interview with my grandson,18 year-old Sol Gregory-Cundy
I was living in the attic of the Prince George pub in Dalston. I was about seven years old. A week after I’d moved there with my parents, I looked out of the window and saw a boy skating down Parkholme Road. I was so intrigued by what he was doing.
Although I was quite shy, I pushed myself to go outside and talk to him. He let me have a few goes on his skateboard though I didn’t understand it. When I was younger, I’d seen some friends skating but I didn’t have any sense of it being important or having meaning for me or my life. But being mates with Ralph and seeing how addicted he was, I became fascinated. He gave me his old setup and from then on I fell in love with it.
I started to notice the change in my style – mentally, physically and fashionwise. I’d been chunky as a kid but all this new exercise drove me to keep going without realising it was exercise at all. Because it’s not a sport, it’s a movement, an artistic therapy just like painting on a canvas or making music or playing an instrument. It gives you the same sensation of freedom, filling up that empty hole. If I feel agitated, I can go for a skate and feel refreshed. I can start again. How do I feel after I have been for a skate? Relieved, happy, clear, reset: ready to get on with the rest of my life. My skating makes me feel stable.
In fact, it’s a bit like painting, because you’re creating lines. As a skater, you do this line which means trick after trick after trick. It’s just like writing a sentence and then you finish it off like a full stop. Without falling over.
That profound, early effect led me to meet a guy called Ben and his girlfriend, skaters who lived next door to the pub. They encouraged me not to stop and to keep going with whatever I was doing. After meeting those guys when I was only about eight years old, I started hanging out with people much older than myself aged around twenty three or four. They included me because they could see how much potential I had. I started taking in energy from the skating community. They became my mates, my new family, people aged from fifteen to thirty.
Years passed as I grew up and became more comfortable – but also a bit more known in the skating world. From the age of ten, I managed to build relationships with some adult pro skaters sponsored by Adidas and Palace Skateboards. Having watched their skate clips from some famous videos, I remember going up to them for the first time and asking them to sign my hat. They asked me if I had heard of Slam City Skates and gave me some stickers for my board.
After this, I went to Slam City Skates on weekends, after school and even before school, just trying to help out and watch skate videos. After a few years, when I was around 11 or 12 and I’d been going there for around three years, I’d built up such a good connection that I felt as if I had potential and wasn’t just `this kid’.
Mum took me to Barcelona twice. She knew that this was the place for skating. I felt warm and free in this new environment. But then lockdown hit at the end of 2019. My mate from Barcelona brought his kid to London. We met up and skated outside the Southbank. I’d meant to go to the skate park to a special event but something in the atmosphere was changing and it was shut, just one month before lockdown. That’s when we all realised there was something wrong. It was a blessing for me, because I’d never had the proper time to fully skateboard on my own. My mood was changing. I was trapped but I had my gift: my skateboard, I felt free.
I used to go to Gillett Square in Dalston where Skate Pal hosted events. They would do a fundraiser and Go Fund Me raffles throughout the year, building skate parks in Palestine. My mates still do manage to go to Palestine and build skate parks, giving free skateboards to kids who have literally nothing, providing them with a safe space wherever possible. Skateboarders have had a massive impact on our society. Although I haven’t been to Palestine working with kids building skateboards, their work inspired me to do as much as I could myself. I was still young but I had this inner excitement and urge to want to build and provide for other people.
During lockdown I was so bored. I had never been this bored in my entire life. Perhaps it was the same for you too? It was so hot that I had to get out of the house, even if it just meant chilling and sitting on the canal, skating outside the front of the flat we were living in at the time.
I’d heard on the Internet that people were building some ramps called Hackney Bumps. I didn’t really understand what it was or where it was but I thought it would be cool for me to go over there and build a relationship creating the family that I still have today. Especially during this global pandemic I needed to lose the weight on my chest. When I went there for the first time, I felt as if I already had a connection with it, almost as if I had already been there in the past. It felt like home.
I started introducing myself to people. I captured an unforgettable energy meeting these wonderful people. I met two people called Sol as well – super funny because they have the same name as me. I’d never met anyone with my name before that. So I started helping build Hackney Bumps for people to enjoy during that devastating lockdown resulting from Covid 19.
I was skating the Hackney Bumps almost every day. This became a confidence building experience that has helped me to be the person I am today, I encountered so many cool people who had pretty much taken me in like a brother, a part of this family in the skating community. It’s blissful seeing female and LGBTQ people skating nowadays too. Skateboarding is so diverse. Back in the old days it really wasn’t.
What is the line? It’s multiple tricks in a row. You’ll land them, every try in a row: four or five different tricks without falling over. A tray flip is a 360° kick flip. A hill flip is a straight flip going the opposite way to a kick flip. A backside 360 is a rotation, staying on the board in a 360° motion.
I feel the challenge, adrenaline, fear and being scared to land it, then relieved when I have landed it, just like finishing a painting.
You can tell that good skateboards have been designed by skaters, not by BMXers or people who don’t know about skating. My ideal skateboard layout would pay attention to the dimensions of ramps, flat ground, ledges, banks and rails which all have to be able to accommodate a skateboard without getting stuck. Otherwise, it would be dangerous and you’d fall over.
To keep a skate park engaging for a long time, it should feature a variety of parts allowing skaters to approach obstacles in different sequences, whilst avoiding sharp turns backwards to slow them down.
Yesterday, I went for a skate at Hackney Bumps. A couple of years ago, we built a vertical, eleven feet quarter pipe to become a ramp that was completely flat. It felt like you were skating on the wall for a foot or two of vertical flat surface whilst being on top of the ramp. That is one of my favourites because it gives me the sensation of flying – and who doesn’t want to fly?
Who do I admire? Firstly, I admire myself. Secondly, I admire a figure skater like Jake Snelling, a transition skater from south London flying from one ramp to the other side; and Benny Fairfax, a street skater who uses the street as his obstacle so that the street becomes a skate park.
Since when I was a youngster, I’ve always had a dream of being a pro skater. Over time, I’ve got to know new people. During the last couple of years, I’ve met two guys called Nick Gerard and Matt: owners and founders of the brand Always Do What You Should Do. Skating alongside them and making short movies with them resulted in them sponsoring me. I’ve been on a skate trip to Paris last year and now there is a plan to send us off to get skate clips for their new video. I recently spoke to the filmmaker/videographer for Always who is planning on taking me and a couple of other skaters to Beverly Hills, LA funded by Adidas, to release a new collaboration show and from then on I will be sponsored by Adidas. Combining these elements has always been my dream.
The designing process of skatewear plays a big part in skateboarding: wearing baggy jeans, thick shoes, big shoes, massive T-shirts: every garment large and roomy so that more movement is allowed for those wearing them.
There is no more obvious outfit personifying a skater than a boy or girl wearing extremely baggy jeans, a snapback cap worn back to front with a white, baggy T-shirt. So people think. But let me tell you: this just isn’t the case. Everyone has their own style.
There are so many fashion designers e.g. Loutrê, a sustainable workwear brand in Stoke Newington operating within the skating industry making clothes especially appealing to skaters, so that you can be both stylish and safe.
My design instinct/flair/imagination moved into using bashed up skateboards and turning them into a work of art: a throne which I created for my final project last year at LSA. The college then took this artwork to Universal Pictures to present my work to Working Title production company.
In terms of the dangerous part of it, you can just fall over at any time because you’re on wheels but if you really love it, you will stick with it because you get joy out of falling over. You are in a battle ready to try and land that trick, just like in real life when you’re trying to get a piece of work or an assignment done.
What part has social media played? Massively. On Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, there are so many skateboard brands e.g. Spitfire Wheels, Always Do What You Should Do, Independent Rocks using the media to show off their skaters wearing and practically using their products so that people will understand how good they actually are – and buy them.
You need a good quality skateboard and all other elements, otherwise your progression in terms of a skateboarding style could be ruined. You need a good setup.
I post videos of my skateboarding. You can see from the way I express myself how much I love it and how different my style is to that of other people. People say my style is like seeing someone on a surfboard, riding the waves with ease. (spring, 2025)