Save skateboarding’s sacred spot

I made my first skateboard at the age of 12 by pulling apart a roller skate and nailing each half to a plank of wood. Less than half an hour later, my mother was taking me to the family GP to have my little toe stitched up. She decided to buy me a proper one after that. Thus began one of the happiest periods of my life.

Skateboarding was more than just a hobby. It was a source of identity. I’m sure that’s as true today as it was back then, but in 1976 it had the added cachet of being virtually unknown outside a tiny circle of devotees. It’s not an exaggeration to say I knew pretty much all of them. We felt that odd mixture of superiority and fraternity that comes from being early adopters of a new subculture.

The reason we all knew each other was because there was only one place to skateboard in London: the South Bank.