Buoyant time for Britain’s surf life-saving movement

Press, 21 February 1986, Page 14

Buoyant time for Britain’s surf life-saving movement

By

GRANT BRADLEY

Almost all facets of surf life-saving are “remarkably similar” in the countries where the movement exists, says the chairman of the British Surf LifeSaving Association, Mr Alf Thomas, who was in Christchurch recently.

“The structure of associations, techniques used and competitions are surprisingly similar down here to things at home,” he said. Mr Thomas was in Christchurch last weekend to watch the South Island championships. He is on a study tour to New Zealand, Australia and the United States. As winner of Britain’s Churchill Trust fellowship, he will study all aspects of surf life-saving during the nine-week tour.

A planned tour of New Zealand in early 1988 by a British team was proof that life-saving in Britain was in good heart and going strong, said Mr Thomas. The team would also tour Australia and Mr Thomas said he was confident it would measure up well to its more seasoned rivals in both countries. “We think we’ll do quite well.”

Christchurch might be on the New Zealand leg of the tour, he said. Surf life-saving is well established in Britain. The association has 3000 men, 1500 women and 1580 juniors in its ranks, and is at one of its most buoyant periods since being established in 1955.

About 52 clubs are spread throughout Britain, although most are in the popular tourist and beachgoing areas of Cornwall and Devon and south Wales.

In contrast to the popularly held image of British beaches being cold, unpleasant and crowded with pale day trippers with handkerchiefs on heads, many were beauti-

ful and on a par with Christchurch beaches, said Mr Thomas. A hot day could draw a crowd of more than 100,000 to a four kilometre stretch of beach at Barry’s Island and cause major headaches for lifeguards, who, like their counterparts in New Zealand, were almost entirely volunteers.

Surf at beaches facing

the Atlantic Ocean could be big and of high quality to provide an ideal training ground for lifeguards. However, fickle weather and cold water conspired to test the dedication and fortitude of even the hardiest lifeguard, he said.

With the water temperature seldom rising above 15 degrees during summer (water temperatures in Christchurch are often 17 to 19 degrees) and plummeting further during the British winter, thin swimwear offers scant protection to lifeguards hard at training or competition.

“It can be real brass monkey weather out there,” said Mr Thomas. Competitions were similar in format to those in New Zealand and were held, at a local, regional and national level,, he said. Events are also the same except for surf canoe races, which are unique to New Zealand.

Members of clubs were drawn from all walks of life and reflected a cross section of society not found in some other sports, Mr Thomas said.

“The same, class distinctions don’t exist — everyone’s into it.”

While surf life-saving in Britain is similar in most ways to that in New Zealand and Australia, where it differed most and lagged badly behind was in the area of funding, he said.

“We just don’t have the same expertise and ability to attract commercial sponsorship.” Because of the range of other activities and “distractions” available to British people, the movement could not hope to have the same prominence as it does in New Zealand and Australia, said Mr Thomas.

However, efforts were being made to boost the public profile of surf lifesaving, and with more than 10,000 reported rescues since the association’s founding there was a case for greater recognition.

“We’re good at raising money at a local level but people don’t seem to recognise the need for funding a central administration.”

Recent threats to funding from the central Government highlighted the need to “become less susceptible to political and economic stringency,” he said.

Most of the report which Mr Thomas writes will be devoted to commercial funding and lessons the British association can learn.

“Hopefully I will take a useful message home,” he said.

Mr Thomas will spend one week in Los Angeles to study the fully professional lifeguard service there before returning to his Cardiff home to write his report, endure the cold and watch the Welsh rugby team in action.