards that they'd made themselves whilst attending a one-day "Build-Your-Own" workshop at Otter Surfboards.  Click on the photo to see the short video, and click here to find out more about how you can make your own bellyboard to carry you to victory at next year's event.

They Don't Make 'em Like They Used To

In a couple of days I return to the UK and am due to pick up my car from my magician of a mechanic who's had it in for its annual MOT (UK vehicle safety and roadworthiness check).  I am due to pick it up but, just the same as every year, I am not entirely confident that it will have passed and that I'll be able to.  When I dropped it off he lowered his voice (to the tone reserved for use by concerned vets who don't want the family pet to overhear that it might not have much time left) and said that my run-of-the-mill mundane silver estate car (which has getting on for 250,000 former sales-rep miles on the clock) has served me well and added, "There's a similar car for sale over the road.  I'm only saying, just in case..."

For as long as I've been able to drive and afford to run a car I've placed a whole heap of other things higher on the list of what to spend my money on than my vehicle (see this former post).  Actually getting to the beach has always been far more important than what I get to the beach in, and thus over the last 12 years or so I have owned a succession of loveable bangers or functional wagons, each with their own stories to tell.  Every year I am still however, without fail, slightly surprised when my car fails its test and needs work doing and money spending on it.  I really shouldn't be.  And, every time that I need to consign an old four-wheeled friend to the scrap-heap and search out a new set of wheels, I always end up spending the bare minimum on another barely functioning motor car.  But one day - one day -  I'll get my act together and hunt down an old car that comes pre-loaded with stories; a vehicle older than I am with a front-end like a smiling face and an interior that smells like an antique shop.  I adore cars with character.  I've no doubt that if I ever manage to do this I will be lumbered with an absolute heap that costs an inordinate amount to fill up with fuel, that I can't drive in the rain, is impossible to source parts for and that I won't be able to transport surfboards in.  But I'll love it all the same because if you're going to spend some time broken down by the side of the road anyway, then you might as well do so with some small degree of style stood next to a beautiful machine.

Vintage Vroom Vroom

During World War Two the RAF used Goodwood, a country house estate on the edge of the South Downs in West Sussex, as the base for a squadron of spitfires.  When the war ended the Earl of March turned the airfield's perimeter road into a motor racing circuit and the first race was held there on September 18th 1948.

Sixty five years on and each September Goodwood hosts the Goodwood Revival, an event celebrating the circuit's motorsport heyday from 1948-1966.   Of the 150,000 people attending I'd estimate that 90% were dressed in genuine mid-century era fashions which, along with the plethora of beautiful vintage racing cars (including the spectacular Ferrari GTO250), motorbikes and historic aeroplanes meant that I shot an awful lot of rolls of film.  Below is a small selection of ten images from the films that I've had developed so far.  Enjoy the time machine:

GT40

Hair and Helmet

Belle and the Biplane

 RAF

Airmen

Noisy Norton

Home Straight Spectators

 Spannering

Green Light for GO! 

 Guests of the Earl of March

Gettin' All Good And Gatsby

My friend Gideon agreed to paddle out in a top hat and tails with a walking cane clenched in his teeth for part of this photo shoot.  No mean feat, considering he had to surf a traditional heavy single fin without a leash.  

This is Gideon getting all Gatsby, and doing a damn good job of it.  

Images from this series were recently featured in the latest edition of "Kook" surfing newspaper, a brilliant pink publication put together by Dan Crockett for no good reason other than to share and spread some of the special moments from "the other side" of surfing.  You can get a copy here.

Mud and Guts

Autumn isn't too far away, and with autumn comes (a bit more) rain.  And rain means mud.

Ordinarily I'm much more of a fan of non-motorised means of having fun in nature.  I think that human powered and silent is the right way to enjoy the outdoors, however every now and then my inner rev-head rears up to have it's say.  Having spent a bit of time wrestling motorbikes around fields when I worked a stint on some farms in the past, I am in awe of good trials riders.
It's a fact of life that in this modern age, motorbikes and quad-bikes have replaced horses as the primary means of moving around large pastoral farms to herd animals and check fences.  And as with any farm-based routine it's developed into a competitive activity where the steepest, rockiest, most slippery, tree-root-ridden route is marked out and taken on by anybody with two wheels and an engine from nearby farms and villages.  Normally a trial is hosted by a farmer who has a patch of pasture that's either incredibly rocky, or that leads down to a stream or river where all of the mud has been churned up by his cattle as they go down to drink.  Cows go out, bikes come in for a weekend and then the land is left to recover.
The world of motor-sports and motorbikes loves it's bright garish colours and massive logos, but thankfully amongst all of the questionable design work you still spot the odd rider on an old bike that's probably been used daily for the past 40 years, or somebody in a canvas jacket or overalls wearing army surplus pilot's goggles.  These tend to be the blokes and bikes that get the attention of my camera.
Nature as an obstacle course, and the wetter and muddier it is the better.