The scene was set, myself and three others, who will remain anonymous for reasons that will become apparent, left the small town of Chard in Somerset for the big lights of Cornwall! A friend took us down on his way back to uni, and dropped us off about 2 miles from Newquay, well that's what he told us anyway! We duly set off in the August heat for what turned out to be a 5-mile hike. Being nearly turned into a sacrifice to the god of road kill with every passing car!

We finally got to our campsite and Rico (Sod It i'll name and shame them all anyway) informs us that someone may have forgotten to give him the pegs for the tent (In Rico speech, this means that he's blatantly forgotten them but doesn't want a pasting for admitting it! He had his beer ration halved!)
We put up the tent as best we could, and set off into town. By the time we got there it was heaving, there were people everywhere, not just any people though, townies, and worse than that geordie townies!

We wandered from place to place drinking into a stupor and generally getting very rowdy. We decided to go to a club, and were all walking in when a bouncer decided he didn't like Mr Rico's attire, before we can ambush the Oaf, Rico has informed him that although he's not dressed appropriately he can indeed read and write! Now imagine Tyson fighting Oliver Twist and you get the scale of the damage. We picked up our very limp friend and carried him to the nearest bench. The man was in pain. Chas drew the short straw and took him back to the campsite. Jake and me, well we just carried on. We wandered into a taxi office and booked a cab to take us back to the campsite, the fee for this was £5. Not a penny more or a penny less! We carried on and liquidated our cash until we hit the £5 reserve. Wandered to Berties and waited for the taxi. The journey back was uneventful; we just waffled crap with the cabbie.

When we got to the site, he asked us for £9.50! This came as a bit of a shock to us, and somewhat of a slight panic starter. We argued for a while, then made him call the office to check the price. Our saviour on the other end of the radio confirmed our £5 deal. Mr 'I hurt people' taxi man, was getting ever more irate. We panicked and ran! Jake squealed like a little pig on its first night on a Kentucky pig farm. We sprinted, Jake towards the tents, and me, into the darkness. I saw a little wall ahead and decided to jump it and hide on the other side. Good idea? Would have been if there hadn't been a 7ft drop the other side. I lay there in the brambles, hurting. I could still hear the taxi driving around then I heard "OI" followed by the sound of someone running very fast, then a kind of whoop noise, made by Jake hurdling the wall like a little Colin Jackson. All I saw were legs above me, followed by a thump and a groan!
How I got to bed, I don't know, all I remember is waking up with all kinds of weird shit in my hair and a bad back!

By the time we had our boards sorted and got in, the source wasn't letting us down, the crowds however were. It was a good set up, spoiled by the fact that we had more drop in's than a parachute squadron's training field. All in all a good day though. In the evening, we opted out of heading into town again and decided to stay on the site with of couple of other lads we had met earlier and have a few beers and a BBQ. A great night all round. By morning we were feeling slightly rough, we packed our things and went to the train station, it was at this point that we realised that our friends from the night before had been less than honest with us and had in fact made off with what little money we had left!

Newquay is a good two hour drive from Chard and a bloody long walk; so we decided to hitch hike it. I'm not pretending that this is a good idea, just an idea!
Hindsight is a marvellous thing. In hindsight I would have realised that the only person that would have picked up four scruffy looking blokes with surf boards, would be mentally, unattached shall we say. After about two hours or so a blue ford Sierra pulled over into the lay by and opened his door. From the outset, this man was a pure inbred! We were knackered and decided to get in. We tied the boards to the car and set off. Jake, Chas and Rico sat squashed up in the back and I got stuck in the front with Mr Strange!

I don't know if it was his eyes or the fact he was dribbling that unnerved me more, but every time he looked at me all I could think about was what the police would say to my old dear when they uncovered my body!

We chug off up the road at break neck speed, when he decides to cross his arms behind his head and announce that this was an aeroplane, and he was the pilot! Smell it! We were sitting in it! His hands were abruptly brought back to the steering wheel, when someone cut him up. He slammed his hands on the horn and shouted "You Bastards!" He then turns to us and says, "If I was in my fighter jet, I'd shot that bugger!" You can understand our concern.

By this point we were getting really worried. Thankfully he shut up for a good half hour, I was falling nicely asleep, when I heard him mumbling. "You boys smoke?" We looked at each other, free fags! Best not be rude we thought. "They're in the glove box if you want one." He continued. I remember thinking to myself; maybe he's not that bad then. Then I opened the glove box! It looked like big bags of smarties, I just looked at them. "You boys take drugs?" We all just stared at each other; it was like a scene from Snatch! We all kept really quiet after that!

As we got into Chard, he asked where we wanted dropping, being polite and scared we just said wherever was best for him. "Where you boys want dropping?" he said in a louder tone. "Wherever is best for you." We replied. "WHERE DO YOU BOYS WANT DROPPING?" he screamed. "HERE, HERE, HERE!" we pleaded. The car skidded to a halt in the middle of the road, I opened the door as fast as I could, but forgot the seatbelt, the boys too were also having trouble, there were kiddie locks on the back doors!

Without warning the car sped off again with us all trying to get out! Suddenly he just stopped the car in the middle of the road, looked at us, smiled and said "There you go boys, is how's that for you?" We grabbed the boards, not even bothering with the bindings and just ran. For the love of god we ran!