So many words have been said about MR but this is where it all started. Dad Ray got Mark surfing early. Starting first on a surfoplane at Blacksmiths but then on a surfboard by age five. Ray graduated him to Merewether after a few years. It’s all the done thing now, getting kids started real young, but Ray and Mark were the pioneers. Mark joined the Club in March, 1968, surfing in the new Cadet division several days before his eleventh birthday.