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Am I alright to wet my whistle quicky?
[Yeah.]
No, no, no...
Wait, wait wait! Come on!
What are we doing?
Put it right by Lance's face.
- Yeah, there we go. - There we go.
- Can we get a... - Yeah.
- Rolling... - Check mate.
- Check please.
Czech Republic.
- Czechoslovakia. - Czechoslovakia.
How bad does that look?
You got me thinking, I'm a bit...
Are you allowed to swear in it?
I'm 53 years old.
Old enough to know better.
It's the most unlikely thing to find
in this suburban semi-industrial bit of Essex.
I always found it quite magical, coming over here.
I think about this amazing kind of lunar landscape.
Like tonight you look at beautiful blue skies.
The way the shadows kind of come off everything.
I never ever get bored of walking through the door.
I actually think about Dion and Jonesy and Rob
and Graham, and the people thatare sort of there, every Sunday
It is a group of people that you really associate with Rom.
People come over and they, they just get on.
Why would you go to Rom?
Which is rough...
Looks a bit tired and you have to pay to get in.
Well, you've got to go there for a special reason.
What's special about Rom?
Well, the pool is the thing above all which is special.
But not only is it a pool, it's a sort of legit pool.
It's a tough, scary bastard of a pool.
that you know, makes you feel a bit afraid
everytime you drop into it.
You go there to immerse yourself in 40 years of
British skateboard history.
And to sort of be wrappedup in that whole thing
of being back in '78,
and by extension back into the backyard pools of California.
To step into a landscape...
where you've got this pool,
which has been consciously designed on the back garden
pool of an American film star
or whatever.
Where kids used to break in and skate around.
In cultural terms, that's absolutely extraordinary
when you think about it.
I mean, when did you guysstart doing the whole
kind of breaking in and draining pools?
It's all fake.
That's so fake.
[Is it?]
Yes. It's all lies. All myth.
Every time Dion skates the pool
he's in California
and Dion's skated backyard pools in California
He knows what it means. It'snot just an imagination for him.
He's done it. And that's what he's doing.
We went out to Palm Springsone year.
and actually got to drain a pool
and skate and do that whole thing, you know?
And it was just like, I couldn't sleep that night.
I aimed to do all my life. it's just, I've done it. What
You know, it's part what, what it was about for years.
think God, love to do that. watch it in videos and
But if there's just not pools like that over here.
There is breaking in.
There was, there was...
But it's still like romanticallyblown out of proportion.
You don't just come here andrip this park.
It's got its own flavour and its own scenario.
You'd put a little...time and energy.
Maybe you two can rip this park,
but you don't justcome here and start ripping.
[CHEERING]
Wow! Yeah!
Oh whoa!
You gotta want that rip.
[YELLS IN PAIN]
Nothing's free here, you know.
Rough and... Rough and steep and deep and gnarly.
But it's good.
I tried to find it and I couldn't find it.
I drove past it several times.
There were no signs sayingskate park here.
You know, it's almost as if it's deliberately hidden away.
As this sort of slightly kind of secret society...
Or like a golf club that you don't see the golf club
because it's up the driveway and behind the trees
and behind the fences.
It's got a little bit of that character.
It's this sort of extraordinarything when you finally find it.
Adrian Rolt from G force, who are the people that built Rom,
went out to America, looked at a load of skate parks.
Saw Skateboard Heaven at SpringValley and some other parks,
came back to Britain
and started building a wholeseries of skate parks,
which effectively they built during 1978.
Rom is one of the last tobe built.
But the very last is one in Gillingham
called Black Lion Skate Park right at the end of '78.
They all have this kit of parts,
of a Pool, and a Half Pipe, anda
Snake Run, and some Moguls, and a Cloverleaf, and so on.
But Rom is the only one that hasthe full set of all those bits.
I was a professional skater
and other professional skaters came to the Rom
while it was being built,
and they saw the quality of the construction,
and they warned the owner that it wasn't good enough.
It wasn't smooth enough.
I mean they had someproblems building Rom.
It was built in one of the worst summers in British history with rain.
It finally opened in the August.
It was supposed to have opened at the beginning of
the six weeks holidays...
But it pissed rain all Spring so they had a lot of trouble
finishing the concrete.
And it finally opened in the middle of August.
And it just, I remember walking in for the first
time and just like, 'Wow'.
We'd never seen a skate park. There was no such
thing in England, you know.
That we'd had really any proper experience.
It's just... Died and gone to heaven!
And I've been in heaven ever since! On and off, you know.
So then he talked to his architect and the architect
searched a few resources
in the skateboard industry and found me.
I had been in California.
I had skated skate parks thereand I might know what the
standards of a skate park were..
What is required?
And so they hired me to come out here and consult
with this construction crew.
They had made this bowl and part of the halfpipe.
And it was really rough.
It was uneven surface, not suitable for the
rest of the skate park.
So, I consulted them and they insulted me!
It was a rough day or two there.
They were really hard on me.
Construction crew up against a20 year old kid from California
who is a skateboarder.
They listened to me though and you can see how the
rest of the park is smooth.
Except for the largeaggregate in the sand,
which makes it a rough surface.
It's a smooth design.
The local papers were full ofthis news about this skateboard
park thats going to be opening.
And so I went over, tookthe tube over and saw
them levelling the land.
Saw them putting down the steel frame for the concrete.
I actually started skating it before it opened.
So where the workers would be there laying the concrete and I
would wait until they went home.
And try skating the place.
Sometimes the concrete was a bit wet, so it
wasn't necessarily good.
There was this mouthy, gobby little ginger haired guy
that turned out to be Robbie Hunter.
He said "They're buildinga skate park across the
road from my house".
So I'm like "No they're not!".
"Yes they are, come and have a look".
So, alright.
So we came down the upperRainham road,
looked over the builders hoarding and sure enough
this place was being built.
The first thing that was built was the Performance Bowl.
We used to come down here at night, jump the fence
and skate a bit when the builders had gone.
We got chased out.
I think they got wise to kids getting in, they sort of put
security guard here I think.
You couldn't get in here in the evenings.
I must have been such a pain in the backside for the
builders and for the owners.
One of the most evident changes at Rom today
is how much rougher it is today
than when it was back in'78 when it was first built.
The park was so brandnew. The concrete was
a bluey, bluey white.
Yeah, it was all white. Pure white when I
come over here
You got like a white residue on your wheels
coz it was so new.
It had only been open about three months.
But I just remember it being a bright day.
The Rom skate park was so clean and the pool
Still looking that crystal white, with a sparkle to it.
It felt like a different world from like a grey rainy
council estate in Essex.
And I thought, yeah, this is a life, this is
a place I'd like to be.
And somehow they built this little corner of California
all grey and rain streaked..
But nevertheless, a little corner of California
in Hornchurch.
No one knew how to make a skate park. They just
started pouring concrete.
What they thought America had poured, you know?
They had no idea of thesethings. It was all experimental.
The fact that you guys got that stuff built,
and it's still there is just...
It's incredible.
Rom is the complete collector's edition of G force skate parks
and has everything in it that they they ever built.
We're in Romford right?
I feel like I'm in San Diego!
That transition, not just in sporting terms
but in cultural terms, indesign terms is amazing really.
And so, to see these designscarved out of these holes
in the ground in Essex.
A county I should add,
where Americanism was really significant.
Because of the American air bases in East Anglia
to a certain extent, Dagenham at Fords,
which is an American intervention.
You see this a lot across Essex and across East Anglia.
For myself and many, many other kids of
my generation growing up in the '80s,
we were just thrill seekers.
We was spoonfed a hell of a lot of stuff that
come out of the States.
And we just, we just lapped it up, you know.
We were a dry sponge, we become a wet sponge and
we just lapped everything up.
I set about every single day.
Every single free moment I had practising.
Doing every trick in the book, You know, reading
every American magazine I can get my hands on.
So to see this sort of little pool of California,
this little bit of California onthe edge of Hornchurch in Essex
in 1970s Britain, strikes all sorts of chords
with me as a historian.
And that's why the more I saw it, the more I thought about
it, the more I thought...
This is an important place. This has got to be preserved.
It's special, you know.
You go all over the world, people know this place.
And to have you on your doorstepis, yeah, it's a privilege.
It was so well organised.
You had to pay on entry,
had a cafe,
had gaming machines.
You had a shop, youknow, it had everything.
And then you walkedinto the skate park
and it was just anoasis of a playground.
For bikes and skateboards
and it's in Romford, seven miles from my house.
Here we go. Here's Rom.
So my memory is shot.
So I actually might've gotten knockout at Rom.
We heard that they're starting to have skate
parks around the world.
I was like, I want to go.
And my dad wanted to show me some more museums, so
we went on a little...
excursion that was awesome.
Trying to find these parks
and skate them.
We fell in love with it.
My son went when he was older and he was like, I belong here.
I don't want to leave here.
Kind of was saying to me like, you don't understand.
I was like, Oh, I understand.
We did the same like,
but because of skateboarding I felt like I belonged
there, but I'm living here.
It's Rom right here.
Hornchurch, Essex.
Simply the biggest and the best. No question!
Come see for yourself.
So I guess it is the biggest one.
Safety equipment for hire,
fully marshalled,
first aid room,
pro shop, cafeteria, club room,
amusement machines!
[BRITSH ACCENT] 80 Pence for two hours.
80 Pence.
Well there you go.
Well this place was originally owned by a consortium
of oil wholesalers,
They owned petrol garages, etc.
They decided to build the Rom skate park in the boom time
when other big companies were getting involved
like Tate and Lyle.
They thought there was a fortune to be had.
And I used to come here coz I used to wholesale skateboards
because my brother builtthe first skate park in London,
which was Skate City.
The word went out, you can go and tip hardcore
at London Bridge.
So all the lorries in Londoninstead of going out to
Bedfordshire to tip thier loads,
would come into skate city and tip their load
and get bunged a few quid.
So my brother was earning thousands of pounds and
made a great big hill.
Then they concreted it and everyone came down
this hill like
[VROOM]
Hit the bottom and broke their arms.
Couldn't stop!
Oh this is good isnt it! Help!
I used to have a van and go around the country selling
skateboards to the shops,
and this was one of my calls.
And I got friendly with the owner.
and he said, "Do you want to take it on?"
I said, "yeah, I'll take it on".
I think the first day I stood behind that counter,
I took about £1.40.
It was disastrous.
but we carried on, endeavoured ocarry on and it turned out okay.
[dogs barking]
I used to have two Dobermans,
We used to clear the skate park at two o'clock.
They'd run round and get everybody out.
Never bit anyone!
They were just frightened ofthese Dobermans for some reason!
They were always under my control.
But, that was just the story that grew and grew, you know?
Lovely when I think about it.
[Do you think you've mellowed with old age?]
I think I have, yeah.
Big bad John, you know.
Big John got this place in '78,it had been open six months.
It was going bankrupt, it was going to shut.
He walked in the door, sackedeveryone, took over, got his own
staff and he is still here now.
It's unheard of man.
And he didn't even skateboardbig John. You know what I mean?
Unheard of.
I mean it's been amazing whatthe Greenwood family have done
with that place over the years.
You know, all credit to them sticking through it
through thick and thin.
John and John, they deserve medals for that.
It's amazing what they've done.
I ran the skate park from 1978 until five years ago
when my son took it over.
It's a testament to the Greenwood family that
have kept it going all these years, you know.
Its on it's arse at the moment, as a business,
but they still keep it going.
I think they know how important it is to people.
To be able to bring my kids here now and for them to enjoy
the same things that I did,
and see it the same way.
Yeah, that gives you a really good feeling.
It's not about making money anymore.
It's about my old man's legacy for one.
He's done 30 years
working there every day and it'slike be a shame just
to tear the place down.
Like he obviously cared about it or he wouldnt
have stayed for so long.
John and his dad, they've done an amazing job
keeping this place going.
Cause there's been hard times with those guys.
It got to the point threemonths ago when I had
minus £2,000 in my overdraft.
And that was it, game over.
So literally... I'm on the edge.
In English law, historic buildings can be listed.
That means they're protectedfor historic purposes.
Grade 1 is St Paul's.
You know, you can't even breathe on that structure,
without filling in a form in triplicate and
being denied six times.
Grade two is the most common
and it basically means that whatever is considered
to be of historic value
cannot be altered or knocked down without approval.
Wow, so Rom can't be bulldozed?
Oh, that's wonderful!
You can't really consider a building for listing until
it's about 30 years old.
So skate parks for a start, fit very much within
that 1970's bracket.
Simon Inglis at English Heritage gave me a call
and said, "We're thinking of listing a
skate park in England,"
"and we're thinking of listing Harrow skate park."
"So do you think this is a good idea and
have we got the right skate park?"
So I said, "Well, my short answer is yes and no.
Yes, it's a good idea, but also,you've got the wrong one".
The first skate park that I wentto in my professional capacity
was the Harrow skate park.
A local authority skate park,
from a historical and anwhich to me was very interesting
architectural point of view.
because it had many of the elements of a
classic 1970s skate park.
But it was clear to me that there had been
certain changes
certain adaptations, some of the bits had been
filled in, and so on.
My last trip, I remember visiting the Harrow
skate park which...
Really, it was reminiscent of when I started skating.
And there were, you know, a handful of old
'70s parks still around
That was 1980.
And that was my first experience in skate parks and
really with skateboarding.
And so when I see one of those spaces, you know, one of
these sort of heritage spaces,
it brings back a lot of memoriesand great feelings, you know.
At that time skate parks weren't perfect,
but in a way like,
you associated the imperfections of the skate park
to part of his character.
And of course talking to skateboarding people.
The words 'Rom skatepark' come up repeatedly.
Romford to us, was we travelled miles to come here.
[Mecca] This is a Mecca for us.
Coaches, buses, trains.
However we could get here, we'd get here.
So the key thing was to
find examples of skate park that were both
interesting and well designed and that had survived.
And this was the most important thing,
that had survived intact.
And the Rom skatepark immediately came to the
top of of that list.
And the skate park of course, is not a park in
the conventional sense,
but it's not a building in the conventional sense.
It's a bit of concrete that follows the contours
of the designer's pattern.
So in that sense, it is truly a designed landscape,
but it's built out of concrete.
The people in charge of designation of listing at
English heritage
haven't really come across anything like this before.
You skate a park like this, and it's not just about
skating individual features.
It's skating between them and skating from one end to
the other and then moving from one to the other.
And you just build this experience and
probably every time you come here trying to mix up the order
and you mix up the direction you go in
and you just, you know, if you have a whole different
experience every time.
And you know, it's just... it's just amazing.
It's not a cathedral, it's not a monastery.
It's not a great house.
It's about fun. It's about recreation.
So when I thought about listing a skate park,
I knew that I would be testing the boundaries.
Heritage is not about history.
It's about what we consider tobe important about our history.
Clearly what we value about our heritage now in the
beginning of the 21st century
is different to what people valued
in the fifties or the sixties orthe seventies and so on.
It moves on as we move on.
So coming here today was kind of reminder,
a throwback to when I was younger and more energetic.
Kind of gave me that thrill of when I first
started skating parks,
back in... Way back when.
And so when I proposed the skate park for listing,
just thinking this is going to test the boundaries,
but at the same time feeling, no, this is important.
This is a sport that was established in the '70s,
and has taken root in this country.
At the same time, I thought this is going to be a battle.
One is fighting battles the whole time, uphill battles
to preserve buildings
and I'll be honest, we lose more than we win.
People see dollar signs, probably flattening it
and turning into housing or something like that.
and so there's always this sort of struggle to keep skate
parks sort of alive really.
At the same time we found that,of course, there were people
working now for English Heritage
who had skateboarded in their youth.
And instead of looking at this proposal and saying
"Come on guys, we can't do this, there's going to be all
sorts of opposition to this".
They were saying "Yeah, we get this."
And that's the bottom line really that BMX and
skateboarding and all these places and going to Rom,
it was about having fun, you know.
We were enjoying it.
It's an amazing life to to be able to do that.
To come here and have the Mogul Bowls and have all
the different concrete waves
and meet with these other different skaters and be
influenced and inspired by
the latest tricks, things that were going on.
The films that were coming out.
I mean Rom skatepark really was a place where
dreams were made of
if you were that age and into skating.
There are certain type of people, they are.
The Romblians I'll call them.
Skate park communities overall, is they're
largely without class,
largely without racism,
bigotry and so forth.
There's not a lot of that inside a skate park.
Because we tend to find that our priorities are different.
The priorities tend to be,
people are much more interested in keeping their
bones inside of their skin,
and their teeth inside of theirmouth. Rather than leaving
them on the bottom of the ramp.
They like rough surface.
That's all I can say.
You know, this place is a predator.
The Skate park is your predator.
And you're the pray, man,
and some days it'll let you get away of it.
Other days it will chew you up and spit you out.
And you've got to be scared of it.
If you come here and you're notscared of it, you're an idiot.
Because you're going to get hurt.
'Rom Rash'
I don't know what it was like back in the day.
It must've been a lot smoother back then.
If you go down at Rom, you stay down down.
[You alright?]
[INAUDIBLE]
Soon as you look out the door, there's a pool.
Jesus Christ, look at that, you know.
You know, you go in and you think, right i'm just going to
go in there easy today cause I know it took a lot of victims.
They always do, pools.
You lose yourself. It's like a madness.
You just go in there and just fighting these walls.
And just think, oh i'll have you.
In your head, you just feel I had to do that to you.
You know, it was like it gets personal when you're
in these pools, you know.
Just want to rip them up a bit and get your 'Ugh' out of you.
People always go in thinking they'll rip the shit out of them, you know.
It basically it backfires on them, somewhere along the line.
In the pool, I broke my wristwhen I was about twelve in '87.
Compound breaks - Bones sticking out.
Face first into the ramp,
his teeth literally popped up on the deck.
No 'Hampsteads'eleven years later.
Knocked myself out, knocked my teeth out.
I've had nine knee surgeries.
Broke my hand, broke my elbow and foot.
I've got severe arthritis in both knees.
Heart! On many occasions.
It doesn't stop me riding unless I ride three or
four times a week and then I'm hobbling everywhere.
If you come to a place like this and you get on
a bike or a skateboard, you've got one in the post.
If you're scared of it, that's when it's gonna happen
and you shouldn't be here.
You gotta have a bit of a kamikaze way about you and
in you, to want to do it and not be scared of slamming.
When you relax it don't happen as much you know.
And even if it does...
Tough shit.
Brush yourself off, try again.
If I've been hurt and I can't skate for a couple of weeks,
It's so frustrating.
My wife will tell me, "For fucksake. Go and skate. Go to Rom".
[See you later Adam!]
[See you later mate!]
[Love you, take care!]
When I left school, worked at Halfords, nicked a few stereos.
I want to work in a skate park.
It's not a proper job.
What's a proper job?
Like what? Grow up and be an adult. Fuck that.
I didn't want to grow up. I wanted to be Peter Pan,
and this was Never Never Land.
And still is.
There was a family vibe to it. Endless days of skating
and it didn't cost...
All it cost you as a pot noodle and a couple of Cherry
Cokes really wasn't it?
So there was that little bit of one-upmanship, you know.
Who could do the best trick with the best poise,
elegance and dexterity?
Dressed in the best clothing, you know, with
The best floppy-ist fringed hair cut you could have
got at the time as well.
Romford has been my local, yeah, for 35 years, like
my entire adult life.
You know, and all my teenage years.
Romford was the place that I always wanted to come to
no matter what.
I don't know what it is about Romford.
It's just, I don't know.
Like you know, I'll have my ashes scattered here probably.
It's one of those places. It's just part of who I am really.
I couldn't drive past here and not come in.
I don't think my car would let me.
I would have to go the long way round.
I'd be fighting the steering wheel!
I love the place.
I don't know what I would have done if it wasn't for Rom.
I really don't.
Lot of the people I work with and associated with,
were up to no good lot of the time.
I think I would have found myself dragged into that.
It's kept me on the straight and narrow really.
It really did, you know.
I've the best and the worst days of my life over here.
We were pretty poor.
I remember coming over here in my P.E shorts and
Georgie Best's football boots.
But, yeah... Rom!
This is home.
It's not like, Oh, this is my second home.
This is my first home and has been forever.
You build up a family. There's a community.
I lost my mom young...
And remember the day I lost her, the first thing I'd done,
two hours after her dying in the hospital, was come here.
And everyone's like, why is he here?
Where else could you go?
I didn't want to be at home with my family. I wanted to be here with my family.
Because people just kind of let you get on with it.
He asked me, he said, "You got any photographs
and things like that?"
I said "Yeah some old photos".
I thought it was going to be abirthday surprise or something.
He's come in one day with this big tattoo on his leg
So I was flabbergasted when I saw it.
[What do you think?]
I thought it was... Weird.
And strange to have it done.
But love and affection to him. He bares his soul, doesn't he.
It's love and affection.
You can be you and you're accepted for it,
which is the beautiful subculture of BMX,
skateboarding, skating whatever.
You kind of, it's come one come all.
There's less judgemental people at a skate park
than there is in a church.
It teaches kids everything in life.
It teaches them, if you want something, you have to
work towards a goal.
It embeds a life philosophy in children that you can't buy.
The era that grew up in skateparks have that thing
about their skatepark.
And it's... You can't shake it.
Guys I know from Rom, I've known my whole life.
Me and my wife been together eight, nine years now.
We actually met through this.Wemet through her daughter,
her youngest daughter,Charlotte came over here,
started skating with us.
It's actually how I met her!
Rom was a real mixture ofdifferent types of people.
But they were pretty... I'd say peaceful if
you, like, you know.
Pretty rad as well.
Some guys there that could just skate.
Yeah my first time I come down Rom...
And there was a guy in the tiniest velvet shorts.
Skating the pool and that was it.
Ragging around the pool, front-side grinds.
No one else there man.
Beautiful.
Absolutely amazing.
It must have been Graham.
It's the only thing I can say,it's got to have been Graham.
Graham's unique, he's got his own style.
He's got a very surfy style skater, which I like.
You know, that kind of old school skating
is hard to replicate unless it comes naturally.
It took me a little while to getused to his sarcasm, I think.
But everyone knows about that. His little rants,
you know what I mean?
The main thing I know aboutDion is that he's always at Rom.
I don't think I've ever been at Rom when Dion isn't there.
He's in there, I mean, he's already defining
so many things, you know, causeyou know, he had a bad accident.
I fell off a scaffold, broke my ankle, knee and hip.
I was off work about 18 months.
I was registered disabledfor a while.
They told me I'd probably never going to walk without stick.
And say, probably in 10 years you're probably be in a chair.
17 years later, I'm still going strong,
so I proved them wrong.
He's grinding that pool and that.
It's actually unbelievable.
You know, that is a story on it's own.
You know, some people call it like a midlife
crisis don't they?
You know what I mean?
You're either... Some people are unfaithful aren't they?
You know with me, I think itwas back to the boys with toys.
You know, I've been a father, I'm been working for all these years,
putting on weight.
I was in a sales job,
and, you know, growing a family and that.
I never really had much of an outlet after that, hobby wise.
Once I had given up the pubs and the clubs, and the raving and all that.
It you know what I mean.
I had a lump in the side of my face here.
I went up there to the hospitaland they told me, yeah, you
have got Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma,
which is like a really bad one.
Obviously. I was quite upset when I was told that but,
mainly thought of my kids to be honest,
You know you do, don't you, when you hear bad news.
Got fixed after that time and just ended up with a big
'Mars Bar' down the back of my face.
And I thought, you know, I've got to try and live again.
Yeah, when growing up and everything and I was
an angry kid, you know.
All the boys I rode with back in the day, you know, I'd
be like throwing my bike...
F you, F this, F that and everything.
So angry at the world.
I'd been adopted, I'd been nurtured, I'd been
given love and affection.
But I still had this rage inside me.
We were just running around lawless,
but we wasn't horrible little fuckers at
the same times, you know.
We'd grown up in a Thatcherite Britain
and what Thatcher taught us was you be the best you can be...
But use everyone beneath you as a stepladder.
I had sort of associated skateboarding with being very
noisy and to certain extent sort of quite them and us.
I was nice and I was white and I was polite.
I was described as like thetriple threat.
Hold my hands up. I was a bloody good shoplifter
when I was a kid.
And that's how I earned extra pocket money.
People wouldn't even turn their heads and
look at ya, you know so.
Well... Yeah.
There is very much a sort of sense that they come from a
subculture of which you as a passer-by can't really enter.
I'm a 58 year old, born again skater.
There's a whole fraternity out there of people of varying
ages. It's okay to skate.
And that's what I really like about this place.
It's a big mix of people. It's a very large college
if you like, of individuals.
Very eclectic group.
Oh, like a family community of like Rom and all the
locals who come here.
More than friends, really.
You get people from all backgrounds and walks
of life who do it.
Right now I'm in media, so I do a lot of video production,
events and we also have film studios in Las Vegas.
So I'm a contracts manager now, and I'll deal with
scaffolders all day.
A lot of them are like cavemen. They've got no understanding
or appreciation for anything like that.
I'm a carer. I do one to one care for disabled and
mentally handicapped people.
I'm a senior examiner for the Civil Aviation Authority.
So I'm flying the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
Full time occupation, nine to five Mac engineer.
Nonetheless, there's this idea that what you do outside
of your job
is compensation for the things that you put up with
within your job.
Where I give so much of myselfto my job and the people I've
worked for, and support I give.
There has got to be a point where I've got
to become myself again.
I thought it would be nice to just dabble and have
a skate now and again,
but it's not like that. It getsunder your skin before you know
it, you're hooked ain't you?
You know, I'm over here mostdays. I can't help it, you know.
I'll pull up on a job andopen my boot up and my
skateboard's always there
You know, I take it wherever I go.
"What the bloody hells that?"
It's a skateboard!
"Oh! What are you going to get for Christmas? An Action Man?"
[Now with eagle eyes that actually move!]
[Look out all these fantastic uniforms specially
designed for Action Man].
[And his eagle eyes!]
Really taking the piss, you know!
I'm like whatever... I don't even try and defend it
anymore. It's just like...
The chap from English Heritage,one of their buildings inspectors.
And I just noticed there was a Rom skatepark sticker
on his guitar case.
And he said, "Oh yeah, it's great, isn't it?"
And this is the guy whospends hours looking around
archaeological sites and lookingold cathedrals and things.
It is mainstream.
And that's certainly, I think that's certainly
the case with skateboarding
and the whole kind of creativity of it.
You know, people make films, they do photography,
they do tattoos, they make boards,
they run board companies.
You know, often alongside their kind of regular jobs.
So it's not just skateboardingitself, it's the creative stuff
that goes with skateboardingas well that attracts people.
You know, someone like Monkeyglove Matt.
No idea what he does for his day job,
but he takes really great pictures and
a lot of them at Rom.
So for him, part of presumably the attraction of skateboarding
is not just the skateboarding itself, but the photography around it.
What I really enjoy about it isthat it's capturing that moment.
I almost want to look throughlens. I kind of want toget in there
and I have been hit a couple of times,
which strangely enough, in a weird way I enjoy.
So there's also a bit of a sadomasochistic element to it.
But I guess it's part of, for me,
it's the skater getting that trick, landing that
trick and being able to just capture that moment for them,
is something that I just really enjoy.
Skateboarding now, it's got quite a strong identity.
It didn't then, you brought Dunlop green flash or baseball
boots from Woolworths.
That's what you skated in you because we could only
dream of Vans, you know.
That skate world is sort of, really kind of dictated
whole sneaker culture
and streetwear, street fashion, from sneakers to
graffiti, and to a certain extent, even a lot of music,
has been influenced by that kind of freedom of expression
that skateboarding is.
It's a massive thing, isn't it? There's a music culture,
there's a fashion, there's a language, there's lots of
aspects to skateboarding.
Well, this weekend we have the unique experience of the
20th anniversary of the first piece that was done here at
the Lakeside hall of fame,
also known as the concrete gallery.
The first piece was done in August, 1999 by myself.
Been heavily involved in the English graffiti scene since 1983.
Been a massive collector of anything 1980s from clothing
to BMX bikes to music.
I get involved. I like to get involved. Yeah.
I'm all or nothing. I'm all or nothing. Yeah.
There's a strong bond betweenart and music.
It's like a stick of rock. It runs straight through the middle.
You know, Ted Nugent, Led Zepplin and it was like [SCREECH]
Blondie and Devo and it was like wow. And it was
like, this is our thing.
Skateboarding said this was our thing and skate parks, all
it did was blast that music.
I think it's a really great match with skateboarding, art,
street art, skateboarding,
and the whole ethos of skateboarding. The do it
yourself thing,
graphics on the bottom of boards.
I think it's a really nice thingthat works together. You know,
I think skateboarding really is like a school of hard knocks
and you've got to try, try, try.
You keep getting battered into the ground until
you get it right.
And that is a perfect preparation for doing
a piece like this.
You know, there was always a real divide of being
outside and inside
and the barrier of the fence.
I guess the fence is a real, not so much an inspiration,
but it's a really big bit of Rom, you know, that divide
from being outside to inside.
And then getting in and havingall this geometry to kind of
discover to be able to carveyour own lines for it, you know.
Freestyle it, free flow aroundthis structure. You know,
that's what really inspiredthe piece.
I have always been an artist, always painted as
a kid like every kid does.
It wasn't until I started skating I became aware of
graffiti and street art.
And that kind of
alternative art scene with like graphics for skateboards and stuff like that.
Yeah, I think they're completely linked.
I started skating when I was about like 10/11 years old
and we used, back then we had no skate parks where I'm
originally from in Cambridge.
So we used to travel around EastAnglia, London, Essex
and go to the skate parksand I remember
my mum bringing me here when Iwas probably about 13 years old.
Yeah, it was pretty intimidating when you're a
kid, this place, you know.
My first childhood memory is my dad throwing me in a fire.
And then at seven years old my dad is beating my mum up.
I ran in with a kitchen knife tostab my dad to protect my mum.
The police and social worker turned up at school and says,
we heard what happened last night. You're coming with us.
That was the 24th of December, 1979
Christmas Eve, I got locked up.
I was brought up to, you know,honestly I was a little racist.
The area I grew up in, there was no black kids.
I meet my foster parents and my dad's black.
I used to walk like six metres behind him because
I was so embarrassed with the colour of his skin.
35 years later, he's still my dad.
In BMX, I would say 99.9% of BMX riders went through
tough times.
And same with skateboarders. Same with people that
came to this skate park.
They all came here because this was a sanctuary
and so that's what it's about.
It's not about where you came from. It was about being
in the moment riding that bowl, riding the skate park.
And that's when you can let it all go because you're present.
It's our meditation, really.
So many people I was around had similar backgrounds.
I really did turn all the negative energy ito into positivity.
I mean it's an art form when you're skating or bike riding.
#seratonin#
#swimming around my head#
#seratonin#
#love this pool#
#How am I coping?#
#with the tiles and no water#
Skateboarders are generally, not the outcast, but maybe
they don't fit in with the normal kind of sport.
I'd like to say it was weirdos,at first.
It was weirdos.
Skateboarding is seriously funny. I mean a lot of
is escapism, you know.
Like just that feeling where you're like, you had all
these things you could do.
I think it can be bad and it can be good.
So I don't escape completely. I know it's a joke.
I know it's for the entertainment to
entertain yourself. That's part of it too.
It's something where you do it for yourself.
That's what I love about skating. There's no rules,
nothing you have to achieve.
It's just personal.
Maybe that's why it attracts people of a certain type,
who don't fit into society's, you know, view of normality,
whatever that may be.
More entertaining yourself.
Like you do stupid things andyou see like people react like,
Oh this guy is such a loser. And you're like,
Oh that's great. They think I'm a loser. It's so rad.
Like, it's great. This might be British,
I don't know. Or it might just be childhood, like
weird things I haven't dealt with.
My name is Brent Lewis and I'm the CEO of The Far Academy.
[What do the The Far Academy do?]
We're an alternative educationprovision.
So we work with kids throughoutthe UK. But generally kids
who are not engagedin education or vulnerable kids.
And then we'll use skateboarding
as the educational tool to get the qualifications that they need.
So yeah, the memories here is incredible and, it's
so raw as well that's what we like about it.
And the kids generally will go to timber parks and
those crappy council ones.
This one is... They're blown away. They completely...
They're out of their comfort zone and it pushes them.
And I think, well how can Ihit that line? And they're doing
completely different lines whatthey ever thought they could.
So yeah, it's an amazing place to be.
Kids get into skateboarding andBMX when they can't necessarily
get into other things.
And they get led into this kind of sport
and I think they wouldn't have any kind of form of
expression without this park and these sports.
This is what I think is super important about skateboarding
is it's given an avenue for kidsto find themselves on their own.
And for some kids they find all the things that organised
sports are supposed to design.
They find those things and find other things on their own in a better way.
They find how to learn and fall, stick at something and
be passionate about something.
And in doing so, they learn allthese other skills accidentally.
It's unbelievable how many skateboarders
turn into and develop into
pieces of society without any real schooling.
Skateboarding itself schooled them, figuring things out on
their own, developing things,designing things, making things,
using their brain in a way that developing thought
that isn't just taught.
Skateboarding is like pretty oneof the most important athletic
things that develop character.
I think it's different typesof character. There's a freedom
to it, which can be dangerous,
but there's also a very much self-willed get it done,
figure it out, do it yourself, which is super important.
And that you can't be taught that you learn it yourself,
by falling down and getting hurt and getting back up.
That was like way too long.
Find someone that can say thesame thing better and use that!
The end of the '70s skating died off and BMX
was massive in Romford.
BMX was immense.
That's when E.T came out, the film wasn't it?
It just... Boomed!
Like a mushroom.. Unbelievable.
This place was jam packed with BMX riders, you know?
BMX kind of came into the scene around '79/ '80,
what I got involved in.
And I would say around 1980 was when I first had the Grifter,
ready to ride the Mongoose, but went over there on the Grifter.
Hello, I'm the new Raleigh Grifter.
I've got a new twist grip for my three speed gear,
brand new saddle design,
and look at those chunky tyres!
And I noticed that the skateboards, you see a few,
it's still a big scene.
But it looked overtaken by with the bikes. It was
just BMX bikes everywhere.
In the '80s this place was dominated by BMX,
absolutely dominated.
You see photos from the '80s and it's like hundreds of kids sat
around all the bowls and you know, definitely
the boom years for BMX.
The place was packed.
There was probably 150 to 200people most weekends, you know.
I think what really got me, it was just all
these amazing colours.
I can still see it like itwas yesterday, these reds and
yellows. Yellow tires! I hadnever seen a yellow tyre before.
That for me was, that was it.
I was hooked on the scene and the sport and it
kinda just snowballed from there for how I loved it.
They're like, well, driving lessons or BMX?
That's a no brainer isn't?
Didn't learn how to drivefor another 15 years after that.
I got a BMX for Christmas.
It was a Raleigh, beautiful black and gold Raleigh Ultra Burner.
You know, without realising at the time.
But was a sort of a game changer
in the sense that it probably dictated everything else that
I've done ever since, really.
You just wanted to look thebest, you wanted to be the
bollocks, you was 14 years old.
You was riding around with a £300 bike between your legs
and dressed like Bjoörn Borgoff of center court, you know.
How the sport was moved on, we weren't really that good.
I think we've just there at the beginning, we were
just in a little bubble!
Yeah, iI think with us lot, we was more like stunt riders
really than anything else.
A Stupple! It's a bit of an ego trip calling it a Stupple.
Yeah, I suspose it is really.
Not really any other name you can call it.
Where do you practise a stunt like that?
I mostly practise at Romford Skatepark
I think now, the riders now,
have got a lot more finesse in what they do.
Putting runs together and that. What we used to do was
just go a bit mental really.
It's a gentle skatepark like youcome here and it's just like all
'70s transitions, you know. It'sall rollovers and it's all...
I've come here to... It's relaxing for me.
Romford's relaxing.
And even in the '80s and there was hundreds of kids here.
You'd start at the top and they'd be like, you'd
hear the chant of, you know:
"Going in!" "Following!"
[Following... Following!]
"Following him!"
You know, and they'd be like, kids dropping in
one after each other.
But there was never any, you know, people wanting to
fight. And I've never seen people wanting to fight each
other at Romford skatepark.
I've never seen it. And people get the 'ump, coz
you might drop into them at the wrong time.
But no, I've never really seen any sort of bad animosity
at this skatepark.
It's one of the better places to come to ride. And that's
why I bring my kids here now.
So it's always been a cool thing, you know.
You go to other places and skaters are like
"This is our place, skaters only!"
Rom was never like that.
You get the occasional prick will turn up and
sort of start acting up.
I've literally thrown people outof here for, you know, bullying
kids and shouting and screaming.
So they get shown the door.
I think when it opened in '78,there might have been a little
bit of friction
because they didn't really like the BMX-ers, I don't think,
to be honest.
I mean they wouldn't admit it now, maybe but...
[INAUDIBLE SHOUTING]
Yeah, that's me and mates.
I know exactly how that happened.
[Yeah?]
Yeah... Yeah.
There was this war with the skateboarders.
So we've got the BMX guys and the skateboarders who were
crashing into each other.
I remember it so clear, that it's a couple of my friends
and one of them had the front to to do something,
cause I was only a small boy at the time.
I think by memory, that theystarted arguing and I just see
my friend with helmet just gowhack straight across his head.
And then it was just a free for all and everyone
kicking and punching and...
You know, and it literally, assoon as it started, it finished,
it was waiting to happen.
My friend who threw the first punch was the
guy who was going to do it.
Oh I've got great memories here. Getting a train up, and
we all used to ride down here.
Brilliant place.
We used to come over here a lot with Andy Ruffell...
Andy Ruffell, me, Cav, Andy, Nikky Matthews...
My other mate, Rich McLennan who raced for Ace.
Summer holidays, we were always over here.
If we weren't over here, we'd be up the Southbank.
The actual story is, the story of this Team Ace, how it started...
I was the one who started it.
54 in January.
I still keep on it now, I love it.
I hated it the first time I came here. I didn't like it
at all, thought it was crap.
That would have been '81.
And then something happeneda whole year later
I saw a little bit footage ofBob Haro.
I'd seen something and it inspired me, and I was
like, I need to do that.
And then I was back over and then I was over forever.
When Bob Haro was here, I had to grab him and get him
behind the counter...
I've never wanted to do that to anyone, you know.
Well I mean, Bob's a legend isn't he? I mean, he's you know.
I guess he's the godfather of freestyle.
Back then, freestyle really
wasn't a sport yet. Itwas kind of this novelty.
And so
when I was invited over here and did shows
like at Earl's court or NEC.
You know, freestyle it wasn't formalised yet.
It was just kind of this halftime entertainment,
if you will.
In between motos and events going on,
was my performance.
And at that time everybody was BMX racing.
There wasn't kids out here ridiglike today,
riding on ramps and stuff like .
So it was really novel.
So it was interesting to come over here and see the
enthusiasm and all the kids.
The first time, you know, seeingsomebody do this on a BMX bike.
For sure I know and remember the Rom skatepark.
And when I went there though, it was a standard
classic rainy English day.
So I didn't really ride that day.
But I remember going there and stuff like that.
And then throughout the years and the decades I have always
remembered the Rom park.
But you know, I think placeslike Rom you'd see in all the
BMX magazines, BMX Action Bike,and RAD later on and so on.
But it was also that kind of pilgrimage to kind of
just, you had to go to.
But when I actually wentthere, because there's this big
kind of pool and a big bowl,
it's quite intimidating, you know.
BMX was sort of on it's big wave of popularity in the UK.
I think every kid had a BMX.
And I kind of started doingall these tricks, which was new
to the BMX scene at the time.
And I guess I just practised and practised and got
sponsored basically.
I was never that kid that just hung around doing nothing
because I had BMX and skateboarding, you know.
And actually those, both of those took me all around
the world and probably really were the foundations
for what I still do now.
Gumball was created really as a combination of all my
influences really on life.
Across kind of the whole actionsports world, art world,
and cars and music, which is
quite diverse, but it's
kind of what'smade me tick over the years.
Back when I started it, it was actually just a
continuation of skateboarding.
I used to skate in one spot, we'd skate until we'd had
enough of it or we got kicked off and then we'd go somewhere
else and we do it again and do it again and do it again.
And the rally was the same. We'ddrive to one city, we'd party,
we'd cause a disturbance, andthen we'd drive on the next day.
And we do it somewhere else.
When I look back on it, I'dbeen doing that from the age of
11 and I'm still doing it now.
But just now there's more people coming out to see it.
But it's exactly the same.
There's this BMX competition in London, which was a really
big deal at the time called the Hole Shot was organised
by a guy called Andy Ruffell.
It was a big kind of freestyle competition
and that was game changing because American
pros came over for it.
I mean, I saw an American pro rider get off his
bike and kinda did about five minutes of rapping.
And I think I'd never seen rap music before.
I saw skateboarding in a light that I'd never seen before
and just watching Gonz, likejust freely kind of glide
centre in and out of us BMXers. around this giant sports
over benches and bikes. And him just sort of ollying
And it was incredible, I mean it was incredible.
And I guess that was the most inspiring thing for me
to get into skateboarding.
Just seeing this guy just sort of do stuff that I
didn't think you could do.
Andy was more of a racer. Although I've been here
when he rode here, it was more like he was a racer.
He was one of the real elites to be honest, he was
pretty much untouchable.
It was Andy, Craig Schofield, Sid Salisbury, Jason Maloney
and they were all like a little bit of a clique.
They stick together.
Yeah, it was hard to get in with them.
I suppose it could have been a bit a little bit cliquey then, but you know....
I wasn't in the clique!
I was with Billy on the outskirts.
Well in bicycle motocross, Iaim to be very good at freestlye
and very good at racing as well.
Over the whoops!
[CHEERING]
And It's Andy Ruffell 1st for team white.
And top stunt rider Andy Ruffell, at just 18
he's one of the biggest names in the sport.
I've actually managed to find somebody here
who we haven't all seen for a very long time.
Can I introduce you once again to Andy Ruffell?
Hi Andy!
...Hi
That was very cool, wasn't it?
I was a skater. I must've been .
10 years old or 11 years old.
I actually had my skateboard stolen at Skate City
and that's when I got into getting a BMX bike.
And then when this place opened,it was great for me because I
didn't have to go to Skate City.
I could come up here and ride a BMX bike.
The reason Rom was special for me is, I did a lot
of things first here.
I did my first 360.
I remember some of the worstcrashes I ever had were at Rom.
The performance bowl, my chainbroke and you know, I fell from
the top to literally the bottomconcrete and landed on my knees.
And I still feel that today.
Because that's what's important about Rom because
I think a lot of people,
me, Craig Schofield, Craig Campbell, my brother of
course, Neil Ruffell.
You know, this was a reallearning ground, I think.
You know, all those guys and a lot of others really learnt
their skills right here in this
and especially me.
So I remember spending literally four hours over
there in that little part over there, just basically
trying to pull off front hops.
And I remember when I pulled off some front hops in 1978
the crowd went wild coz I did some front hops.
So it was like, you know, it's kind of wild but it was
a really good education for riding a bike.
Yeah, I think my brother alwayssurprised everybody cause he...
I mean be honest, I never saw anyone ride a bike -
I know this sounds silly because he's me brother.
But I never saw anyone ride a bike like he did.
You know, and in terms of getting air, you know, I
mean I've seen him up here.
Luckily I was, you know, retiring.
Thank God ! Coz Neil just was just ripping.
I mean, I've seen him get 10ft out of the performance, you know, many times.
So that was cool. I think a lot of people were surprised.
They just thought, oh yes, that's Andy's brother.
That's why he's got a big name because he's Andy's Brother.
He's ten times a betterbike rider than I ever was.
So I was like, you know, he deserved it.
And so, I'm just glad I retired when he was, you
know, coming into his peak.
It's a very special place.
Very special people that, you know, still skate
here after 40 years.
And it certainly helped my career big time.
You know, I basically learned to ride a bike here.
That was a really tough pool and it still is actually.
Don't believe what theytell you...
That you do forget how to ride a bike.
Let me tell you.
I'm amazed that Rom is still here.
I mean it's crazy. I mean I'm sitting here now and
I've got so many memories, personal memories here.
But the fact that it's here like40 years later, is just crazy.
[SIRENS]
It was like roaring, a good150ft up in the air, the flames.
Still can't quite believe it's gone, to be honest.
Nightmare.
This ramp was built in '99.
And we just got some Heritage Lottery Funding.
Sods law is as we got that funding to help us clear the
space and promote the park. Now this fire has happened.
Cause we just finished removing the old mini-ramp from up the top there.
That had been there for 30 odd years.
So we were just getting ahead.
We're just stepping forward, getting to clear
that space, ready to go.
And It's just... It's hard.
This was our only indoor bit when It's raining, and
they got nowhere to go.
Bit of a kick right in the teeth, really.
Everything's easy now, It's there.
Walk down to your local park, there's a skatepark there.
You've got so many free skate parks that pop up,
that councils put on.
So It's hard to get people, I suppose. To come and ride
somewhere where they've got to pay, when they've got
somewhere free to go to.
And it needs kids to get here. You know, it's kind of
getting forgotten about a bit.
Rom had a more of a captiveaudience because there just
weren't as many places to skate.
Whereas now there's parks popping up all over the place.
It's difficult for somewhere like Rom to survive.
But looking into the future youthink, is there a future for any
commercial, outdoor skate park?
Everything else that's commercial is indoor because
you've got to maximise your income all year round.
There's so many free parks around the country
spreading it so thin.
I think we're probably one of, if not the only privately
run skate park in England.
People come here and they love it.
Riding around this park on anything wheeled is
a great... It's fun.
If we don't get some help here,we'd might be in trouble and
the place could go in completedisrepair, to be quite honest.
It must be protected. It must be saved. It is of absolute
vital national importance.
And to give hope to those kids that otherwise
without it don't have hope.
They don't have a place, they can't express themselves
and they go the wrong way.
The way things are going, you know.
Rent goes up, rates go up.
Insurance goes up.
It's the overheads that are quite large.
It's getting worse and worse.
The takings are going down. The expenses are going up.
Like when we used to have crowds of kids queuing up.
No one was here last Saturday.
No one.
Not one.
We are building a wall for an artwork project
by the London police, Amsterdam based art group.
To promote the skate park and get some more
people in here, hopefully.
The London Police are a group of street artists.
Two of them mainly based inAmsterdam, from Essex, and they
do murals around the world.
You know, It's going tobe cool. Whatever they do,
they've never done a bad piece.
Who are we? We're The London place.
The Essex Police are called the Essex Police where the
London Police are calledthe Metropolitan Police.
So that was up for grabs,
you know, that was out there. So we had that.
You've always said too, everyoneknows the word London and
the word police and you putthem together and it's kind
of instantly recognisableall around the world.
I mean they know the word 'The'as well. I mean, there's three
words right now that everyonein the world can understand.
And it does stand out when you see it on the lineup of stuff.
You do look at it, It'sa stand out. It's a funname.
We still like it. It's stupid. Let's face it.
But I think you said as well that the idea of policing
the streets with good art,
Making... Looking after the streets.
That obviously came after wegot the name, It's not like,
you know, we've got that first,
But our connection with Rom,we were both, we when were
younger, rubbish skateboarders,
but very enthusiastic.
Yeah, I thought you were a bit more rubbish than I was.
We always came to Rom. I came here countless times.
I know you did and I didn't know you at the time,
But I knew you being a couple of years older...
Yeah I was trying to avoid youwhen you were in the performancebowl.
I was well over there likewith the other ramps and stuff.
Finally we actually met at some point, had to be friends
and I realised you're quite a good guy.
You feel like, you're doing something for a place that
really gave something to you in your early years.
It's giving back. It's being part of a inspiring
journey to try and get this place full of life again.
As we all understand these days, council's provide nice ramp
and skate park facilities for free and in local parks.
And over the last 10/20 years that's really...
They've come in abundance really for young skaters.
So to pay to come into a park, you know, it's
made it harder for this place to attract people.
But just the facilities here and the heritage of it, is
something really special.
So by coming and injecting some life into it,
through doing artwork,
Hopefully that will be thefirst step to now revampingthis place,
rejuvenating thatsame vibe that we felt as kids.
And hopefully with good people involved, it's going to turn
into something special here.
Yeah, I think, if you had toldus 20/30 years ago that
we'd get the chance to be here and to do this... I mean fantastic.
By a little bit of artwork, it can really affect change,
albeit a little small mural.
But I think it feeds off the energy and creates
kind of a momentum.
I can imagine this place being full of art.
But we've been doing this for 20 years as well, so we have
a certain way we do things and we just employed that same
method in this project too.
Turn up, get the basics in and then work out how
it's going to go and let it breathe, let it flow.
And we're hoping that everyone'sgoing to appreciate the piece
we've done, which does haveskateboard influence in it.
It does have influence of the actual place here.
It's made especially so thatfrom the other side of the
skate park, you can still sensea little bit what's going on,
As opposed to having to be next to it like you would in an art gallery or something.
That's quite a big part of it, that this is such a nice vast open park.
So it needed to be over there.
'Oh, I can see what it is, but let me go over there and then
check out the finer details'.
Yeah, it's the basic nature of how things work in life.
You know, you sow a seed and plant grows, and from
the plant comes flowers, and from the flowers comes
the joy of seeing it and...
Blah, blah, blah.
So hopefully this is a seed and hopefully they'll
be flowers at some point for people to enjoy.
Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to open the
Rom skatepark 40 exhibition,
and I formally declare the exhibition open!
[APLAUSE]
[MOTORCYCLE ENGINE]
Rom today, is the biggest, largest, best, skate park in
the world to have any kind of historic preservation.
Great, I just never realised that you could even do that with a skate park.
And indeed you could well claim for Rom, it's the only
proper skate park in the world to be historically listed.
Something with a big range of facilities with a pool
and a bowl and a Cloverleaf, and a half pipe and so on.
The beauty of skateboarding is that it's art.
It keeps moving forward.
You don't have the NBA,
where a basketball player
can walk in before a game,
and tear the hoops down and
put three hoops at three
feet high and say,
this is what the game is today.
And that's what skateboarding does
all the time.
It is also the prototype for every single skate park
in Britain today.
And something that these guys that rode 40 years
ago is keeping them riding means it's right.
This is old school. This is what it used to be like.
Now it's not.
It just feels like part of the old skating, I'd say
it's about the closest thing.
Point is there's weather.
Point is when it's pissing down
we have a skid contest.
It's England, man.
It ain't California,
So it's an incredibly valuable piece of architecture.
Both as a bit of skateboard architecture from the '70s
and for it's influence into the future.
It is what it is for a reason. You know it's history.
Don't, just stop that man.
That's the point. It looks old. It's England,
shit's old.
And I really hope this place stays, cause I hear rumours
that it's in trouble at the moment and this is one of
the most iconic skate parks there is on the planet.
It's almost, kind of our duty to kinda keep them alive
really and certainly because it's more than skateboarding.
It's more than BMXing.
It's actually developed... It's shaped my whole life.
It shapes what my family do, it shapes what my friends do.
and that's across all industriesand everything you know.
Rom should be updated, kept,added to, but the direction we've gone is...
Why don't we we tear that down or redesign it for the Olympic course?
What's the Olympic course? What's the Olympic course?
Nonsense.
The Olympic course is going to be obsolete before the
Olympics get there
because skateboarding is art.
I don't know of any other skate park in the world
that is as complete and as varied,
and substantial as Rom and stillenjoys this historic listing.
The local authority, government,havering, whoever it is needs
to realise what they have andthe architectural and cultural
importance of this place.
There is no other, you will never get another
if it goes, it's gone.
Well, there's a group of us that have got together
and we're putting in everything we can afford.
Different people from different walks of life.
We've got lawyers and ex bank managers, to lorry drivers to plumbers, to mechanics.
That are all chipping in to basically pay the basic needs
so that the park doesn't fall into the wrong hands.
We've been here 40 years.
[We want to be here for another 40 years, you know.]
[I couldn't imagine my life without Rom.
I don't know what I'd be doing.]
Yeah, people say to me, you know, you're in your fifties,
you skateboard. You're some kind of freak.
And you know, they look at you very, very, very strangely.
Like where does that come from and why? And...
And I think it's just because skateboarding for
whatever reason, has been associated with kids.
People still just think of it as a kid's activity.
I had eggs for breakfast.
Actually, i had eggs on toast for breakfast.
Shit, now I'm all thirsty.
The question that you asked me like two and a half hours
ago was what year was this?
It was '78 - '80!
Sorry!
What was the question?
I really like rolling thunder and they had a party out
there that I really remember.
Roger Daltrey was partying up in the high room and that was
just such a rocking session.
I mean how much can I tell?
You know, I created the world freestyle... Awards
freestyle... Say that again!
I got told by pretty much everybody,
get a proper job !
I didn't work for 20 years for as I'm concerned,
I was a professional BMX rider.uknow, who had the last laugh?
Nice tits.
I'll tell you what, I'm filling out.
Occasionally I go to Meanwhile gardens,
and do my stuff late at night.
And sometimes fall off and think, you know, if someone could see me now! You Know?
What am I doing? But I love it. So it's great.
Everyone's going to think 'Who's that twat?'.
[Are they?]
I don't know. But I think that... To be honest, they'll
think that anyway, regardless of with the glasses on or off.
A little hedgehog came out of the bushes and
it looked up at me.
It shared my emotional state, you know, and understood that I was having a rough day.
It seems like I was going down this hill forever.
Forever and ever - A bit like I go on anyway! But...
Oh, I'm just sitting here looking at myself by myself.
[INAUDIBLE]
This is not what I do. Oh, therewas me when I was little....
Oh it's me when I was little again.
Oh it's was just about me. Oh, I love looking at me.
[Something like that.]
Something like that!
Oh, I'm not that dude.
He just can't talk. He's a drip
It's why I keep trying to talk over him because he's
too quiet. You probably won't even hear him in the film.
♪Nelson, he goes in all the moguls. ♪
♪Nelson, he hangs out with the locals.♪
♪And that is my goal,
♪to spend time with Nelson in the performance bowl!♪
♪Nelson, he goes in all the moguls. ♪
♪Nelson, he hangs out with the locals. ♪
♪And that is my goal,
♪to hang out with Nelson in the performance bowl!♪
I've still got to work on it obviously.
That middle bit...
My name is Andrew Markou
My mates called me Popadopoulos.
I've been skating since 2003 and this was the first place I came to.
That was '79 and came back to Rom in '97 when I started skating again.
and I've been coming ever since,more or less.
One thing, I will say...
[LAUGHTER]
Get here before it was open, bashing around in the car park out there.
Knocking on the door, waiting for John to come out and let us in.
We used in climb over here afterthe builders had gone home.
Lay sheets of ply out to get through the sea of mud and just skate.
...Zinger!