Im sure that my story is pretty typical of most Old skaters.
It must of been 1976 when me and my mate Ian butchered a pair of crappy old rollerskates and nailed them to a plank (literally). Ian was spolied rotten so it wasnt long before his parents gave into his whinging and bought him a shiny new board.It was made of plastic with swirly coloured deck and red wheels. I remember the first time he came to our house with it, i was so jealous !! we took turns falling off it. I had to wait till my birthday to get my first board, a pretty basic Skuda fibreglass deck with clear wheels and a kicktail on it (Brilliant!) We used to roam the streets and terrorise unsteady pensioners. We got into lining up cans and having slalom competitions with other kids. Ian lost interest after a while but i was hooked. Some other kids had built a halfpipe in a carpark and the local residents complained so the council decided to build a skatepark up my road!! literally 200 metres from my house!. It was the blacklion skatepark in Gillingham Kent. I was up there everyday whilst they were building it, they even let me in to make me feel important at 10 years old ! I helped them wire together some of the reinforcing rods. I tell you it was the most exciting thing seeing them shoot concrete and sculpt this marvel. There was as keyhole shape deep pool, a half pipe with half bowls at each end, a snake run with a huge bowl at the end, and a freestyle are with graduated banks and a weird banked area at the end. By this stage i had a couple of birthdays and christmas's and had an Alva dogtown deck with a set of gullwings on it, narrow trucks on such a wide deck looked bloody stupid but needs must,.Eventually got a set of california slalom trucks with some belair lipbombs so didnt look too bad then!. When the park opened it was run by a company and cost 50p a session that lasted a morning or afternoon (i think). You had to wear a coloured badge and pads/helmet etc. I remember that first summer the park was manic, I wanted to be in there all the time but ran out of 50p's pretty quick so spent a lot of the time looking through the chain link fence, poor me you might think but i had been found out for nicking 50ps out of my dads pocket so serves me right! . Eventually after a couple of years most kids lost interest and the company that ran it went bust so the park was open to anyone for free. I was in there day and night, sun and rain everyday. We eventually moved out of the area and never returned. Blacklion was bulldozed in the 90s i think, what a shame i would love to go back and have a go. I have still got all my kit and have even started to buy old copies of Skateboarding magazine off Ebay. I have even been out and bought a new deck recently to try and get my 10 year old son interested. Ive got my own business and earning good money now so who knows perhaps i will have my own Blacklion built someday before i get too old........
The Gillingham Skatepark was featured in a UK Skateboard magazine in the 80s. I had a copy but lost it. I would love to see it again if by chance anyone reading this has a copy.....
Great memories...
Phil Millington