John 'T-Boards' Taylor - unsung 60s surf and skate legend...

We'll be adding more photos of John's firsts when he manages to dig them out, so do pop back...

When we moved into our new workshop back last summer we knew our landlord John as one of the blokes who owned the place and ran a garage from the other workshop. We had no idea he was the first person to surf the Severn Bore, one of the first shapers in the country and could have been the first guy to make and ride a skateboard this side of the Atlantic, not to mention that he probably invented the leash and made his own wax.

Approaching his retirement, John's slowed down a little now, but you can still see the twinkle in his eye and his stories will open your eyes and split your sides. It all started back in the mid to late sixties when John was working on the 'new' Concord at the then BAC in Bristol. He was 'knocking off this girl' (his words) whose parents had a cottage near Braunton, she used to body board so he started. Surfing as we know it had just landed on a few beaches in the area, so being handy, John started 'knocking up surf boards' to earn some extra cash. He'd sell them out the back of his Cosworth engined mk1 Cortina in the car parks, which didn't make the local surf shop owner Tim Hayland very happy at the time.

John's first boards were all wood. He'd make up a skeleton and cover it with 1/8" marine ply. He'd glue it all up and finish it with marine glue and paint. They were heavy and pretty shite, but they worked ok and he sold 15 odd. Problem was, when they went from the water to being left in the sun, the air inside expanded and the ply would bulge between the ribs, cracking the paint. To sort this, John started using a screw plug, so you'd open it as soon as you left the water, and only put it back when the board was back in the cool water, trick eh! He used to make his own wax from a mixture of bees wax and paraffin oil, adding lavender for a smell the ladies liked.

About then, Roller skates were hitting the US, and John and his mates ware getting bored on waveless days, so he made probably Britain's first skateboards for him and his mates! Ordering skates from the states, he took off the trucks and wheels and fixed them to a 5 x 24 inch deck of 3/4 ply. they used to ride 'em down Woolacome hill, into Saunton car park and on Puttborough Bay Road weaving the traffic, imagine that in 1970!

Moving to foam for his boards, John preferred to use pop-out moulds over shaping from a block of foam - that way he got a denser and stronger board. The pop-out moulds he made himself from concrete. The hard bit he says was getting just the right amount of the foam mix in there - too little and there'd be voids, too much and it'd lift the concrete top mound right off the bottom! Shaping was a new art back then, in fact I don't think art came into it yet. Anyway, a reference line was needed for accuracy, so John started cutting his molded board down the middle, and used a black glue to re-join them. This meant his boards came out the sweetest on the beach.

At the time some of the boards he'd sold were getting nicked off car roofs, so he'd started molding in a bit of stainless steel wire by the skeg so a loop was left exposed so you could lock 'em to your car - more on that in a bit. Getting fed up with molding, John started to buy blanks from Bob Groves in Bournemouth, not as good as his, bruised easier, but way less hassle, and then moved to Bennet foam from Australia. He started using button thread pinned either end for his line, and found, forgetting to remove it before glassing a board one night, that it left a distinctive neat dead straight line down the center of the board.

He then started experimenting with 2 and 3 skegs as well as swallow tails. Thinking a replaceable skeg would be a touch, he machined a skeg box from tufnel and glassed it into the board. He then use newspaper to jam in his homemade skegs. sounds a bit Heath-Robinson, but worked a treat as the newspaper swelled when wet, jamming the whole thing solid.

John went on to surf most of the south west, Fokestone harbor, Porth Cawl, Bar Fleur (out at sea just off of Normandy - a little dicey!), Biaritz and the Severn Bore, which was the longest wave in the world until 2003. Two Cornish lads and the Guineas Book of Records were at the Severn, and 'The longest wave' film was shot. After the two Cornish lads fell on the first day John rode it for just over a mile, so he thought he had it in the bag, and didn't turn up the next day when one of the Cornish lads managed a mile and a half.

But before surfing the bore a mate pointed out that if he stacked it, his board would end up in Gloucester! Not wanting that, he invented the first leash instead! Tim Hayland amongst others said he was mad, that either his board would knock him out or the leash strangle him. John thought about it, took some strong nylon thread and threaded it through a bit of old red gas pipe, attached one end to the stainless wire and the other to a dog collar! The gas pipe was slightly slack when standing, but the gas pipe was stretchy and the nylon much longer, so if he came off there was plenty of slack, et voila, the first leash.

Back in Croyde with Tim on a red flag day, the two went out. Tim still thought the leash was nuts, but soon realised. Being not that great a surfer John had loads of stacks, but every time just got back on his nearby board, while Tim, the much better surfer, spent ages getting knackered in the white stuff retrieving his board from the beach - a converted Tim.

John went on to sell his leashes and wax at Braunton, kept selling his boards from his Cortina and on the beach as well as Ladyline, chandlers of Bristol while still working at BAC. At the time, any surfer dude in flips and baggies with boards on the car was a girl magnet and he'd just started rallying so all in all things were pretty sweet. So John makes a load of boards, leashes and wax and takes the lot down to Biaritz to earn some cash while having a wee break. Unfortunately he didn't get on with the beach break, and even less so with the local shop owner Jo Moray, who ripped him off and beat him up leaving him skint.

So returning to England pissed off with the whole surfing thing we unfortunately lost John to his new passion of Rallying. It's about that time he bought the yard and started the garage where he is today. Plenty more adventures were had; most should be saved for the pub, but a little nice one to finish. A little 'surfers guide' came out suggesting good surfing beaches, and John got bet he couldn't surf a wave at every beach from Woolacome to Lands End in a day! Not taking his wetsuit off for the whole trip, chaffing more than you wanna know, and having spent a fortune on petrol, they finally finished up at Lands End harbor having succeeded! Brewing up a coffee on the little stove while dangling their feet in the water, they looking up to see massive great basking sharks mulling around by their feet. bit of a shock, but not a bad way to win a tenner!