Forever the Elephant in the Room – Localism

I just love tackling very difficult subjects that I would normally avoid like a bad smell. In this particular case I have very little choice.

I have an opinion about localism, of course, and I would normally keep this to myself and not go out of my way to bring it up in conversation. I saw something today however, that made me feel a little ashamed, a bit sad and just a hint angry.

After having got out of the water at Supertubos (Portugal), I was getting changed and I saw an English licence plated car driving towards me which had a lot of surfboards on the top. As the less than pristine car drove passed, I noticed the sprayed graffiti down the side and along the rear which read 'Hossegor Locals Only'.  It had lots of other shapes on it that I will leave to your imagination.

This is the sort of thing that happens if people don't share :

Let me explain my emotions here, I am English, I used to live in Hossegor and I now live in Portugal. I could not think of many places on earth that should be more thankful of surf tourists than Hossegor. We all know how it feels to be dropped in on and we all know how it is to be sitting at your local peak and a bunch of guys from out of town paddle out and start taking all of 'your' waves. It is not a nice thing.

Right now that car is driving all over Europe and is a massive advert as why not to go and surf in the Hossegor area. Let's look at the myth that Hossegor has a locals problem. Most of the people who live in the area are employed by in some way or another the surf industry. They know on what side their bread is buttered, and I would like to bet anyone actual cash that the people who did the crime on the car were from somewhere else. I can't say where for the sake of being PC.

What we have is a misconception that is eased on by the language barrier. If a non-French speaker encounters an arsehole in the water who speaks French and pretends to be a local, the non-French speaker will assume that he is a local. I have seen this happen many times. These guys are not local. The offended non-French speaker will then go back their country of origin with tales of French arsehole locals and there we have the falseness.

I have heard stories of localism from all over the world, and experienced a handful of situations personally. At the end of the day, and perhaps this is the moral of the story, is to share more. There is something a bit more wholesome about a surf when you know you have called someone from out of town into the wave of the day, but also managed to get a few good ones in yourself.

A wise man once said: 'Welcome someone to your spot the same way you would welcome them to your home.'