Aside from offshore banking, cattle and the fact that it had produced some pretty heavyweight skateboarding talent over the years, the island of Jersey had never really crossed my mind, until recently.
One Friday night in early June I had a call from Edd Martin at DC asking me if I wanted to accompany a handful of riders from the UK DC team on a whistle-stop mission to Jersey, putting on a demo at the skatepark in St Helier and hitting up as many street spots as time would allow over the course of a day and a half.
Having never previously thought of venturing over to Jersey, my mind was made up almost instantly; a little over two weeks later I was heading to Luton to board the 45 minute flight, en route to meet up with Cian Eades, Sam Pulley, Dylan Hughes and Tha Heartbreakers (that’s Nicky Howells and Dave Snaddon, in case you were wondering…), with Leo Sharp on hand to shoot the photos and Edd taking care of anything logistics based. Red from Shiner was also in the mix for the first night as he’d taken the weekend off to go to Glastonbury Festival but didn’t end up going, choosing instead to spend £235 on a flight to Jersey to spend one evening with the crew, sleeping on the floor for good measure.
Our accommodation for the two nights was an interesting piece of architecture on the coast named Lewis’ Tower, built in 1835 to defend the island from French attack. The place has no running water (though there are public toilets a few feet away) and no real beds, though Edd managed to talk the company he hired it from into sticking some camping beds in there for us. When we arrived the beds were covered in blue tarpaulin, giving the main room of tower the appearance of a morgue. I’ve got to be honest, it was one of the more unique places I’ve ever stayed during a skate trip; it was kind of like camping but with a wartime edge.
Anyway, here’s a rundown of (almost) everything that happened…