When I was young, I was always pulling things apart, putting them back together. Mum and Dad didn’t have a lot of money, and what money they had, Dad used to spend on the boat he was building. So I grew up around tools and if I needed something, if I wanted something, I had to get it myself. I used to go down to the tip with a spanner and I’d come home riding a bike.

I first hacked out a few boards around 1965. They were shockers. I rode them once or twice, but I was too shy to take them to the beach. Dad had arranged for me to start a boat building apprenticeship around the same time. Unfortunately the boat builder decided to get out of the business. Dad came home and said, “You're not going to be a boat builder, no money in it, they’ve all turned to fibreglass.” I was gutted, that’s all I’d