Cordingley Surfboards – The early days by Jennie Cordingley

Cordingley Surfboards are the longest running surfboard manufacturers in WA. They can be traced back to the Cordingley Bros Rex and Colin Cordingley building boards in their parents back yard in Mosman Park in the mid-50s to 1960. The Bros opened Cordingley’s Surf Shop in Subiaco in 1962 and the business has progressed from there.

Cordingley Surfboards has had several owners since the mid-70s and the shop has been in Scarborough for many years. The current owners, the partners behind The Surf Boardroom, have intentionally retained the Cordingley name in respect for the history associated with the famous surf brand in Western Australia surfing.

In 2006 Rex and Colin Cordingley of Cordingley Surfboards fame were recognised for their services to surfboard manufacturing and awarded West Australian Surfer of The Year Awards.

This history of the early days at Cordingley Surfboards was compiled by Jennie Cordingley (Colin’s wife) with assistance from Helen Backshell nee Cordingley (Rex & Colin’s sister).

In the late 1950s Rex and Col were building boats in East Fremantle. They had the use of the building where Rex had done his apprenticeship. His boss rented it to them for 12 months and they built boats. They both did their apprenticeship as boat builders and were both keen yachtsmen, representing Western Australia many times.

Col had been building timber surfboards at his folks’ home on Stirling Highway, Mosman Park. They sold them from the front lawn of the house. 

At this time, a few balsa and foam boards started to emerge on the scene.

The Annual Boat Show came up and they put in a couple of boats (ski type runabouts) they had built to sell. Also a few surfboards were taken as an afterthought, hoping for a sale. There was more interest in the boards than the boats!  They had to make a decision about their future. They tossed a coin, heads for boats and tails for boards. Tails came up and the decision made. They told their folks that they were going to go into surfboard manufacture. Their Dad advised them to “get a real job with some kind of future” but supported them all the way with the boards.

The next step was to make polyurethane blanks for the boards.  They approached the State Engineering Works to make a cast iron mold that weighed about 2 ton in a rough surfboard shape. They had to use a block and tackle system to open and close it. And huge clamps to close it.

Monsanto ordered the resins from the US in 44-gallon drums. Two types of resin arrived with no instructions and no one in WA knew anything about how to mix it.  There was no Google or You Tube in the late 1950’s! So, through constant trial and error, mixing the two parts together, pouring into the mold and beating a hasty retreat, checking back in 30 minutes to find the same gooey mess they poured in.  The next batch was foaming before the lid was closed.  One time the foam forced open the mold, (which was clamped together) filled the shed then flowed down the back path. Rex got “foamed in” in a back corner.  It took several hours to clean up the shed and the garden.  Humour was always at hand and the boys just went back to the drawing board! Getting the mix right was a long process and after many failures a usable blank was finally achieved.

With no shop front, the finished boards were sold off the front lawn of their family home.  In the early 1960’s, Hank Palloo, an American big wave surfer, arrived in the West for a look. He saw the boards on the lawn and called in for a chat. He was hanging around WA for a few months surfing and he offered to help the boys as he had been making boards in the US. Col called him “Hank the Yank” and he was a mine of information and help on board building. Col’s folks put him up at their house and he worked with the boys making boards in the back shed.

Col was President of Yallingup Board Club and took Hank down to Yallingup for a surf. Hank was keen to try it after Col giving it such a good wrap. Yalls wasn’t working, so they kept going south hoping to find some better waves. They ended up at Margaret River. Hank could not believe his eyes and within minutes was paddling out. On returning to the Yallingup pub for the night, he was so excited telling all the guys about Margaret River, the next day everyone was down there!

The business had outgrown Dad’s shed, so they moved to an old corner grocery shop at 350 Hay Street, cnr Axon St, Subiaco. This consisted of just a couple of rooms. The back room was the shaping and glassing area and the front room became the finishing room. Shop counter was removed, and the room lined with plastic, the air vents in the ceiling were covered so no dust could get in. They would then “seal” themselves into the room with masking tape around the doors. Only removing the tape around the doors once the gel coat had “gone off”. No OCC health and safety in the ‘60’s! These premises, though an improvement on Dad’s shed, were far from ideal. A decision to buy 329 Hay Street, Subiaco, the Surf Shop frontage most remember, was born.

It was an old house and having been concerned about health conditions at the previous premises, they fitted exhaust fans to extract the fumes.  They worked a lot of early mornings (2am). With no air conditioning, it was much more comfortable, and the resins had a longer working time. This made for very long days!

The building had a shop front, really the first surf shop around. We stocked it with surfboards, roof racks from Sydney, and the original UGG boots made in Adelaide, by Tom Arnold.  Uggs were embraced by the surfers but hardly known to the general public!  It became a meeting place for many surfers to come in and just hang out and talk all things surf.

Custom board shorts became all the rage, and as I had a bit of knowledge of sewing, I made a couple of pairs for Col.  He would wear them all the time and everyone who saw him at work or the beach, wanted a pair the same.  Col and I made templates of all the sizes and 3 nights a week we would cut out the patterns and deliver the material to ladies who would sew them, including Jess (Rex and Col’s mum).  A real cottage industry.

We discovered the zips rusted with the salt, so we imported Velcro from New Zealand for the flies and we were even offered the agency for Velcro.  In those days it was unheard of, now of course it’s used everywhere.  Jess pounded the city streets trying to get the stores to stock Velcro and Boans Department store (now defunct) gave it a go. 

We had labels “Custom Surf Wear by Cordingleys” made and stitched on the outside. Another first, as this had not been done by clothing manufacturers. Unlike now!  I loved buying the fabrics for the shorts, floral, stripes or spots, anything that was a bit different.  As no other brands of boardies were available at the time, the louder the better, was the go for the young board riders.

After the success of the boardies we started making parka jackets, which we would stock in the shop or custom make to order.  We also stocked Levi jeans (they had just arrived in Australia about this time) and we were offered the Australian agency for them.  If only we could have seen into the future with Velcro, Levis, and Surf wear…. Look at Quicksilver, Rip Curl, and Billabong now!

We decided to import the blanks from Sydney board maker, Barry Bennett who was blowing his own blanks. Barry had offered advice along the way, but It was much easier to unload a truck each fortnight with blanks ready to carve, than to spend hours trying to make them ourselves. We also made molds for the fins in all colours, from fiberglass.

We were lucky to have had Trevor Burslem a keen photographer and Art Ryan, who was with radio 6PR on our side. They gave us good support and promotion.  The Surf Shop was a great meeting place for all young surfers who loved listening to all the stories.  Later we recruited Dave Ellis, Charlie Campbell, Greg Laurenson, Tom Blaxell, Kevin Ager, plus others who shaped and manufactured the boards.

Another highlight of those years, was in 1964 when US Surf film maker Bruce Brown, contacted us to get footage of the great surf of the Yallingup area. Bruce and US surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August, both big wave riders, all stayed at our house for several days planning the trip.  Col and Rex and took them down south for a week chasing waves to film for the next movie.  The film “The Endless Summer” was released in 1966 and Cordingleys sponsored the premier at the Regal Theatre in Subiaco.  Midget Farrelly and Nat Young, champion surfers from Sydney, came over for the Premiere and signed autographs for the crowd in the foyer. Every seat in the house was sold. The film is now in the in the USA National Nautical museum.  Bruce Brown died in 2017 aged 80 years.

All this was before the population started to grow in the South.  There was only one pub in Yallingup and a pie shop in Dunsborough and not much else.  You had to walk/carry your board through sandhills or down tracks to all the best surf spots, like the Gallows, Cowaramup Bay, sometimes a long hot walk to the beach!  Bruce Brown loved it, even though he got bogged on the track to the Gallows.

The Cordingley Surf Team was founded in 1966. To become a member of the Cordingley Surf Team, you had to be placed in the first three at State level to be invited to join.  Team Members received all their boards free and were presented with the Surf Team Jacket and board shorts. It was a big deal to be part of the Cordingley Surf Team and was really the beginning of “sponsorship” deals. The surf team guys would have their boards supplied and several would design them to suit. This was the start of surfboard evolution from Malibu’s to shorter boards.  If a Surf Team rider had a “special” type of fin or board…. everyone wanted one. Great for business!

About this time, the first professional surfing competition was held at Yallingup and Cordingley’s donated cash prizes.  This had never been done before. 

Life was good. The surfing scene was a growing industry and we were growing with it. We were producing off the rack and custom-made boards and had agents in Geraldton, Bunbury, Albany and Denmark.

We opened a men’s up market clothing store in Bon Marche arcade in Barrack Street, Perth. “The Inshop for Men”. We followed that with a shop on Scarborough beach, the “Surforium”, which was just Beach and Surf Wear. Bill Oddy was poached from Melbourne to manage the shops.

The business was expanding, our name was well known and then fires were started at the Perth menswear shop and the Scarborough Surforium. Both stores had rubbish pushed up against the back doors and set alight. There was not much to save at the Perth store, but Scarborough was not too bad, so we started again.

Later, the Hay St factory and Surf Shop caught fire and with the resins and acetone in the building it just exploded. Police informed us at 2am but when we arrived there was nothing much to save. We started again, moving into a property in York Street, Subiaco. It was just the start of summer, couldn’t have happened at a worse time. We had many orders to fill and we couldn’t let our customers down…. but then ANOTHER fire! It was very hard starting over again and again!

However, we moved to 24 Jersey Street, Jolimont and carried on but it was 1971 when the Cordingley boys decided to call it a day, with concern for their families and health.

Bill Oddy and Charlie Campbell (who had been glassing for us for many years) bought the business and we felt that we left it in good hands.  We had worked with them both for many years.

We loved those years, with lots of memories, new and innovative ideas to work on, wonderful friends and of course the surfing. All the great times we lived through. I think about many of you guys now, who were just kids then, spending many hours in the surf shop and I wonder where you all are now.  Fortunately, I get updates from time to time.

After selling Cordingley’s Col decided to have a look around Australia and ended up in Darwin, no surf but the fishing and shooting were right up his alley. He became a builder and built units and duplexes in Darwin.  A champion Barramundi fisherman, he was known around town as “King of the Daly”. He held the World Title for Barra for many years and was lucky enough to have fished many places including Costa Rica and New Guinea.

Colin was born 26 July 1940 and died 14 April 2014.

Rex later went on to build and operate holiday chalets right on the beach at Jurien Bay. He owned two crayfish boats. and fished out of Jurien for many years.

Rex was born 13 December 1938 and died 13 January 2020.

Now that Rex and Col have passed on, their sister Helen Backshell, is keen to see the story of the Cordingley’ s contribution to those early days remembered.

Helen’s son, Mike” Singo” Singleton, is a keen surfer and has taken on sharing the Cordingley history.  He has quite a collection of the old boards.  I often give him one of those “kids” names when he needs information about a board or some of its history.

Western Australia has produced many great surfers during the past 60 years, and I feel privileged to have been there in those pioneering days, knowing we’ve helped so many young surfers with their dreams.

Special thanks to Jennie Cordingley, Helen Backshell and Mike Singleton for their contributions to this WA surf history post.

Related Content.

Vale Rex Cordingley published 15 January 2020                                              

Mr Clean published 29 August 2020

Cordingley’s Surf Shop story by Mal Leckie published 26 February 2020.

1964 East Coast road trip with Rex Cordingley by Dave Aylett published 2 November 2016

1980 Cordingley Surf Team trip to Rotto published 26 March 2016

1970’s Cordingley Surfboards Team published 16 May 2013.

Colin Cordingley’s Super 8 movie footage of Rocky Point in 1964 published 12 September 2020.

Rex and Colin Cordingley – Cordingley Surfboards sourced from Srosurf web coverage of 2005 WA Surfer of Year Awards.      

Colin Cordingley “barra legend” video courtesy of 9 News Darwin 14 April 2014. Run time 2 min.

—————————————————————