Elsewhere

The story of UK skateboarding 1987–2002

Neil MacDonald author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Batsford

Published:28th May '26

Should be back in stock very soon

Elsewhere cover

'Majestic' – The Idler

'An absolute treasure trove.' – The Scotsman

'Neil Macdonald's triumph of a book' – Transworld Skateboarding

Elsewhere is the definitive oral history of British skateboarding. Told chronologically from the beginning of its identity shift to the start of the new millennium, the book explores the lasting influence British skateboarding continues to have on fashion, film, photography, art and media. 

While British skateboarders moved the sport away from its Californian roots, embracing a different terrain with skaters in the north taking to ramps in abandoned warehouses and in the south skating the streets of new developments, the story of skateboarding in the UK goes far beyond the act of riding a board. As important were the cottage industries of clothes manufacture, photography, filmmaking and zine production which were inspired by British skateboarders: many of which are now multi-million-pound brands which regulate mainstream culture today. 

Suitable not only for skaters but for anyone interested in film, fashion and photography, Elsewhere tells the story of skateboarding in the UK during the pivotal era of 1987–2002 when the British iteration of the sport developed its own unique identity and subsequently went on to inspire and transform global popular culture. 

'Majestic' 

-- The Idler

‘An absolute treasure trove’

* The Scotsman *

'Neil Macdonald's triumph of a book'

-- Transworld Skateboarding

'Neil Macdonald’s magnum opus’

-- Thrasher

'Captures UK skateboarding's grit and rawness.'

-- Huck

'A curated history.'

-- HERO

'A glorious, sprawling, energetic history'

* International Times *

'A lavishly illustrated oral history’

-- Vale50plus

On one level, Neil Macdonald’s (@scienceversuslife) book is an oral and visual history of British skateboard culture from 1987 to 2002. But that is to put it simply: this book plunges head-first into the dizzying throng of voices, texture and colour that pulsate from this ecosystem shaped by passion, love, hate, youth, folly, success, ambition, grit, mundanity and violence.

Neil emerged from the very scene he documents. A participant and an observer, he skated, hosted club nights, DJ’d and everything in between. He is now the biggest skate archivist in the UK, and Elsewhere is the culmination of that work.

-- @ jacobelliottharris

'Meticulously researched, extensively illustrated and produced with the involvement of anyone who was anyone.' – London Review of Books

 

ISBN: 9781849949422

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

464 pages