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. You’d turn up there at about 10 a.m. on a Saturday and by lunchtime the whole crew had arrived. I’m not talking about the pedestrianised walkway next to the Thames, which didn’t exist back then, but a paved area beneath Queen Elizabeth Hall that looked as if it had been designed with skateboarders in mind.
The main section was about three feet below ground level but its great virtue was that it had these sloped banks that were perfect for practising one-eighties. We’d get up as much speed as we could, hurl ourselves up the slopes, pirouette at the top, then hurtle back down again. If we were feeling really confident, we’d attempt five-forties, which involved spinning 540 degrees on two wheels. This was counter-clockwise, mind you, and took a fair amount of courage.
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