IT’S the sport of kings, well Hawaiian kings at least, but these days surfing is no longer the preserve of royalty who are lucky enough to enjoy a year-round summer climate.

As our pictures show, in Scarborough this week some 50 hardy souls braved the spine-chilling North Sea to practice their ‘cutbacks’ amid ‘cranking’ waves in ‘cooking’ conditions.

South Bay may have been ‘messy’ – choppy, ragged waves caused by a strong onshore wind – but for hardened surfers it made for perfect rollers.

Just look out for that kayak over there.

Meanwhile, around the corner at Cayton Bay, ‘Gremmies’ – or beginners – were in good hands, despite the gale, with instructors from Scarborough Surf School, including John Bagnall.

“We can make it safe in any swell really,” John says.

“I think Scarborough is one of the best surfing beaches on the east coast. People are getting wise to the quality of the waves and its popularity has risen ten-fold in the past five years.”

Not only surfaholics are drawn to the resort. John says the sport is fast becoming an alternative day out for hen and stag parties.

Surfing may be synonymous with California, where it was introduced at the turn of the 20th century, but it didn’t really take off there until 1959. This was thanks mainly to Gidget, a movie about a teenager’s initiation into the Californian surf culture and her romance with a young boarder.

One of the stars, Cliff Robertson, was among the first to start a surfboard business on the West Coast, because at the time there wasn’t a local maker. All the boards for the film had been shipped in from Hawaii.

A new culture began to grow up around the sun-kissed beaches and 1960s California became the place to be, with its own vocabulary and fashion, not to mention music.

The Beach Boys are easily the most notable surf band, even though Dennis Wilson was the only one who actually took to the waves, but surf music originated with Dick Dale and The Del-Tones.

However, by the time I Get Around peaked at number one in 1964, followed by iconic songs such as Good Vibrations and Barbara Ann, the Beach Boys had been firmly crowned the new kings of surf.

But surfing isn’t anything new to us Brits. Captain Cook had already recorded sightings of “natives riding waves stood on wooden boards” when he sailed into Hawaii, but the sport arrived here in earnest on the back of its popularity in California and Australia.

Jersey had surfers riding the waves of St Ouens on wooden long boards by 1959, followed three years later by Newquay, where cult riders rode the new fibreglass Malibu boards. Once contact was made between the Cornish and Channel Island surfers, sporting competitions followed rapidly and the British Surfing Association was formed.

The craze spread with new surf spots discovered across the country and a cottage industry sprang up. Now just about every wave-blessed part of the British coast has become a surfers’ playground, with something like 250,000 aficionados taking the plunge every year.

And while they might not enjoy the perfect climate of California, at least surfers in Scarborough can ride all year thanks to their neoprene wetsuits.