WETSUITS & BELLY-BARS

Last week in Cornwall it was interesting to observe some physical differences in the people on the beach compared with the people on the beach when I was a boy. My observation would be (although you must understand that I didn’t observe too closely) that the vast majority of women under the age of 30 have a belly-bar – something unheard of 30 years ago. Also, only rare exceptions were in the water without a wetsuit, whereas in my young day it would have been exceptional to be wearing one; reserved as they were for the hardest hard-core of the serious surfing fraternity. (And in the 70’s, for some reason, we always referred to ‘proper’ surfing as ‘malibu surfing’, by way of contrast with the kind of surfing that normal people did – without wetsuits – which consisted of body boarding on a narrow piece of ply-wood.)

Strong evidence that we have become both more vain and less hardy?

I, for one, certainly do not disdain the advantages of neoprene. As a 10 year-old boy it was a badge of honor not to emerge from the water until I was the color of Blu-Tack, but now I am a man I have put aside childish things. I don’t think I’ll be getting a belly-bar though – I imagine they must feel rather odd under a wetsuit.

Strange though isn’t it, that it is at the beach that the British most flaunt themselves and most hide themselves. I’m sure there’s a sermon illustration in there somewhere…