Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Read and Destroy

When I was little, I can remember my parents reading me this book, "The Elephant and the Bad Baby" written by Elfrida Vipont and illustrated by the excellent Raymond Briggs. I bought this book for my kids a few years ago and when I read it to them, certain of the pictures give me a real feeling of euphoria from when I was young. There is one part where the elephant takes a bun from the bakers shop and the image of his trunk reaching through the door is very emotive for me. It's not the story, just the pictures. I have recently obtained a copy of a DVD called "Rollin Through The Decades" which charts the history of skateboarding in the UK. The added bonus is that it is edited by my friend Ben, who I have talked about in the Music Club Blog several times. The main focus of the documentary is around the South Bank in London where skateboarding has been welcomed, revilled, accepted and then outlawed many times over the years. Around the time I used to skate (circa 1987-1993), there was a skateboarding magazine called R.A.D. (Read And Destroy) which I used to buy every month. On Rollin Through The Decades, the magazine's creator, Tim Leighton Boyce talked about the creation of the mag and quite a few skaters pontificated over the content and style. Just seeing the covers of the magazine brought back similar feelings to those I described earlier. I can still remember the pictures and articles too, each one as emotive as the last. Then, over at the Too Old To Skate blog, I found a link to a new online archive of the R.A.D. magazine, setup by none other than the creator himself! I hope he features the issue where they came to Milton Keynes. I was there when the photographer was taking shots - but i never got into any of them (as I was too crap probably) but there were lots of my friends in them. Oh happy days!

3 comments:

Tao said...

You should know, as you are the Chav Meister!

Fella said...

have you seen the pictures from the 2005 Board Meeting in Toronto? Some good stuff there.

Linked For Her Pleasure!

Anonymous said...

Milton Keynes? I did lots of pictures in Milton Keynes over the years, but Leo Sharpe lived there -- so I can't be sure which photographer was there on the day you mention. I suspect it was probably me, looking a bit different from Rolling Through the Decades and a lot different from now (Rollin was many years in the making).