Puberty Blues is an Australian movie based on Kathy Lette's novel about growing up the the surf side suburb of Cronulla in the late 70's. The story climaxes when the two heroines overcome their hardships and prejudices and buy their own board and just go surfing. The movie made a huge impact on me as a kid growing up in love with surfing. But it wasn't till I watched Bombora - The Story of Australian Surfing that I realized just how influential the movie really was. A number professional surfers in the documentary site the movie as one of their main inspirations to get involved in surfing. World champ Mark Occhilupo actually scored a extras part in the movie as a 10 year old grom!
The highlight of the movie for me is seeing the board they buy. A square tail single fin with an unbelievable spray of a leaping tiger on the bottom. To me it is one of the most collectible surfboards in Australian surf culture history. I have been doing my research on who shaped it and where they bought it. Apparently there were two surf shops in in Cronulla in 1981 when the film was made. With help from my friend Sam who worked in one of the shops at the time (and rumor has it played the part of the shop assistant who severs the girls the chicko rolls) we have worked out is was a locally made G&S or Emerald and probably came from Steve Core's Surf shop.
This board needs to go to the Museum of Australia and hung on the wall next to Ned Kelly's helmet and Phar Lap's heart.
In case you were interested in the history of the board, I can let you know that it was borrowed from my boyfriend at the time. I grew up in Cronulla and was around when they were filming Puberty Blues. I think I was around 14 (I'm 45 now) and my (brief) boyfriend, Patrick had me help him carry it down to the beach on the weekends because he was small and had a club foot (he lived near Burraneer Bay). Sorry can't tell you more than that but I can tell you my brother-in-law worked at Jackson Surfboards in Taren Point at the time - may not be relevant but there you go!
ReplyDeleteI believe this board was from the now defunct Emerald factory and the only one that could of sprayed that art work at the time was Jim Davidson. Actually I know it was Jim cos my husband worked with him at Jackos.
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