Ian Ingram publishes "Capital Surfers" about Australia's early surf history

The 180-page book features 380 photos, all but five of which were taken by Ian himself.

It also features four of his original articles featured in Surfing World and Surf International magazine between 1967 and 1968.

It all started in 1961, when an 18-year-old Ian Ingram began his love affair with surfing in Narooma, together with his brother Don and their friends, and also brothers Warren and Rod Gilhome.

The four young men from Canberra had been coming to Narooma for holidays all their lives, but it was the arrival of surfing in Australia in the late 50s that kept them coming as young adults, and later led them to travel the world, chasing waves.

“I’ve spent many days on this beach, as we’d been coming to Narooma every holiday since the age of three,” he said, while being interviewed at Narooma’s main Surf Beach. “We basically lived on the lagoon, in our canoes, taking them out in the waves and body surfing.”

He explained it was the American athletes participating in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne that first brought surfing to Australia.

Back in 1961, older resident and local legend Neville Gough was interested in anything to do with the ocean and took the four young boys under his wing, as well as their friend Mick Commins, from Junee.

Neville was known for antics in the water and regularly swam out though the bar and all the way to the surf club, even being struck by a boat’s propeller one day, which he casually brushed off.

They quickly became a tight surfing gang, hanging out with the likes of “Neville, Jan, Peter and Penny Gough, Charlie Bettini, John and Paul Phillip, Geoff Lanham, Alex Gauslaa, John and Paul Pollock, John Constable, Paul Clark and their friends and girlfriends”.

Surfing was so new back then that, one day, the group was surfing off Carters Headland at Kianga when the local dentist looked out the window of his surgery, and noticed them in the surf.

“He phoned the police, thinking that some fishermen had been washed off the rocks and were in trouble, or yet another boat had tipped over on entering  the dangerous bar,” the book reads.

The police and rescuers arrived seeing possibly for the first time surfers sitting on their boards. It made the local newspaper and Neville apparently had to pay a fine at Rotary the next night for sparking the false alarm.  “’Surfies’ had arrived in Narooma”!

There are so many other stories and the cover of “Capital Surfers” features Ian sitting in his VW Beatle at the edge of the Little Lake lagoon on main beach back in 1964. 

The Narooma surfing clan also travelled up and down the coast to spots around Bermagui and they also started surfing with the Surf Riders Club at Broulee.

Both Ian and Don Ingram later left the Narooma and Canberra areas after their studies to travel the world on surfing adventures.

Ian returned with his Angolan wife, owning and operating the Kianga Art and Craft Gallery.

His son David Ingram, aka Benjamin Safari, inherited his adventurous spirit having undertaken his own epic surfing trek walking the beaches from Narooma to Western Australia.

Surfing has changed immensely over the years.

“In those early days we could not have conceived it would ever get to where it got to today,” Ian said. “Back in 1967, we never imagined boards would be just 6-foot long and they would be doing the aerial manoeuvres they do do today.”

Ian is now living up on the Sunshine Coast near Noosa, but was in Narooma in recent days dropping off a few of the books and visiting friends.

His book has already been launched at the Noosa library as he wanted it to be out in time for renowned surf culture writer Phil Jarrett’s own book “A cup of tea with God”, as it was Ian’s article “I think surfing national park at six feet would be like having a cup of tea with God” that was Jarrett’s inspiration.

Ian plans on returning to Narooma in July for the official South Coast launch of his book, with a possible event at the Narooma Library and other locations.

“I grew up in Canberra but consider Narooma my spiritual home and still do really,” he said.

The book is already for sale at the Moruya Books, and there are a couple of copies at the Narooma Visitor Information Centre and Dalmeny campground office that locals can take a look at. Until the official launch, Narooma residents can pick up a copy of the book from Mick and Ann Commins on 4476 1165.