When We Was Rad:
Skateboard History from UK Vintage Magazine

This interview stands out as slightly different from the normal way of doing things in R.a.D — it’s heavy on text and light on pictures. I can’t recall the exact details, but I think Shane Cutts might have already done the interview and then offered it to us as a complete package. I liked Jeremy Henderson from the old Alpine and Skateboard! magazine days, so I wanted to do something on him in the magazine and let it run in full, when it should probably have been edited.
Pictures show Henderson and Barker Barret.

Favourite thing for me about this is that it was a chance to print one of those original Mad Dog Bowl pictures, which were originally shot for Skateboard! magazine back in 1978. Jeremy was one of a small group of London skaters who helped me learn how to take skate pictures. Feedback from the skaters (I can remember even doing a slide show on once occasion, for example) taught me what worked and what didn’t. I was also experimenting with multiple flashes, coloured lights and funny effects filter. This shot has multiple lights, one with a yellow filter on it. Others from the same session had diffraction filters on the lens. The filters used to cost a lot of money at the time, so I’d buy one for each month’s issue and then use the money to justify buying another.
Somebody once showed me a comment by Sean Goff, waxing nostalgic about the good old days when photographers like me didn’t use all the multiple lights, tripods and stuff. Although it’s true that I was always horrified by the notion of a photographer getting in the way of the skating in any way, I wasn’t entirely innocent — especially in the early days.
The other picture shows Mike Kepper at Cheapskates.

Shane Cutts is one of Henderson’s contemporaries; another of the L.S.D boys. He’s also involved with one of the new skate companies: he owns Minus K — the only company actually pressing boards in Britain. This is a transcript of what started out as Shane Cutts interviewing Henderson by transatlantic tape, but it’s not just about Jeremy: it’s also about the Shut team, and skating in New York, and coming to terms with yourself. Most of the names mentioned here will mean nothing to most people: they are names of people isolated by time or geography, in the past or on the East Coast of America. But that period of isolation is ending as the barriers come down.

The middle picture of Sean Sheffey is credited to Grant Brittain. Top picture shows Wyloe Singer at the Brooklyn Banks. Bottom picture is Henderson at Mount Baldy!

Jeremy Henderson was one of the biggest names in the British skate scene in the seventies. He deserved to be: he skated rad. At one point his name was associated with freestyle (kick-flips off tables), but he was a raging all round skater very much at home on the streets and in the parks of the time.
Every now and again he’d disappear back home to America and return with a whole bunch of new stuff, acting as both messenger and catalyst in a pre-video age. He was a huge influence on the scene at that time, and a prime mover in the whole L.S.D thing. Then he moved back to America and dropped out of the British scene. But not out of skating. Far from it. He was skating on the East Coast, however, so you didn’t see much of him in Californian magazines. That’s all changing now. The East is attracting much more attention and Henderson’s getting the recognition he deserves. He’s also heavily involved with Shut Skates, one of the new breed of skate companies springing up across the world.

One of the photos on another page is credited to J. Grant Brittain, and one to me. The rest are un-credited, which seems slightly odd.

Get a life, get a fun life, and don’t be afraid of it, cause having fun is what it’s all about. And remember: he who laughs last probably didn’t understand the joke anyway.

Next month: Aristotle — man or motorbike?

Sean Goff caption: Lock up the shop and go round to your mate’s ramp. Sean on the SS20 staff recreation facility.
Gary Lee caption: Go along to some demo on Cyril’s new ramp in Banbury. Just for laughs, not money. Gary Lee

Now I remember: the ramp belonged to a shop in Banbury (a furniture shop, I think) which opened up a skateboard department.

Pictures show Jagger at the same wooden bowl, suggesting it’s Birmingham, and Paul Atkins at Mon’s in spine mode.

You’re born, you’re bored, you live, you die — and noone’s certain why. But what better reason than having fun? So why are so many people hell bent on denying it? Fun of all kinds is rapidly becoming criminal, a subversive act. Fun has become the anarchy of today. If you’re having fun, you’re winning: and a lot of people can’t handle that — because we all know everything is winning to these people.

Definitely the words of Gavin Hills.

Alex Moul and Pete Dosset feature here, along with an indoor wooden bowl from Birmingham. (Might be wrong about Birmingham.)

The truth is skateboard magazines have always talked a kind of crap. They’ve talked this kind of crap because it’s always been more fun and that was skateboarding’s bottom line. Now more than ever, fun should be paramount.
Worldly discussions these days seem to be concentrating on words like ‘freedom’ and ‘democratisation’, but what are these words without fun? They’re what skateboarding is without it: another soul-less slug.

Talking Loud, Saying Nothing.

‘The Visual Language of Glasnost’ has been one of the topics many skaters have been writing in wanting us to discuss. It tops our mail bag, along with ‘Reality, is it For Real?’ Unfortunately our lack of intellectual integrity means we’re only capable of talking crap — so here we go again.

A Gavin Hills line, if ever I saw one. Main picture showed one Barry Abrook at that same back yard, or back shop, mini. Other picture is the overview of the ramp. We always loved the overviews…

The captions read: “Winter sun in Camden. Stuff the market — go skating.” I think that’s Ged Wells at Cantelowes. The bottom picture: “Start the day watching a demo and end up sponsored. Gary Hillard, Cyril’s Boardwalkers.” Not sure where that classic backyard mini-ramp was… At the back of a shop somewhere, perhaps?

Jason Lunn at Mon’s Ramp, from a sunnier time.