A stash of surf mags, private collection
Every so often, whilst sifting through the leaf litter of surf culture, blown up in surprising corners of the garden, the numbers align and good things happen. Here’s a pile of pre-loved mags, hot from California in 1961, uncovered by chance recently on Sydney’s northern beaches. Severson’s Surfer lit the flame, inspiring the short-lived copy-cat Australian Surfer in 1962, along with his movies, the hoaky teen flick Gidget and the eventual mastery of foam and resin by local guys like McDonagh, Bennett and Woods. Pretty soon the whole thing was ablaze and surfing went from an underground cult to a big time scene. For me, its kind of like gold at the beginning of a rainbow.