WHEN YVETTE CURTIS’ 12-YEAR-OLD daughter said she wanted to get into surfing, her mother wasn’t stoked. Curtis had loved sport her whole life; inspired by iconic Black women athletes from the late ’80s, including Tessa Sanderson, she took up track and field in her youth and later went on to work as a personal trainer. She didn’t want to push her kids into any specific sport but was keen they’d each find an activity to be passionate about. Not least for the physical outlet and to keep them emotionally grounded during those vulnerable teenage years when society puts a lot on girls, and they give up sport in their droves.
She didn’t expect her eldest to choose surfing. It wasn’t on their radar as a family, in part because Curtis was scared of the sea, having grown up in Bristol and only recently settled in Croyde, a coastal village in North Devon. And, as a woman of mixed heritage,
