GCSE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Paper 2 Writers’ viewpoints and perspectives
Insert
The two sources that follow are:
Source A: 20th Century literary non-fiction
Morning Glass
An extract from Mike Doyle’s autobiography, published in 1993.
Source B: 19th Century non-fiction
The Hawaiian Archipelago
An extract from a letter written by Isabella Bird, published in 1875.
Please turn the page over to see the sources
IB/G/Jun18/E8
8700/2
, 2
Source A
Source A is taken from Morning Glass, the autobiography of professional surfer Mike Doyle. In
this extract, he describes his introduction to the world of surfing at the beach near his home in
California in the 1950s.
1 The first time I ever saw somebody riding a
surfboard was at the Manhattan Pier in 1953.
As much time as I’d spent at the beach,
you’d think I would have at least seen one
5 surfer before then. But there were only a few
dozen surfers in all of California at that time
and, like surfers today, they were out at
dawn surfing the morning glass. By the time
the crowds arrived, they were gone.
10 But this one morning I took the first bus to
the beach, walked out onto the Manhattan
Pier, looked down and saw these bronzed
13 gods, all in incredibly good shape, happier and healthier than anybody I’d ever seen.
They sat astride their boards, laughing with each other; at the first swell they swung their
15 long boards around, dropped to their stomachs, and began paddling towards shore. From
my viewpoint, it was almost as if I were on the board myself, paddling for the swell, sliding
into the wave, coming to my feet, and angling the board down that long wall of green water.
It was almost as if I already knew that feeling in my bones. From that day on, I knew that
surfing was for me.
20 There were several surfers out that day. Greg Noll was just a kid then, about sixteen years
old, but he was hot. On one wave he turned around backward on his board, showing off a
bit for the people watching from the pier. I was just dazzled.
Once I’d discovered there was such a thing as surfing, I began plotting my chance to try it. I
used to stand out in the surf and wait until one of the surfers lost his board. The boards then
25 were eleven feet long, twenty-four inches wide and weighed fifty or sixty pounds. When
they washed in broadside, they would hit me in the legs and knock me over. I would jump
back up, scramble the board around, hop on, and paddle it ten feet before the owner
snatched it back – ‘Thanks, kid’ – and paddled away.
Most surfers at that time were riding either hollow paddle-boards (a wooden framework with
30 a plywood shell), or solid redwood slabs, some of them twelve feet long. The much lighter
and much better balsa wood boards were just starting to appear.
One day in 1954, when I was thirteen, I was down at Manhattan Pier watching a guy ride a
huge old-fashioned paddle-board – what we used to call a kook box. It was hollow, made of
mahogany, about fourteen feet long, maybe sixty-five pounds and had no fin. It was the
35 kind of paddle-board lifeguards used for rescues; they worked fine for that purpose, but for
surfing they were unbelievably awkward. When the guy came out of the water, dragging the
board behind him, I asked if I could borrow it for a while. He looked at me like ‘Get lost, kid.’
But when he sat down on the beach, I pestered him until he finally shrugged and nodded
toward the board.
IB/G/Jun18/8700/2
, 3
40 I’d watched enough surfing by then to have a pretty clear idea of the technique involved. I
dragged the board into the water and flopped on top of it. After a while I managed to paddle
the thing out beyond the shore break and got it turned around. To my surprise, after a few
awkward tries, I managed to get that big, clumsy thing going left on a three foot wave. I
came to my feet, right foot forward, just like riding a scooter. I had no way of turning the
45 board but for a few brief seconds, I was gliding over the water.
As the wave started to break behind me, I looked back, then completely panicked. I hadn’t
thought that far ahead yet! My first impulse was to bail out, so I jumped out in front of the
board, spread-eagled. I washed up on the beach, dragged myself onto the dry sand, and
lay there groaning.
Turn over for Source B
IB/G/Jun18/8700/2 Turn over ►
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Paper 2 Writers’ viewpoints and perspectives
Insert
The two sources that follow are:
Source A: 20th Century literary non-fiction
Morning Glass
An extract from Mike Doyle’s autobiography, published in 1993.
Source B: 19th Century non-fiction
The Hawaiian Archipelago
An extract from a letter written by Isabella Bird, published in 1875.
Please turn the page over to see the sources
IB/G/Jun18/E8
8700/2
, 2
Source A
Source A is taken from Morning Glass, the autobiography of professional surfer Mike Doyle. In
this extract, he describes his introduction to the world of surfing at the beach near his home in
California in the 1950s.
1 The first time I ever saw somebody riding a
surfboard was at the Manhattan Pier in 1953.
As much time as I’d spent at the beach,
you’d think I would have at least seen one
5 surfer before then. But there were only a few
dozen surfers in all of California at that time
and, like surfers today, they were out at
dawn surfing the morning glass. By the time
the crowds arrived, they were gone.
10 But this one morning I took the first bus to
the beach, walked out onto the Manhattan
Pier, looked down and saw these bronzed
13 gods, all in incredibly good shape, happier and healthier than anybody I’d ever seen.
They sat astride their boards, laughing with each other; at the first swell they swung their
15 long boards around, dropped to their stomachs, and began paddling towards shore. From
my viewpoint, it was almost as if I were on the board myself, paddling for the swell, sliding
into the wave, coming to my feet, and angling the board down that long wall of green water.
It was almost as if I already knew that feeling in my bones. From that day on, I knew that
surfing was for me.
20 There were several surfers out that day. Greg Noll was just a kid then, about sixteen years
old, but he was hot. On one wave he turned around backward on his board, showing off a
bit for the people watching from the pier. I was just dazzled.
Once I’d discovered there was such a thing as surfing, I began plotting my chance to try it. I
used to stand out in the surf and wait until one of the surfers lost his board. The boards then
25 were eleven feet long, twenty-four inches wide and weighed fifty or sixty pounds. When
they washed in broadside, they would hit me in the legs and knock me over. I would jump
back up, scramble the board around, hop on, and paddle it ten feet before the owner
snatched it back – ‘Thanks, kid’ – and paddled away.
Most surfers at that time were riding either hollow paddle-boards (a wooden framework with
30 a plywood shell), or solid redwood slabs, some of them twelve feet long. The much lighter
and much better balsa wood boards were just starting to appear.
One day in 1954, when I was thirteen, I was down at Manhattan Pier watching a guy ride a
huge old-fashioned paddle-board – what we used to call a kook box. It was hollow, made of
mahogany, about fourteen feet long, maybe sixty-five pounds and had no fin. It was the
35 kind of paddle-board lifeguards used for rescues; they worked fine for that purpose, but for
surfing they were unbelievably awkward. When the guy came out of the water, dragging the
board behind him, I asked if I could borrow it for a while. He looked at me like ‘Get lost, kid.’
But when he sat down on the beach, I pestered him until he finally shrugged and nodded
toward the board.
IB/G/Jun18/8700/2
, 3
40 I’d watched enough surfing by then to have a pretty clear idea of the technique involved. I
dragged the board into the water and flopped on top of it. After a while I managed to paddle
the thing out beyond the shore break and got it turned around. To my surprise, after a few
awkward tries, I managed to get that big, clumsy thing going left on a three foot wave. I
came to my feet, right foot forward, just like riding a scooter. I had no way of turning the
45 board but for a few brief seconds, I was gliding over the water.
As the wave started to break behind me, I looked back, then completely panicked. I hadn’t
thought that far ahead yet! My first impulse was to bail out, so I jumped out in front of the
board, spread-eagled. I washed up on the beach, dragged myself onto the dry sand, and
lay there groaning.
Turn over for Source B
IB/G/Jun18/8700/2 Turn over ►
