Alan Johnstone Sk8 History

Today I took an extended lunch and drove over to my mum’s house. When I got there I was a bit disappointed to find her car in her drive and her bum in the armchair.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love my mum, but she wasn’t the reason for my visit in the first place. I only had about 40 minutes free and I didn’t have time for a cup of tea and a chat – I just wanted to skate in her big, empty and beautifully smooth double garage. I needed a fix and her presence was like a padlock on the medicine cabinet, it got between my drug and me.

My addiction can be traced back to 1985 when my older brother got his grubby mitts on a Santa Cruz Rob Roskopp with florescent Gullwing trucks and Powell wheels. It was a beautiful board (and still is - I know as it’s in my mum’s garage too) but I wasn’t allowed anywhere near it. After a few secretive goes I was hooked, and after a couple of fairly routine pummellings from him, when I was discovered, I managed to persuade my parents to get
me a board of my own.

Enter the Powell Peralta Per Welinder street deck and a couple of Turbo 2 standard trucks. I loved this board, and perhaps due to some sort of sentimental attachment it still ranks as my all time favourite – fantastic wood, with a shape and concave that was like stepping into my favourite pair of trainers… it just felt right.

By this time a couple of my mates had caught the bug too, as had one or two of my brother’s friends. Together we formed a fairly tight little group; out every night, skating the streets, rain or drizzle, and basically having a great laugh. We learnt drop in’s off walls, ollies, four wheels slides, bonelesses, acid drop’s, sketchy rail slides, but probably just had the most fun dicking around doing luge style ‘coffins’ down big hills and narrowly avoiding going under the wheels of local motorists. In this time we also built a blatantly dangerous ramp, resulting in two of us getting arrested for robbing wood from building sites and one of us (I think it was Kev) doing himself some serious mischief on a rouge six inch nail. The ramp didn’t last long and, after a year or two, neither did our commitment.

One by one we started drifting off to concentrate on other things, primarily alcohol and the fairer sex. I think I gave up largely due to the incessant whinging of a portly lass I was seeing called Helen Jackson. Basically I replaced the love of my life with something that left me with nothing but feelings of inadequacy and smelly fingers – it wasn’t a good swap.

Despite my defection I always kept my last board (a classic Dog Town which, surprisingly enough, is still in my mum’s garage) and from time to time would have a quick five minute tic-tac when there was no one about. I knew the addiction was still there, burning away inside me, but for some reason I’d resigned myself to going cold turkey and blocking it out.

As time scurried on I went to college, got a job, went travelling, came back and got more jobs. Girlfriends came and went, I went places and came, music changed and still that need to skate stayed the same, an itch that could only be scratched with one particular 7-ply finger.

Eventually, in about September of last year, I just thought ‘fuck it’. I was sick of suppressing the desire, sick of worrying that I was too old and sick of not having any real non-alcoholic interests that just made me feel 100% alive. So, I bought a skateboard.

Since then, apart from the odd session in ma’s garage, I haven’t had many chances to get back into it. Nevertheless with that fuck it decision, I’ve given two good friends the prod in the back that they needed to get boards too, and I think now we’re all up for giving it another proper go.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be any good (I doubt it, and I’ve never skated a proper ramp or a bowl) but I do know that I love it and I really want to give it a shot. Nothing compares to that feeling of just flowing on a board, feeling it under your feet and knowing that you’re home at last. I don’t think I’ll ever loose that, and I’m just plain fucking chuffed to find other people that feel that too.

If you’re reading this and you’ve got the itch folks, I suggest you scratch it. It feels pretty fucking good.