I moved to Torquay at the tail end of 1996. I moved up the coast from Warrnambool, returning to university to complete a journalism degree I’d been studying via correspondence, and moved into a ramshackle old holiday house in Anderson Street. Russell Graham lived across the road. Russell had arrived in Torquay via different circumstances. Back in the late 60’s Russell was at the heart of the Australian surfboard industry, making surfboards for Midget Farrelly in Brookvale on Sydney’s northern beaches. Embracing the counter-culture of the early 70's, he and a mate (Gary McKenzie-Smith) decked out an old school bus as a surfboard factory on wheels, christening it Change Surfboards. They travelled down the coast, stopping in car parks at surf breaks, doing ding repairs and making surfboards. Eventually they arrived in Torquay, where Russell met his wife Barb, and teamed up with Doug ‘Claw’ Warbrick and Brian Singer to make Rip Curl surfboards – Russell glassing shapes from the likes of Wayne Lynch, Pat Morgan, Alan Colk, Doug Rogers, Maurice Cole and, more recently, Michael Anthony.
Russell has spent the best part of 50 years inhaling resin fumes and consequently he’s a bit of an eccentric. I’ve seen photos of him trimming across the face of six-foot waves at Bells Beach bolt upright in the sirsa-ashana pose, more commonly referred to as a headstand. These days he’s taken to wearing a floppy black beret, giving him the appearance of a French intellectual, with his long grey hair tied back in a ponytail and delicately trimmed moustache and goatee.
Over the years Russell’s factory (Moonlight Laminating) has become a popular haunt of mine. When I worked at Rip Curl I’d often sneak across the road for a few moments of sanity and ever since have enjoyed dropping in for a chat, soaking up the atmosphere, the foam dust and fumes. A few years ago Russell helped me shape my first surfboard; a snub-nosed 6’3’’ that wasn’t a complete disaster but not enough of a success for me to ever shape a second. A keen car enthusiast and multiple Victorian Hill Climb champion, he’s slowed down a bit in recent years. He had a quadruple bypass last year and, while he was back in the factory within a few weeks, these days he spends his time on old-school restorations rather than churning out bleached white shortboards (at its peak Moonlight was producing over 1,000 boards a year). His son Corey is back in the factory, shaping and sanding. I interviewed Corey for an upcoming issue of Surfing World magazine. “I count myself lucky,” Corey said. “I don’t think we’ve ever had an argument in here. He’s hassled me to get more work done occasionally but that’s about it.”
Torquay has changed a lot since I moved to town more than a decade ago. The old ramshackle rental in Anderson Street has long gone, replaced by cardboard cut-out townhouses. The uni students have gone too – holiday rentals a thing of the past. But it’s still a surf town. And there are still people like Russell Graham.
