Sidewalk Skateboarding Jordan Lightowler - First Light - Sidewalk Skateboarding

Jordan Lightowler – First Light Jordan Lightowler – First Light

Ok Jordan – let’s get the vital info.

Originally I’m from Tipton up near Birmingham but my family moved to Worcester about five years ago. The first real skating I saw was in the ‘Blind What If’ video. I started skating properly when I moved to Worcester because I got on with all the local skaters like Pete Carron, Ash Lamb, Daz Blocksidge, Sam and Jay and all of those dudes really well, whereas in Tipton there was no one really to skate with.

Coming from Worcester, a small town with a fairly rich skateboarding heritage in relation to its size, were you aware of that the town had produced such exports as Vaughan Baker?

Yeah, I always skate past Crown Court gutted that you can’t skate one of the original Worcester spots, watching Vaughan’s First Broadcast part is sick because he’s skating some of the spots I skate now like Pitchcroft. I’ve never actually met Vaughan but I’m good mates with his brother Dan, it’s always good to hear about stories of those two skating.

Having spent my teenage years in the dizzying heights of the St Martins Gate multistory carpark in the late 90’s, how important do you think having a skatepark such as Perdiswell at your disposal has been to your progression and for keeping the scene going?

I think it helped keep people skating. But as a park, Perdiswell is pretty dated and haggard now so we don’t get many people traveling here to skate it. I don’t really blame them with Hereford and Cirencester so close by. It definitely helped me learn almost all of my tricks and is a good place to go mess about and warm up. A lot of the time we end up still skating the car parks and spots like that because we get so bored of the park.

With the local S.O.S. Spine closing its doors over some years ago now, what’s the scene like in Worcester and is there any central force to help keep things going in the wake of Spine?

I never actually went to Spine because I didn’t live in Worcester when it was open, I’ve heard it was good to have a strong local shop and I wish there was something similar still. Now we do have Reefs who have hooked me up many times in the past when I needed some shoes or something but apart from that there isn’t much of a scene here, I think it died with Spine. There are just us few skaters here now.

Around the time we first started going out to try and shoot for this First Light you got hooked up by A Third Foot right? How did that come about, what’s the deal as far as your place within the team goes, and do you think having the guys who make the boards living in the same town as you makes this more personal?

I’m super stoked to be getting boards off A Third Foot, it came around I think because I knew Ryan Price, Luke Kindon, and Lucas Healey who were already on the team and I was going filming in Birmingham where we ended up at the Factory where Ken asked if I wanted to be flowed some boards. I was so stoked! I was taken back so I didn’t really know what to say and I still get stick off them for not saying thank you, (laughs). It’s pretty mad that Ken lives in Worcester too: literally two minutes from my house, which is sick because if I need a board I can just go and grab one. I think being in Worcester was a big reason why Ken hooked me up because I think he wants the Worcester scene to come back just as much as the skaters.

What do you do when you’re not skating? Are you in education or are you working at the moment?

Just started working behind a bar in a hotel, it’s not too bad, not liking how much less time I have to skate but it’s worth it to get some money so I can do shit.

Looking at what we’ve shot for this feature, it’s pretty clear that you favour the ‘jump off a building’ over the wallie/no comply style of street skating. What are your main influences as far as terrain, style of skating and do you think that what’s available to you in the way of local spots has shaped this?

I was influenced a lot by Vaughan’s skating and grew up watching a lot of Andrew Reynolds and that kind of skating so I’ve always liked to jump down shit. Most of the local spots we skate are stair sets like Pitchcroft (a block 5), Kings Hawford (a block 4) and the other stairs in town. The skatepark has a mini Pitchcroft set as well so it’s just second nature to jump down shit.

Are you happy in Worcester or do you have plans to travel around or move somewhere with more going on in terms of a scene?

At the moment I’m happy in Worcester because I’ve just started working. I do want to move out to Bristol within the next year or so because it’s such a better scene and a bunch of mates have moved there. I really want to travel as well, want to go skate in loads of different countries and skate all the spots you see in the video parts.

Jordan hardflips yet more demolished debris

Jordan hardflips yet more demolished debris