"It’s cold. God only knows what it’s like to surf here in the midst of winter"
Alex Wade takes on the North Sea
It’s raining as I make my way along the quay. Correction: it’s chucking it down. And it has been all day. As it does, a lot, here in Thurso.
Hunched into my jacket, barely protected from the cold and the wet, I shuffle past the town’s concession to commercialism in surfing – the Tempest Surf Shop. Inside, there is a café as well as kit for sale, and a few sensible souls have taken refuge from the weather. On I walk, taking in Lord Thurso’s castle, part-ruined, part-intact, across the ice-cold, orange-brown river. Idly, I wonder if his Lordship has any idea of the jewel of a wave on his doorstep.
Despite the driving rain, I feel a surge of adrenaline as I reach the end of the harbour wall. To my right, partially obscured by rain and a hint of mist, Thurso East is working. It’s not huge but it’s on. Two surfers are making their way back across the kelp-strewn rocks which, so I’m told, are owned down to the low-water mark by Lord Thurso. Their session is over, but there is one surfer left in the line-up. He drops down the face of a head-high right-hander, turns, stalls and finds himself covered up in what, so one of the locals tells me, is a wave that never closes out.
But on this bedraggled, early spring afternoon, something is up with Thurso East. The wave collapses in one movement, offering just a glimpse of its perfection to the all-too-briefly barrelled surfer. I cast my eyes across to the Orkney Islands, faintly discernible in the lacklustre light. Somewhere out there, across the Pentland Firth, is the island of Hoy and its notorious sea-stack, the Old Man of Hoy.
The Old Man rises “like an admonishing finger of God,” says Al Alvarez, in his book ‘Feeding the Rat’, an account of how Alvarez and five other climbers ascended the slender and perilous rock. I think about Mo Anthoine, the legendary Welsh climber who was the subject of Alvarez’s book. A man of integrity, intelligence and prodigious climbing ability, Anthoine was possessed of an unquenchable inner drive, a compulsion to take risks, to keep going and embrace ever more dangerous expeditions. His explanation is that he has to ‘feed the rat’ that lurks within:
“The rat is you, really. It’s the other you, and it’s being fed by the you that you think you are. And they are often very different people. But when they come close to each other, that’s smashing, that is. Then the rat’s had a good meal and you come away feeling terrific. It’s a fairly rare thing, but you have to keep feeding the brute, just for your own peace of mind.”
"Looking back to Thurso East, a set wave implodes on the reef. The lone surfer missed it – he’s opted to sit on the shoulder. "
The other two surfers are nowhere to be seen. I look around, back to the town of Thurso. There is no one around. Just me, one surfer in the line-up, and the Old Man of Hoy.
Thurso is mainland Britain’s northernmost town. At latitude 59 degrees north, it is on a par with the Alaskan state capital of Juneau. It has a port – Scrabster – from which ferries service the Orkney and Shetland Islands, Iceland, Denmark, Norway and the Faroe Isles. The climate is harsh, with the town’s houses pebble-dashed in dour browns and greys in an attempt to cope with the near-constant wind and rain, and the people hardy. Many are employed by the Dounreay Nuclear Power complex, some six miles to the west.
Dounreay was Thurso’s golden goose. Established in 1955, it provided a source of employment to generations in the far north of Scotland. Ironically, even now that nuclear power is no longer ‘en vogue’, Dounreay still looks after many of Thurso’s 9,000 inhabitants, with work flowing from the decommissioning of the extensive plant expected to last for another 30 years.
It was because of Dounreay that Liverpool-born surfer and skater Pat Kieran first laid eyes on the world-class surf of Scotland’s north shore. As he explains, “I started surfing in Ireland in 1971, but by the mid Seventies was studying to be an electrical engineer. My studies entailed a spell, in 1976, working at Dounreay. I laid eyes on the surf nearby, and that was it. Even when I went south after the placement was over, it was as if I was on an elastic band, being forever drawn back to Scotland.”
Kieran, 53, says he wasn’t the first person to surf Thurso East, but he can claim a pioneering feat perhaps even more notable. “Other people had surfed Thurso before me,” he says, “among them Paul Gill, New Zealand surfer Bob Treeby and Grant Coghill. But I was the first person to decide to move to this part of the world, purely for its surf.”
Today, Thurso is on the surfing cognoscenti’s map. Anyone who surfs with more than marginal commitment will have heard of its awesome right-hander. Surfing magazines are replete with images of the ultra-fast, super-heavy reef and point breaks in the area, from the set-ups at Brims Ness to the slabs such as Nothing Left and Bagpipes along to the east. The Tempest Surf Shop not only wears the distinction of being Britain’s most northerly surfing establishment but also provides a tidy living for owner Helen Macinnes, not to mention a sense of community for the area’s surfers. But back in Kieran’s day, there was nothing. Just the wild and rugged hills of the highlands, and a remote town whose residents didn’t have the faintest idea about surfing.
Initially employed at Dounreay, Kieran moved into academia and now finds himself back at Dounreay again. He has never once regretted moving to Scotland. “I met my wife here, I’ve raised my family here, and I’ve met some wonderful people,” he says. “And I’ve had some fantastic waves over the years. I wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world.”
Shortly after moving to Thurso, Kieran had met his wife, Annie, and settled in a cottage overlooking Thurso East. The couple had four children, Andrew, John, Robin and Catriona, and after surfing initially at Dunnett and Thurso beaches, Kieran graduated to Thurso East. Getting used to the wave wasn’t easy. “The take off is vertical and unforgiving. When I first paddled out, with an east coast surfer called Robin Saloman, I sat on the shoulder for a long time before giving it a try. When I did, I got nailed. I took a lot of beatings in the early days.”
Kieran’s memories conjure the early innocence of surfing. A warm man, he smiles wryly as he recalls christening Nothing Left - “It’s a heavy left with a take off over a slab. There’s a distinct possibility that there’ll be nothing left of you or your board if you get it wrong” – and laughs at the thought that back in the seventies and eighties, if he saw another car with surfboards, he’d turn round and give chase, just so that he could meet another surfer. Indeed, a letter Kieran sent to his friends at the North West Surf Club, dated Christmas 1978, sums up the Scottish surfing experience:
‘Help! 1 or 2 surfers wanted to share perfect rivermouth break, 6-12ft. Glassy peeling usually offshore at this time of year. Location: Northern Scotland. Experience of similar situation essential as wave is very fast and very heavy.’
Thirty years ago, Kieran added that anyone tempted ‘Must appreciate peaceful surroundings with very laid-back inhabitants. Similar waves of comparable perfection within easy reach in either direction’.
“Despite freezing conditions, and at times driving snow, the competition attracted a good entry in all categories. Making the presentation, club chairman Pat Kieran thanked everyone who braved the elements for taking part.”
So runs the text of a piece in a yellowing local newspaper clipping. It’s accompanied by a photograph of members of the North Shore Surf Club, in whose midst a larger-than-average, long-haired teenager wears a broad, open smile. Twenty years later, Thurso’s born-and-bred Andy Bain – or ‘Bainers’ as he is known – is no less stoked by surfing, even if he recognises that his devotion isn’t shared by everyone.
"People in Caithness have long memories,” says Bain. “They still associate the sea as a place where people have died. They can’t understand why we would want to go surfing in that same sea."
Bain is referring to Thurso’s location on the edge of the Pentland Firth. The channel between Caithness and the Orkneys is some six to eight miles wide and through it, twice daily, huge tides surge between the Atlantic to the North Sea and back again. Currents can reach up to 12 knots and countless ships have been lost in this, one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the world. Captains would often prefer to make lengthy detours north of Orkney or south by the English Channel to avoid the notoriously treacherous eddies and whirlpools of the Pentland Firth.
The inclemency of the weather combines with the Pentland Firth’s formidable reputation to ensure that surfing is still a minority pursuit in Thurso. Its citizens may be tough but few of them seem to relish the idea of surfing in driving snow. As Bain says, “In winter we’ll get snow, rain and blocks of ice but the worst of the lot are the hailstones. They’re the size of golfballs.” This leads to a novel use for boards: “When the hailstones come in you tread water and hold your board above your head. Like an umbrella.”
Bain started surfing when he was 16. “I’d left school and was walking along the main precinct when I saw a young lad carrying a surfboard,” he tells me. “I asked how much he’d take for it and bought it for £15. I never used it and sold it later for £30. I’ve always enjoyed a bit of wheeling and dealing.” But if his first board went unridden, Bain did join the newly created surf club, and used its equipment through the summer, all the way to December, surfing in just a pair of boardshorts. He recalls the moment when he first caught a white water wave at Thurso beach: “I was on a big board, an 8ft thing. I went out to chest depth, turned, caught a wave and bellied it all the way to the shore. From that point on my life just U-turned.”
On his 17th birthday, on 1 January, Bain was given a wetsuit. “I carried on surfing Thurso beach for a year, then moved on to the Shit Pipe [a quality reef break in between Thurso beach and Thurso East], and then travelled to nearby beaches. I surfed a lot then with Bri Sutherland and Neil Harris. We’d take a few beatings at Brims in the summer, when it’s nice and mellow. Eventually, on a small day, I was ready for Thurso East itself.”
Now 36, Bain is a commanding presence in Thurso. He is a powerfully built man, more clan chieftain than surf dude, and exudes knowledge and affinity with the breaks of his hometown and its environs. What does he make of visitors from sun-kissed surf idylls?
“We’ve always had a few travelling surfers coming through, mostly Aussies and Californians. You’ve always got your Geordies - the Stores and Davies brothers, Sam Lamiroy – and a few Cornish surfers from time to time. I don’t feel in the least bit possessive. I’ve always welcomed every single person who’s come here. I’m proud that we’ve got such awesome surf on our doorstep.” Bain does, though, allow that if surfers from the tropics are put off by the cold, “there’s more space in the line-up for those who can take it.”
Chris Noble is one of them. Formerly a fisherman from the austere north-east town of Fraserburgh, Noble, 33, emulated Kieran in moving to Thurso purely for its surf. “I started surfing in Fraserburgh when I was 13,” he says, “but moved here about 10 years ago. I moved for Thurso East. I surf natural foot and it breaks perfectly for me. Sure, you get blocks of ice going ‘clunk clunk’ on your board in the winter - the ice floats down the frozen River Thurso and into the line-up - but we get seals, dolphins, sea otters and waves that are just perfect. All I want to do is surf those waves.”
Noble has amply fulfilled his ambition. He has taken on Thurso at serious size and lived not only to tell the tale but to amass sponsorships from The Realm, Reef, Da Kine and JP Surfboards. After a spell working for BT, Noble is once again at sea, working offshore on oil rigs. A short man with a wiry build and mousey-brown hair, with a scar on his chin showing through a few days’ stubble, Noble echoes Bain in being ostensibly the antithesis of the clichéd surf dude. But make no mistake: he rips. And he has also thought deeply about what surfing means:
"People often try and categorize surfing as an art form, or a way of life, or a sport. To me, it’s all three. "
It’s an art form because it’s something beautiful, taking place in a natural environment, and it’s a sport because it requires fitness and has an inbuilt sense of challenge. And it’s a way of life. For me, anyway.”
Noble adds that there is no reason why Thurso won’t one day become a surf town, perhaps like Bundoran or Lahinch in Ireland or Newquay in Cornwall. He reels off a list of regulars in the local line-ups, including Chris and Rick Ireland, Chris Clark, Mike Heddle, Andrew ‘Hamper’ MacLeod, Shona McGuinness, Sheila Findlayson and omnipresent grom Paul Canop, before saying that “surfing’s growth is exponential. Wetsuits are getting better all the time and more and more people are surfing. Eight years ago I surfed one January for 16 days in a row; it was head high and offshore every day; and I was alone. Now I’d never be surfing on my own. That’s a good thing. Surfing can create revenue and opportunities for this town. The possibilities are endless.”
But Rick Picken, the former owner of the Tempest Surf Shop, isn’t so sure.
“Thurso will never become crowded,” he says, “it’s too cold, too far, and too serious.”
The water has an orange glow that, for a second, makes me think of Dounreay. Is it true that some stretches of Scotland’s north shore are home to radioactive particles from the nuclear power plant? But no. This is merely the hue of peat deposits from the highlands, borne into the sea by rivers, shimmering under the clear water. It’s an extraordinary colour, unlike anything I’ve seen when surfing in Britain or Ireland. It was evident a couple of days ago during a surf at the right-hand rivermouth break of Melvich (crowd count: three), and now, as I reach the line-up at the unfavourably named Shit Pipe, it’s there again.
I have a few good waves (crowd count: two) before paddling back in. On the harbour a boy greets me. I ask him his name. “I’m Paul Alexander Canop, and I’m 13,” he says. He’s in a wetsuit, and I’d noticed him earlier, out at the Shit Pipe on a surprisingly balmy day. I’d also spoken to Lord Thurso, Member of Parliament for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross and owner of Thurso castle.
“I’m not a surfer myself but I watch them with a telescope through my window,” the 55-year-old hereditary peer told me. His house and land overlooks the reef at Thurso East, and if anyone owns the break, it’s him: “In England, the convention is different. English titles provide for ownership to the high water mark. But here it’s to the low water mark, so yes, technically I own rocks down to the sea, over which most surfers walk before they paddle out.”
Fortunately John Thurso comes from a venerable Liberal Democrat family. His grandfather, Sir Archibald Sinclair, was the Liberal Party leader from 1935 to 1945, and it was following his father’s death in 1995 that John took his seat in the House of Lords. He has since spoken many times in the House of Lords in favour of Lords reform, and is the first and only hereditary peer to have been elected to the Commons having previously sat in the Lords. As he put it: “My family has a long-standing tradition of not interfering with people’s enjoyment. I’m just pleased to see that there is so much fun going on in the water outside my window.”
I walk to my van and get changed. It’s cold. Even when the sun is shining, as it is today, it’s cold. God only knows what it’s like to surf here in the midst of winter, maybe in snow, or with ice clunking against your legs and hailstones the size of golf balls raining down. But as I’m contemplating this, the rest of Mo Anthoine’s elucidation about feeding the rat within comes to mind:
“And even if you did blow it, at least there wouldn’t be that great unknown. But to snuff it without knowing who you are and what you are capable of, I can’t think of anything sadder than that.”
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