When I stated skating, videos were a rare thing. Of course there was no Youtube, and skateboard companies, of which only perhaps half a dozen had sufficient budget to put together a video, put out a film once every few years.
Magazines were a much more constant source for me, although, these too, however, were also fairly rare at the time. Dave Friar's surf shop in Mumbles sometimes had Transworld, Thrasher or Poweredge, but that was about as reliable as my source was.
I can remember vividly the first magazine I bought. I had seen skateboard magazines before this, but they were loaned from the older skaters in the neighbourhood, this one was mine. I was on a family trip to visit relatives in the Midlands and I had been given an hour to walk around Birmingham on my own. I knew that there was a skate shop called Yah Dude somewhere on Corporation Street in the City Centre. I eventually found it and only had enough money to buy myself a copy of Transworld (October 1988). I think this is the precise moment was the beginning of my lifelong fascination with magazines.
I obsessed over my new purchase on the train home, and for many months afterwards. Studied the photographs. The adverts. The list of staff. Every word. I would look again, this time in more detail. The photo credits and the clothes that the skaters wore. What was going on in the background? Where did he ollie from? Where was he likely to land? How fast is he going? Look at the way his fingers are spread and his rear arm is higher than normal. I'd explore the logo's and ad designs, the news sections and learn who had moved sponsors, who was injured, who had won what comp. Of course the news was months old by the time it reached me but I didn't care.
A brand new magazine is a marvelous thing. The first look through is always the most captivating, whatever your prefered technique: back to front, front to back, dip into the middle. The feel of the pages, it's weight in your hands......
....ahhh, I'm off to the newsagents.
