BEST OF BRITISH

n 1937 Great Western Railway released a poster to promote its route to Newquay. It pictures two women in scarlet bathing suits riding a wave on wooden bellyboards, the proto-surfboards common on south-west beaches in the 1930s. Pure nostalgia, one might think, before meeting Jamie Johnstone whose workshop is above Newquay harbour, Cornwall’s surf capital. Amidst walls covered in chipboard and smells of paint and sawdust, Jamie lifts an unfinished bellyboard from a rack. It’s a 4ft plywood plank curving slightly to a round nose and is recognisably the same board as that on the GWR poster. ‘People think boards should have a high-performance aspect, but we’re still super