Right then…..
From reading the histories already posted, my foray into the dark and devious world of skating started a little later than most.
Cast your mind back to valentines day in 1985, my best mate's birthday. He turned up with a skateboard that he had got off his parents. It was one of those market stall specials - There was the tiniest amount of kick in the tail, and I think the deck actually felt convex as opposed to concave. The board was nicely trimmed in lots of plastic - rails, lappers, copers, tail protector, the works, and the logo on the bottom was emblazoned with 'Skate Ratz' or something like that.
Anyway it was off to the park with this new pressie as there was some nice hills that could be used to good effect. The day passed by nicely with Pos (my best mate) and I bumboarding and kneeboarding down the hills whilst trying to steer around dog shit that littered the place. This became a routine activity and over the next week or two we progressed to standing up on the thing without falling off too often - a landmark achievement given the abilities of the board.
At some point I saw a mate's little brother who I bought some skate bits off for myself and built my own board up. The deck was made by Variflex and was in poor condition, so I promptly filled in some holes with Polyfilla and spray painted it to look like the red/green chequered board off the 720 arcade game (remember that?). This board was a Rolls-Royce compared to Pos' which was starting to fail already due to plastic bearings not being up to the job of actually rotating, and we were blissfully happy just cruising around having moved out of the park in favour of the streets where we lived - we were that good!
It was a small town where we lived and before long we happened across some other skaters sessioning the fire station. We knew these guys from school and went over to talk to them. They had a chuckle at the boards we had and promptly informed us that what we rode was shite. Imagine our amazement when we saw one of the lad's jump in the air with his board and land on it again - skating would never be the same for us again!
Skating with these lads on a regular basis soon showed us that our boards were not up to the job as it was physical impossibility to do tricks on them, and besides the Polyfilla had fallen off my board! I bought a new blank deck and fitted my old kit to it since it was serviceable, and Pos bought a full pro set up second hand - we had arrived. We now were regulars on the local skate scene and having the lads to skate with was fundamental in learning new tricks as they were better us, so we had someone to copy. The first mountain to climb was learning to ollie - this took a long time but once mastered took us to a new level. There is no better feeling that learning that first trick and I would have to say that it can feel better than sex - at the very least it lasts longer!
We skated the local scene for a year or so, getting better all the time and our numbers had grown to about a dozen regulars who sessioned all the usual spots. I then had the idea to skate over the Humber bridge (we lived at one end of it) to see if there was any skateable terrain in the town at the other end of it - a trip of about 2.5 miles.
I'll never forget the first time we skated into the town centre car park over there and were faced with about 40 skaters!!
Anyway, introductions were made, tricks shown, and friendships formed. There were a few good places to skate and the numbers that skated upped the ante in the tricks stakes as everybody pushed each others technical abilities. Our skating was now at it's height and most nights would see us skating over the bridge to Hessle to see our northern counterparts. My parents would go for days out at the weekends and we would now tag along if they were going somewhere good. Fortunately they appeared to think nothing of having a car full of skaters and we would visit the likes of Nottingham, York, and the Holy Grail - Manchester!
We were getting quite good by then and kickflips, boardslides, impossibles were the order of the day. We used to take great delight (it sounds mean now) in turning up at a new place and skating crap in the presence of the locals in order to let them think they were better than us. We would then turn up the heat and skate to our full potential and then a really good session would ensue.
We lived this life for 5 more years or so and every waking minute for me involved skating, travelling to places on insignificant dates such as Christmas and new years day, and more skating. Hessle by now had a ramp (rolled steel transitions - how cool is that?) which Pos favoured and was becoming quite the vert boy, Me - I was street through and through.
Then, the sorry demise came that features in all our tales. People slowly stopped after discovering cars, drugs, women, and drink (delete as applicable), and it came to a head for me when I fractured my ankle skating and was out for a couple of months. I never started again.
By this time I was 20'ish, had a job, car, girlfriend and my life headed in a different direction. Year passed by and events saw me getting married, moving to Newcastle, and having kids, the usual stuff.
I had maintained a passing interest in skating, watching the X games whenever it was on and I often had my dinner in Newcastle watching skaters do their stuff. I had got my board out a couple of times (yes I still had it) and had a dabble but that was all, nothing more.
It wasn't until I heard that a new skatepark had been built in the city centre that I decided enough was enough - at the age of 31 I was starting again!. I decided to use my old board instead of invest in a new one for two reasons:
" Young grommets wouldn't have high expectations of an old boy on an old board
" The new skinny boards feel awful under my big feet
When I first went I felt apprehensive, but then I thought 'Bollox, just go there and do your thing!'
I did just this and 6 weeks on I can still feel the pain from hitting the concrete very hard in my first slam for 12 years (fuck me it hurt)
I realise now that I never used to skate transitions in the past (I'm street me, Remember?) so trying to skate them after over a decade of not skating was unwise. I been again since then and took it steadier, concentrating on street furniture and just basically trying to get my flow back - This was a better approach.
Any worries that I had regarding been too old were unfounded as I have met a few 30+ fellas and there is a 45 year old that goes apparently.
The youths were cool about it also. Remarks ranged from:
" What's that?
" Did everybody ride those?
" Isn't it heavy?
" Can I have a go?
" This is cool!
Having had a look on the web was amazed to find sites such as this, and even more impressive is the fact that you can still buy original gear from my era. As a result of this I now have some more G&S Chromoly trucks and a couple of decks that I used to skate on all those years ago. I like the idea of being the old(er) guy skating on that funny board doing cool tricks - it probably won't end up like that though…..
I don't get there as often as I would like due to family commitments which can be frustrating, but the future looks bright from here on in!!