Folkestone serves as a bellwether for Brexit Britain: a place on the cusp of change, divided and at odds. The town’s skate scene feels this more than most. As their local spaces slowly disappear, snatched from them by developers, what happens next?
Text: Peter Yeung ◉ Photography: Theo McInnes
FOR A FLEETING MOMENT, FOLKESTONE SEEMS EVERY inch Britain’s response to the fabled resorts of the Mediterranean. The sea reclines flat on its back, beach pebbles bathe in the sun, and the beguiling chalk cliffs snooze along the horizon. Then, suddenly, the rain return, thundering down violently. The waves swell and churn. Out of nowhere, a skinny kid with a skateboard sprints into view, screams at the top of his voice, and rides full-tilt over a ramp, contorting his limbs wildly mid-flight, before sketchily landing the kickflip. Others soon swarm out of the woodwork. One lands a slick railslide. Another bails painfully onto his back. A third snaps his board in two after launching high into the air. But they keep coming. Hundreds of black t-shirts, beanies and baggy jeans: it’s like a scene from a zombie movie if the apocalyptic swarm was made up of gnarly skateboarders. “I’ve been skating here since I was a kid,” says Joshua Lee, leaning both his tattooed arms against a metal fence at the edge of the pop-up event at Folkestone’s harbour. “It wasn’t always like this. I can guarantee you that.” All around, energy pulses through the air – not just because of the punk tracks pounding out the stacks of speakers, or the thunderous clouds overhead. The day’s Red Bull-sponsored event, which has brought with it all sorts of ramps and rails to skate, has drawn an impressive crowd from far and wide. But Lee, who learnt the ropes at Kent’s smattering of skate parks in Ashford, Dover and Folkestone, grew up down the road. One day, when he was seven years old, his dad came home with a 1990s Batman-themed skateboard. Lee immediately fell in love with it, shuttling around on his knees in front of the house. His childhood friends all had similar formative experiences. They toured the county together on the cheap, getting scorned by locals along the way. Now, Lee is 30. Folkestone is changing; skateboarding is changing. For him, it’s not an entirely comfortable transformation. In his words: “Fucking terrible”. London skate brands are here to flog expensive goods. Turner Prize-winning design collective Assemble has built “skateable” sculptures around the harbour. And, perhaps worst of all for him, the final nail in the coffin of skateboarding as an act of rebellion: skaters must sign health a
