Sabre lives with her two younger sisters and little brother in an industrial estate called Thornton, thirty minutes drive inland from Newcastle. In my story, I’d admitted that the kid had become my new favourite surfer and Sabre responded with a hand-written letter thanking me and inviting me to drive up and see ’em, “surf all day” and wrap it all up with dinner at Crinitis, an Italian restaurant famous for its crisp pizza bases and delicious toppings. Worldwide press.īest of all, an invite to appear on the insanely popular Ellen show in Burbank, California, and gifts from Ms DeGeneres that included a trip to Las Vegas, five hundred American dollars and tickets to see Justin Bieber on his Australian tour. You remember this interview from November, yes?

I’d become hooked on an eleven-year-old surfer/skater called Sabre Norris, dynamite on a board as you’ll see, frontside airs in surf, 540s on a ramp, but…even better… the owner of a punchy and brilliantly clear mind. Two days before Christmas, I drove to Newcastle to officially anoint my new favourite surfer with a documentary for our Like Bitchin’ series. I wasn’t going to see Craig Anderson, although he remains in my top six, tentatively given his recent limited output, Ryan Callinan, still top eleven despite discrediting my claim that he would win rookie of the year, nor Matt Hoy, the very first surfer I wrote a long-form profile on. “Bringing up a family should be an adventure,” wrote the psychiatrist Milton R Saperstein, “not an anxious discipline in which everybody is constantly graded for performance.”

Where the writer discovers the true meaning of family…

Broken by Mason Sabre