Walker Wheels, a ramp in Newcastle, England, photographed by Dave Duff, 1987.

Redcliff Street, Bristol, by Rich Hart, 2000.

*Top,* Ewer Street, London, by Corin Casey, 1991; *above,* St. Helens, England, by Kevin Banks, 1991.

St Albans, England, by Corin Casey, 1992.

Pentonville Road, London, by Wig Worland, 1997.

Shred It!

A new coffee-table book traces the unlikely rise of British skateboarding, beginning in the 1980s, when the sport found its own rainy, grungy identity far from its Californian roots

“Do you understand why we ride a piece of wood?” asks Fuckshit—a character nicknamed after his favorite compound expletive—in Jonah Hill’s skateboarding film, Mid90s. “Like, what that does to somebody’s spirit. You know? Just tryin’ to keep a positive attitude even though it’s hard as hell.” Those of us who’ve never experienced the thrill of landing an ollie or a kickflip might not fully grasp what he means. A new coffee-table book by Neil Macdonald, Elsewhere: The Story of UK Skateboarding 1987–2002, offers a way in.

“This book exists now because it didn’t already,” writes Macdonald. He’s referring to a skateboarding generation that he and the photographer Wig Worland believe began in 1987 and had faded out by 2002—after the sport’s commodification. Instead of sunny California, where Mid90s unfolds and where skateboarding is often said to have been born, Macdonald turns his attention across the Atlantic.