Pictures show Shane O’Brien skating Great Bedwyn and Joe Millson on one of his two ramps. Joe wrote the “The Bird, the Boy and the Bat” which apppeared in the Backdoor View feature in a later issue of R.a.D.

A bloke in a black T Shirt with ‘Preshure Empire’ on it had come into Macs and was talking with the skaters. The bloke was a hip-hop DJ and the skaters were asking when they were next playing because they wanted to go along and skate there again — something about Shove-it Kick- flips off the stage.

Yes, Zed thought, they certainly seemed to get up to a lot for a place where there was nothing to do. He listened as they planned a trip a couple of stops down the railway line: there was a metal surfaced mini- ramp in a village called Great Bedwyn. They were arguing again: the one who wore all the black clothes and talked so fast was really into this ramp, but others wanted to go to the bigger one at Ramsbury or the small one in Marlborough. Meanwhile another claim was put in for staying right here in town and skating the little mini they’d just finished building at Grant’s. Or they could go out to Vinegar Joe’s because he’s got the new mini in a barn so they could always skate that if the old one outside’s wet. Or maybe Sean’s one down the bottom of the speed run hill. The argument raged on. Zed laughed to himself: they were spoilt for choice. It was so different now from when there had just been himself skating all alone at night on the banks and that older skater, Grant, who skated on his old back-yard ramp and nowhere much else.

Yes, he’d grown to accept these new locals. He’d long since stopped resenting them. They stoked him and, if he admitted it, he envied them. They skated hard and they skated so many places. He wished he could go with them to skate all these countless new spots around the area, or join them when they hired a mini-bus and took off to Romford or Southsea.

He even felt a sense of pride when they came back from something at Southsea which they described as a ‘street competition’, full of how they’d done surprisingly well because their banks had taught them to cope with a steep ‘pyramid’ which everyone else had avoided. Sometimes he couldn’t understand what they were talking about, but he cold fully relate to the way they were talking — and the way they skated their banks. He wished he could join them and, to be honest, he wished he could do some of the things he saw them try.

But now it was nearly ten. Funny how for Zed it was always nearly ten. The rituals of a country town were repeated: the skaters had to go now, they had no cars, buses were rare and ringing their parents for a lift brought unwelcome attention. Zed left too, as he always did. Time to skate. But where? There were so many choices open to him now. He could go anywhere and yet he chose to go, as he always did, to the banks round the back of McDonalds.

The American security man watched the kids go with a smile and then frowned. He’d just noticed the table at the other end of the bay: it was still piled high with discarded packaging, although nobody had been sitting there for hours. That was all he needed: the manager had complained that he spent too much time being friendly with those skater kids and not enough time doing his job. Still at least the air conditioning had stopped playing up for the night and it wasn’t so damn cold any more.

Out in the offices behind Macs another security guard was beginning his night’s work. The day man had had nothing to report, but then, he never did: all he did all day was sit in the office playing music real loud and letting the world go by. The new night man would have none of that: if the world wanted to go by, he’d stop it first, ask it what the hell it thought it was doing, and make absolutely sure it had the right passes and all of them up to date. But in this town opportunities to do that were sadly rare, he suspected.

Or were they? His ears pricked up at a familiar rumbling sound. He smiled. This wasn’t a big city like the last job he’d had, and he hadn’t expected this. And only one of them, by the sound of it — all the more fun for him: if it was a little kid out late he could really spin out the verbal, really scare the shit out of him. He scanned the closed circuit TV screens. Nothing. They said the whole building was covered — which just shows what they know. The sound was clear enough: the rumble, a momentary pause, a clang and then a clatter as the board skidded away down the stairs. Again and again and again.