Surf Lifesaving

A training film is made at Perranporth with the Cornwall County Constabulary at a time when surf life saving was in its infancy and fell to the most able in the community, in other words the police. From the fifties onwards Australians and Americans were taken on as lifeguards and surf lifesavers because they could work and teach surfing and this helped to develop the sport. Ironically as surfing became a major sport in Australia numbers taking up surf life saving dropped.

Surf life saving came from Australia where by 1900 a need to save swimmers caught in the sea surf was identified and patrols were started. Australian Allan Kennedy is credited with setting up the first UK Surf Life Saving Club up in Bude in North Devon in the early fifties with equipment such as the patent-type of belt mentioned in the film having been imported from New South Wales. St Agnes, Newquay and Brighton followed and the Surf Lifesaving Association of Great Britain was formed. National competitions and events help to raise funds for the seventy clubs and over seven thousand trained surf lifesavers that patrol beaches around the coast of Britain from May to September.