The founder of a Cornish surf brand which is recognised globally has sadly died.
Roger Ward, who opened the first Fat Willy's Surf Shack in Newquay in 1985, had stores open up all over the world due to its success.
His son, Steve Ward, called his dad 'legend' in a heartfelt tribute to him, Cornwall Live reported.
The story behind the rise of the instantly recognisable and colourful range of surf clothing is an astonishing one.
Roger left school in Northamptonshire and trained as a plumber, a trade in which he worked for around four years.
But the recession hit in the mid-1970s which took him down a completely different career path.
He started printing T-shirts in his twin brother’s garage before starting his own wholesale business selling plain T-shirts.
Steve, 48, told Cornwall Live: “Every Saturday he’d drive from Northamptonshire to London, pick up the T-shirts and drive them down to Cornwall and places like East Looe, Falmouth, St Ives and to a surf shop in Newquay called Smile, which is still there.
“He got to know the Newquay scene as a result and sold his T-shirts in a shop called The Village near Sailors.
“Philip Schofield worked in the shop opposite when he was about 15. They met four or five years ago and Philip said, ‘I remember you Roger, I used to stand in for you when you went for a cup of tea'.”
In the 1970s, when T-shirt transfers became all the rage, Roger would fly to New York in the morning, fill ten cargo bags full of the transfers, and manage to get home to Desborough later the same day.
Steve said: “He went to America on a buying trip in 1984, came back and told mum he had an idea. He said, ‘I want to call something Fat Willy’s Surf Shack. I can see it in my mind’. He could even picture the colours.
“Everybody went ‘what?’!”
Did the name have rude connotations?
“Designer Jeff Banks asked exactly the same question,” added Steve.
“Everyone assumed it was about a man’s willy but it’s got an apostrophe so it belongs to a bloke called Willy. Dad never really spoke about it – it was just a lightbulb moment.”
