Well respected across the board by the industry and skaters alike, Essjay has seen it all from the very early days, through the various booms and busts of over 5 different decades - that's right, dude's been heavily into it for nearly 50 years and is still hovering around the Cornish skate scene today. Take some time to dig into a little bit of skate history..
All pics courtesy of Essjay's collection.
Hi Essjay, thanks for taking the time, first off, what made you start skateboarding?
I have a memory of seeing a surfer skateboarding on the Killacourt in Newquay when I was a toddler and after that I always wanted a skateboard but never got one until a surfing mate of mine “Nelly” turned up one day with a homemade deck and Chicago trucks with Cadillac wheels - an awesome set up! That was the start.
When was this?
Early 1975.
What was the scene like back then?
I don’t think that there was one, but they started to include a bit of skateboarding in the American surf films so we used to go to see them as often as possible.
Where did you skate?
At first it was Redannick garages & Dobbs Lane, (anywhere with a slope!) then we used to cobble up ramps outside of our houses and once made a ramp on a building site opposite the library in Truro. Skateboarders started to meet at the Council offices car park below the viaduct in Truro, that is where I used to sell stuff from the boot of my car! That was the beginning of the Truro scene.
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| Essjay on a makeshift ramp opposite the library on Pydar Street in the centre of Truro. |
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| Chuds and Essjay catamaran at the Council offices car park in Truro. |
Which parks did you skate and did you travel to skate?
There were no parks until they built Watergate Bay and that opened officially on 29th May 1977 and that was our home for a while, Nelly and myself once got there at 6.30am for a sneaky skate before the emmets turned up and to our surprise the old chap that used to run it came down and took our money! Then Holywell Bay opened up followed by Playing Place and later the Flamingo indoor park. I visited Millendreath and Portland, Torquay, Barnstaple and others that I cannot remember when I was doing my delivering job! The Plymouth “zoo” park was amazing, loved the full pipe and the snake run, I have a photo of my wife Irene skating the pipe!
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| Uk's first skatepark at Watergate Bay. |
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| Banking off the high wall into the bowl at Watergate Bay. |
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| Irene pumping it in the full pipe at Plymouth Zoo park. |
We also went to the first Skateboarding exhibition at the Royal Horticultural Hall in London on the 12th-15th Feb 1978 quite a few Americans were in attendance such as Bobby Piercy and Steve Cathey. We hung around with the rest of the Westcountry Skateboards crew who had a stand there.
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| Westcountry Skateboards Team. Left to right back row; Spike Harvey (Si's dad), unknown, Shaun McIlroy, Jed Stone, Essjay. Bottom row left to right; Ian Boyce, unknown. |
In Nov 1978 I borrowed Steve Crewes dads VW van and took the Tris team to the British Open Championships which were held at Billy Smarts Skatewave in Windsor, an amazing indoor park, I think we just skated the rest of the park, away from the comp and had a great time!
I guess I did quite a bit of travelling in 1978!
Was there a local shop?
When I started skateboarding in 1975 there were no local shops, you had to
search out surf shops to find anything and that was rare!
Luckily for me I was a delivery driver for a Truro biscuit company and I
travelled across the UK spreading Cornish bakery love! And I bought my first
(British) set up from Tiki Surf in Braunton which I promptly took back as the
plastic bearing races melted on my first ride and the bearings simply rolled
down the road! So I forked out double the money and bought a Grentec Cuda, a
vast improvement, I eventually replaced the trucks with Chicagos and the
wheels with Metaflex. That board travelled with me all of the time.
Were you on a team?
Somehow I blagged my way onto the Westcountry Skateboards team which was
owned by Rob Ward and Dave Thomas, the top skater was Jed Stone followed by
Shaun McIlroy. We used to do demos at various Cornish schools which ended with
us autographing the flyers, cheesy or what? But fun!
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| Repping Westcountry Skateboards (big gloves were mandatory in the seventies). |
Then a bit later on I ended up on the Tris team as most of my skateboarding was done at the Flamingo near Redruth which was run by Johnny Manetta & Pete Frost who owned the Tris surf shop in Porthtowan. Pete had a skate shop in the Truro Pannier Market for a while (the first Truro skateshop).
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| Essjay right up there above the stickers in the Flamingo half-pipe. That thing was savage - 4ft of vert, no flat-bottom and only 12ft wide. Commitment! |
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| Looking after the Tris shop at the Flamingo, thinking "Yeah, maybe I'll open a shop one day, so that when kids break their boards..." |
Who were the other local hotshots?
The first local skater who seriously impressed me was Steve McNicholls, top surfer and an amazing skateboarder. He was the first person that I saw doing a handstand on a skateboard, Jed Stone was impressive and got photos in every magazine! Steve Crewes from Camborne also ripped at every aspect of the sport – top man!
Who were your influences?
Probably Gregg Weaver, Stacey Peralta then later on Tony “Mad Dog” Alva! Along with Jeremy Henderson & John Sablosky.
Did you do other stuff, like surfing etc?
I did a very small amount of surfing but I didn’t really get on with it, in fact the last time that I went surfing was with Steve Crewes at Watergate Bay around Nov 1978, I remember coming out shivering & chattering and decided there and then to only surf on concrete! Apart from that no other sport just went to see bands and have a few beers!
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| Always livin' life to the full. |
What year did you start the shop and why?
Well in the late seventies I used to sell stuff from the boot of my car for Westcountry Skateboards and later on bought stuff from a mate of mine Dick Willoughby who had the Surf Spot in Bude but unfortunately I broke my Tib & Fib in Dec 1978 on the Flamingo half pipe then again in the same place four months later at Knuckey’s back yard ramp in Redruth so that put a dampener on things and I didn’t skate again until around 1984ish when I worked at Holywell Bay.
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| Flamingo halfpipe 1978. Ouch!. |
I remember not being able to buy decks, trucks, wheels etc without visiting loads of different surf shops. I went to Slam City’s shop in Talbot Rd in 1988 and I think that’s what gave me the idea for a shop where you could get everything in one hit.
I started up Essjays/SJ’z Skateboard shop in September 1989 after getting a pay-out from an endowment thingy which I had taken out whilst drunk in 1975! I think it was 5 grand so I bought a lease on a shop and went off to see Dick with £2500.00 to fill the shop! Unfortunately it didn’t even fill the back of a pickup so I borrowed another two and a half grand off a mate and away we went.
After that I managed to get accounts with all of the skateboard wholesalers. My wife Irene initially ran the shop as I was working and eventually Matt Price came to work for us along with Teddy & Si (the Saturday boys).
Did you sponsor riders?
Yes, I think that Si Annear and Matt Price were the first although the sponsorship was simply a free tee-shirt and a bit of discount, the real deal for sponsorhip was with a skate manufacturer if you were lucky! I think we shop-sponsored a few others but I cannot remember them all (apologies feel free to beat me) other sponsored riders were – Leo & Jody Smith and the staff!
Were there many girl skaters in those days?
Not really, in the seventies I can only remember about four including my wife! Then when I had the shop maybe a dozen or so, it’s now come a long way, there’s some amazing girl skateboarders now such as Elissa Steamer, Leticia Bufoni & Sky Brown amongst others.
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| Classic SJ'z 90s skate shop wall. |
Have you any tales from the shop days?
Oh yes! One I remember very clearly, I was walking through the mews about 9.55am to open the shop and I noticed a bit of a to do in the Barbers opposite. What had happened was a client had sadly died whilst having his hair cut, so I quietly crept past and unlocked the shop door when all of a sudden the alarm went off and Teddy & Si jumped out and ambushed me shattering the silence, I could have curled up and died.
I used to love our Christmas staff do’s which were held in various establishments usually because we had outstayed our welcome somewhere the year before! One time we were in a meadery which had just opened and they sat us upstairs on an open balcony and gave us a load of free wine after which Si decided to throw his chicken bones at the peasants below, then we had a carbolic soap eating contest (we found it in the toilets) Si had to go home to clean his teeth - wuss! But for some reason we never got chucked out of that one.
Every Christmas Eve, I’d stock a “few” beers and friends & customers would have one or two, then we would hit the pubs which usually ended up in a mess!
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| With Danny Way. |
We used to get asked for some strange things in the shop such as; “Do you sell cotton?” or “Have you got walking stick badges?” or “Have you got a bit of you know what”. We used to keep a book with all of the strange requests but I think Stu ate it! Talking about Stu, he wrote in the accident book once after hitting his finger with a hammer - where it said “Any action taken” he wrote “Yes I shouted F**k as loud as possible” made me chuckle.
And I once got talked into buying a thousand Tech decks in one go! ...too many tales to tell!
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| Don't even think about it. |
Also – I used to go to various meetings in Truro about skateboarding, as usual when the council were asked about facilities for skateboarders they wrongly assumed that it was a fad and would die out hence putting it off to the next meeting and so forth but I remember attending one meeting (early 1977) with my mate Nelly and for some reason we were a bit late and the room was crammed with kids and their parents so we entered and unexpectedly got a big round of applause from everyone apart from the councillors! Just because we were adults and on the kids side I guess!
Sometime around 2006/7 Truro town clerk Russell Holden came into the shop and asked if we were willing to do a petition for a skate park in Truro? No problem! In fact it was refreshing to have someone from the council on our side! So a petition was done and with Russell on our side, planning and funding was sorted, designed by Leo, Jody, Stu along with Terrain Designs and on the 11th April 2009 Truro’s skate plaza at Hendra was officially opened.
Why close the shop? When was that?
Things had been getting tighter from about 2003, pressure from rent and business rate rises along with increased competition were beginning to tell. I kept fooling myself that things would get better, and they did now and then but the debts were increasing and in 2010 I took a job erecting spiral staircases and left Stu to run the shop with Irene covering his day off. I jokingly asked one of my suppliers if he wanted a shop for nothing and he said yes! So he bought the stock and I walked away in August 2010. It was very strange after 21 years but we had had some great times!
The shop went on for another two years, but unfortunately the doors finally closed in 2012. Strangely enough in 2010 we sold more decks and hardware than we had for a long time but unfortunately the profits were in clothing and shoes and they were not selling, I should have moved on a few years earlier, but hey...!
I know you love music – fave band?
Music is great! Favourite band? Wow there’s so many, probably the Beatles, they have been with me since about 1963, also King Crimson, Zep, Edgar Broughton Band, Floyd, Band Of Horses, Sabbath, All them Witches, Drive By Truckers, Kurt Vile, Stones, Saint Agnes, The War On Drugs, Joe Pocketknife, and many many more – by the way, at the moment my earworm is Morning Dew by the National.
Favourite gig?
There are so many, so I’ll just name two – Rolling Stones/Lynyrd Skynyrd at Knebworth Park 21st Aug 1976 and the Sex Pistols at the Garden Penzance 1st Sept 1977.
No way! A legendary gig that one. How did you even hear about it?
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| Hog life. |
Have you always been into motorcycles?
Yes, my first was a Lambretta LI 150 which I bought for £40 in June 1970 unfortunately I smashed it up six weeks later. Then I bought a 198cc Francis Barnett for £14 which had been leaning against a wall in a garage for a few years, after that a nice 250cc Villiers Captain America Chopper!
From then on it was a mixture of Japanese bikes, one of them a Suzuki B120 which I rode to the Watergate Bay Open Skateboard Championships and hit my foot whilst going around a corner leaving it badly sprained, somehow I still managed to enter the slalom and came 4th.
I bought a 1964 650cc Triumph in 1980 and used to ride it all of the time to go to Trevornick (Holywell Bay) where I used to work (I still have it). And in 1993 I bought a 1340cc Harley Davidson which has now done over 140.000 miles - still going strong!
I am also the regional rep for the Harley Davidson Riders Club of Great Britain.
Do you skate at all nowadays?
Only the occasional flat ground pushing and carving, I keep thinking of visiting Newlyn East or somewhere quiet but then I chicken out, but my brain seems to skate ok!
Do you keep up with the skate scene nowadays – what do you think of it?
I try not to but I keep getting dragged back (laughs), a former customer and friend “Benny” started up a Facebook page called the Cornish Shredders and it’s a great way to catch up with people and watch videos and so forth, also the scene seems to be getting better and better, and Mount Hawke Skatepark is brilliant. My Grandkids go there now & then, what a facility! A big shout out to Ciaran, Sarah and the team for all their hard work!
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| Cheers Essjay! |
Thanks Essjay - it's been great catching up and hearing some of your stories. Any honourable mentions you wanna throw in?
Thanks go to “Nelly” - Irene - Westcountry Skateboards - Tris Surf – All of the SJ’s staff – The Truro crew (you know who you are) - Dick Willoughby R.I.P. and all who supported and supplied us. And don’t forget it’s not about how you skate as long as you skate! A big thanks to Sqeez for getting me to speak!
