The Don was waiting there for decades in a dim and cobwebbed alcove at Burford Reinforced Plastics in southern Queensland, waiting for us to wake up to ourselves. The Don... through the gaudy Echo Beach years it waited, salvo after salvo of polka dots fired at it but it refused to topple.
Stories
Join Andrew Kidman on a South African escapade with Derek Hynd back in 1995. Along the way, you’ll be privy to the squirrel’s nest of surprises that arise from hanging out with Hynd.
Derek Hynd vividly recounts his experience being mentored by Terry Fitzgerald, sparked while surfing a spot linked with Terry’s legacy. At this surf break, Derek muses over crowd dynamics, recent changes in the wave, and the paradox of safety in surfing.
In this poignant tale, Dave Parmenter reflects on travels with Brian Keaulana as well as life experiences with Rell Sunn. The story delves into Rell's battles with sharks and cancer, highlighting unwinnable scenarios and the quest for more time.
It’s a Saturday morning in the winter of 1994. I’m ten years old. An offshore wind carries the blunt smell of industry across the Hunter Valley and down to the inside bowl of one of the local reefs.
Before getting to the catalyst — the most successful gentleman in Manly in 1911 blowing his head off with dynamite at a males-only artists’ camp of his own founding — a stage to set.
Jeffreys Bay, 1995. Into his 60's, Miklos Sandor Chapin Dora has seen, done, been it all. He is the one God of surf. Conservatively, 999 in every 1000 lives of surfers over the last 60 years exist solely due to this one person.
“Awwwwww there goes Big Rog.” Flippy Hoffman growling, sitting on his deck off the sand at Pupukea. The surf had been dismal. Waist-high slop rolled in like the day before and the week before that.
Worse than inserting yourself into a conversation is making a living out of doing it. Consider surf writing. 9 in 10 surf writers cop out with first-person narrative, flogging personal ego by 'being there for the reader.’
In 2012, I wandered into the Valla Surfboard Factory in Nambucca Heads and was struck with those same tinfoil emotions Warhol had been struck by whilst having his hair cut in Name’s apartment in 1959.
Andrew Kidman on Terry Fitzgerald's innovative Hot Buttered Skateboards.
Andrew Kidman writes about the planshape and evolution of Green.
Guest author Dave Parmenter on The Provenance of The Hook Fin
Guest author Dave Parmenter on Cheyne Horan
By Andrew Kidman