Shaun Tomson at 71a

South African-born Shaun Tomson has lived a long and storied life, kicking off in the 1970s as the trailblazing face of the ‘Free Ride Generation’, a renegade crew of Antipodean surfers who helped legitimate surfing as a professional sport. In 2006, Tomson’s life took a tragic turn when his fifteen-year-old son Matthew accidentally died playing ‘the choking game’, wherein kids asphyxiate to get a brief high.

Tapping into the same determination he showed in the water, Tomson has since channelled a personal inner-strength into inspirational talks and books that aim to help others find positivity in every situation. As he told us in Huck 34, when we visited him at his Montecito home: “You never know who needs what you can give.”

On Monday March 10, 2014, Tomson will join us at 71a – Huck’s gallery in Shoreditch, East London – for The Light Shines Ahead, an inspirational talk in which he draws on lessons learned – from growing up in Apartheid South Africa to surfing the world’s most dangerous waves – to provide an account of facing life’s hardest challenges by looking towards the light (a core principle of his book The Surfer’s Code, Twelve Simple Lessons For Riding Through Life, which spins surfing-based aphorisms into beautiful parables). Within this story of tragic loss and miraculous rebirth, he reveals that the lessons of a life spent surfing are the lessons of surfing through life: every moment holds the possibility of failure and tragedy, every moment the promise of success and happiness.

Join us at 71a for The Light Shines Ahead – An Evening With Shaun Tomson, by signing up at EventBrite. Entry costs £10 and all proceeds go towards creative writing centre The Ministry of Stories.

Brought to you in association with the London Surf / Film Festival.