Lane Beachley

It was all as a, you know, this mentality that I had to do it on my own because I am on my own.

I'm an abandoned adoptee that was rejected by her own mother.

I have to prove to you and everyone around the world that I am deserving of love somehow.

I was working, was anywhere that someone would have me.

So I worked in, of course, a surf shop.

I worked in retail.

I taught people how to rollerblade because at the back of the surf shop was a rollerblade shop.

So I taught people to rollerblade.

I taught people to surf.

I worked in a restaurant, a cafe.

I worked in a pizza shop called Beaches Pizzeria, which was both a

blessing and a curse because I got free pizzas, but that made me really fat.

And then I worked from like six at night till 11 at night making and delivering pizzas.

And then I'd go straight from there to my second job, which is the old mailie boat shed just down the street.

And I'd work from 11 at night till three in the morning.

When were you surfing given all of this?

Between 7am and 8.30am because then I had to be at the surf shop at 9.

So there were days when it was just too hard to surf.

And then I started training in the early 90s as well and that training was between 5.30 and 6.30 because our personal trainer, Rob Rowland-Smith, was also a schoolteacher.

So it was pretty intense.