When We Was Rad:
Skateboard History from UK Vintage Magazine

Category: Skateboard culture

  • Get up and skate everywhere to the point of exhaustion

    Ouch: this is so painfully close to the truth. The idea of having a carefully written out list of tricks to master was no fiction. My hunch is that a lot of people had such things. Their five year plan. Or one month in this case. As usual Gavin was writing about a deeper truth.…

  • Gavin Hills on skateboarding in Ireland in 1989

    Only the double act of Vernon-and-Gavin could have handled this for us. Gavin seldom got the chance to address his bigger themes head on in R.a.d, though he was always true to them whenever he could sneak them in. There is nobody else I would have trusted to attempt this — certainly not myself. Sheryl…

  • Whose Line is It Anyway? (Part 7)

    The main picture of Jeff Hedges is by Claus Grabke. I wish we had run more like that now. Inset shows Mark Abbott and Shane O’Brien. This was the last page of a remarkably long feature. Too long perhaps, but it does provide an interesting sense of the skateboard culture in Britain back in 1989.…

  • Whose Line is it Anyway (Part 6)

    Paul Davidson at Bloblands (Norwood Park), just up the hill from the sad quarter pipe on the cover of Rollin’ Through the Decades and just down the road from where I sit writing this. Now stop for just a moment. Go back again and read that lot. It’s no more true than the first piece.…

  • Whose Line is it Anyway (Part 5)

    The skater was credited as Patrick Hughes [actually Pat Phillips, see correction below], shown here at the private mini-bowl on the St George’s (?) estate in Weybridge. This was (and still is) a posh private estate with its own security force and home to sundry celebrities, including some of the Beatles at one point. This…

  • Whose Line Is It Anyway (Part 5)

    Jay Podesta’s photograph shows Will Bankhead skating ‘somewhere in the City’. This was around the time that the City of London started to get really hostile to skateboarders. Do you get pissed off with people coming on better than you on the grounds that their skating (or type of skating) is better than yours? It’s…

  • Whose Line is it Anyway? Part 4

    A crashing change of gear takes place at this point. It’s hard to work out what the idea was. I have a feeling that the first part of this feature was written by Gavin and that the second part was by me and that this page is the dividing point. I think I detect a…

  • Whose Line is it Anyway? Part 3

    I really like this picture of Nicky Guerrero, taken by Claus Grabke. I wish we had run more images like these. Conformity breeds stagnation which spreads like a plague of death and destruction, and napalms our very souls. Instead of going for the latest trick, go for a new line. Tramlines may be in vogue…

  • Whose Line is it Anyway? Part 2

    Great picture of Reuben Goodyear skating a playground in Kensington, taken by Jay (Podesta). Everyone’s got a line in them unfortunately today more and more are choosing tramlines. They’re stuck in a groove and won’t break out. Mini-ramps have brought many good things into skating, but on the down side they’ve given many skaters a…

  • Whose Line is it Anyway?

    Picture shows Shane O’Brien at Neasden, and it’s only when I look it at it now that I start to appreciate why we ran it (I took the pictures but tried to leave the choice to other people). This feature looks like one of those excuses to run a load of pictures we liked…