And so I write this post still marvelling at the weather in early October ( and maybe a little under the influence of Novocain).
It seemed wrong to turn down a place on this trip, ever fearing it could be the last Sunday with guaranteed sun this year.
With Dan driving, Fuller, Justin, Harley & I entered the capital at around noon, parked and skated to St. Paul's Cathedral front steps to meet Rob, Charlie, Mark, Sam, Jordan, Radman & others.
I remember even when skating London as a child in the late 80's early 90's that this was the regular place to catch up with everyone if your Liverpool Street train was late in.
Wren's building hasn't changed much but as you can probably imagine, every conceivably skate-able surface is now skate-stopped. Damn the man!
After the ever present fist bumps and high fives the group headed over the river via Millennium Bridge to a set of steps on the south side of London Bridge.
At the top of this set is the main pavement exiting London Bridge so on a sunny Sunday afternoon, it was useless hoping that it might be quiet. And on arrival we found that it was indeed heaving with tourists going about their business.
These steps have a challenging uphill take-off that is approached by a long downhill pavement being criss-crossed by a sea pedestrians. The take-off has been intentionally pitted after building to either warn the visually impaired of the 10 steep stairs of pending doom or a vain attempt to dissuade us from jumping down them. In the latter, it didn't work.
Pretty much on arrival, Charlie & Radman proceeded to draw a crowd with warm ups.
Harry took the job of look out and hype man at the base of the stairs. The landing is flat and horizontal, laid with smooth stone slabs, so he ended up collecting a lot of loose boards too!
I tried a couple of different shooting angles and lens setups and ended up preferring the long shot through the crowds. And with Rob shooting closer to the stairs, I took to crossing the street.
This decision placed me far from the action on the far side of a busy road. It was interesting to experience the session from this distance as the people passing me were completely oblivious to the skating on the other side of the street that was now drawing an ever larger crowd and observed me pointing my camera at a traffic light.
Charlie was going for straight flips and nollie backside bigspins which were put down on the bolts and Radman had his eyes on something I can't name right now. I'm not even sure if either of the tricks I shot here were makes but I like the pictures I ended up with all the same!
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| Charlie Munro |
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| Radman |
I am still unsure as to why the plod didn't move us on. This was London Bridge on a Sunday afternoon after all. We were at risk of causing serious injury to any number of passers-by with our antics and I spotted a number of police cars slow as they passed the steps, but no hassle at all!
Moving on we skated back across London Bridge to a 5 stair to pavement gap in Mincing Lane. Yup.
Nathen was right on it and tried a huge flip clean into the road and made one, just about, squirrelling away with fingers down.
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| Nathen Farrow |
On being moved on by a rent-a-jobsworth and with a quick stop at the shop for refreshment, we hit a spot just round the corner.
Glass smooth, 18 inch high, rounded marble blocks in groups nestled between high rise offices. We were ejected within 2 minutes by another big fella in a suit.
We skated round the corner to find a well skated granite bank/ledge and set up camp across a quiet Billiter Street.
Charlie was trying 5.0 fakies, Jordan front blunt slide fakies and Justin b/s crooks. All were made.
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| Charlie Munro |
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| Jordan Thackery |
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| Justin Rawnsley |
After being chucked off the smooth ledges again and having got most of the stuff we wanted on film in the bag, we moved on again.
This time to a road gap on the Junction of Queen Victoria Street & Watling Street which was next to a flat bar outside a betting shop.
As the road was lined with benches, we took our places to watch the show.
The boys made the mistake of waxing the bar before skating it, rendering it practically unskateable, so Radman attempted the road gap which has no natural kicker and is on a downhill slope at some speed and Sam got a 5 trick line ending with a b/s crook which Rob Galpin got a fine shot of.
I noticed a floodlit St. Pauls Cathedral hiding in an alley, so I shot that instead!
Moving on back to the cathedral we made our play for the famous (rinsed) steps/ledges on the Thames side and Rob made a move towards home.
This was pretty much our resting place for the remainder of the day.
Justin went straight in with a nose blunt slide which took a while to get and as I remember, Justin wasn't happy with the first make and had to get another. I stand by my opinion that the first one was the best.
Jordan & Radman larked about but didn't really try anything too seriously, and I spotted Sam & Fuller playing with an ollie up to bench clearance round the side. The rest of our crew positioned themselves comfortably on the Festival Gardens masonry.
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| Justin Rawnsley |
Earlier that evening I had noticed a skate stopped block as we walked to our final spot which had the dome of St. Paul's as it's backdrop.
Sam & I stopped and I shot a poor frame which I rushed so as not to fall too far behind the rest of the group.
I'd like to go back and get a better lit shot another time and having been reminded of how much I enjoy pushing around the streets of London, I don't think I'll have to wait for too long.
And so it's back to the day job for another week.
I'm already anticipating a good day in an abandoned warehouse in Cambridge next Sunday.
So until then, check out Rob Galpin's blog for more great photos from this trip: http://harlowskatepark.blogspot.co.uk
