Bomber’s Leave – Surfing in Cornwall by ‘Pilot-Officer John B. Cusack’
Mid-summer in England! A few days operational leave, and my thoughts turned to Newquay, on the south coast of Cornwall.
There – so some of my Australian pals told me – you could get a surf and, if you were very, very lucky, some sunshine! To Newquay I decided to go.
I started off in a happy nostalgic dream of long days on Coogee Beach, and quite oblivious of the newspaper stories about over-crowded trains and holiday crowds. Official injunctions to stay at home seemed hardly meant for me. Innumerable posters pointed accusing fingers at me, asking, ‘Is Your Journey Really Necessary?’ and ‘Why Not Stay Put?’.
I arrived at Paddington station two hours before the train was due to leave to find a mere two or three thousand lined up. One look at the swaying jumble of humanity, suitcases, umbrellas and other weapons of assault, shattered my happy dream. I tootled off to a sympathetic RTO and explained that I was on operational leave. So, just before the train drew in, he escorted me to a place of vantage, and I beat the flood of humanity that flowed over officials and barriers. All my experience of test match crowds, bargain-hunting gangs and Easter Shows faded into insignificance before this tidal wave of English holiday-makers. No quarter was given – and none asked – by either sex. By judicious use of elbows, umbrellas, suitcases and sharp-pointed heels, the women more than held their own. The train was filled in a twinkling. Carriages that normally held six to eight now housed sixteen to twenty. Corridors were packed tight with less fortunate though, nevertheless, triumphant travellers. The voices of innumerable mothers arose plaintively on the foetid air, calling for lost young, who howled dismally in reply. Outside, hundreds of luckless would-be travellers sought to cram just one more sweating body into the now immovable mass.
Disappointment and the rigours of their long wait were too much even for English good-humour. There were violent arguments, short but vicious bouts of fisticuffs, incessant clamour. Gradually good-natured police and harassed officials restored order and the unlucky ones were herded into another interminable queue that would not find relief for ten hours!
Eventually all my low cunning went for nought, for a grey-haired old lady, who had been up to London to see her wounded soldier son in hospital won both my sympathy and my seat, and I stood – or rather was held up – for eleven hours to Newquay.
During the long journey I heard hundreds of tales of holidaying in Newquay – all with one main motif, namely, that unless you had booked at least twelve months before, your chance of attaining to so much as a bed on the billiard table was nil. I had made no arrangements, and when I alighted, I set forth, dirty and bewhiskered, in search of a bed.
The unvarying answer to my query, ‘Have you a room?’, was ‘We are booked up till October, or November, or next year, or the millennium’. To add to my sufferings, the sun – which had perversely refused to shine for the past two or three months – came out in molten glory.
Reduced by now to a dusty, thirsty mendicant, I came at last to a tiny house, unpretentious, spotlessly clean. There was no sign of ‘Room to Let’, or any of the misleading notices by which Newquay taunts the weary tourist. Still, more out of habit than hope, I staggered up the steps to meet a silvery-haired old dear who opened the door to my question.
She gazed at my appearance, then gave me the amazing reply; ‘I’ll have to see my sister.’ The sister, produced from the innermost regions, subjected me to a doubtful scrutiny and then asked, ‘Are you an Australian?’. I thought I probably reminded her of Ned Kelly, so meekly gulped, ‘Yes.’ Thereupon they retired for consultation, to reappear with the magic words; ‘We can let you have a room. Can you come back in half an hour?’ I said, ‘Can I leave my bag?’ and, when they graciously acquiesced, I went off touching every bit of available wood for luck, wondering what the mysterious interval could mean.
It wasn’t till I returned and settled in that I discovered one of these old ladies had given up her own room to me, and the half-hour was needed to remove her effects. And there I remained – the white-headed boy!
The difficulty of reaching pleasure resorts in war-time is only excelled by the difficulty of surviving in them if you get there. The local residents get no extra rations to feed the multitude, so that queues are the order of the day. The locals complain that the visitors arise early and buy all available stocks. The visitors reply that they are charged exorbitant prices for everything from accommodation upwards, and have to put up with much rudeness from tradesmen.
And there really was a surf there, with waves curling at least two hundred yards out.
Crowds lined the beach to watch the ‘mad Australian’ crack the combers; for I seemed to be the only one to put the surf to its proper use. I must admit it was sometimes only vanity (personal and national) that got me in at all, for the water – in mid-summer – was so bitterly cold that I had to do at least a four-hundred yard run to prepare the circulation for the shock. But, as a result, the waistline diminished, and the elasticity returned to the step (bombing is such a sedentary occupation!) and I was in good condition to fight my way back on the long journey to London.