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The DIY aspects of skateboarding started from day one.
Some of the earliest boards were made out of roller-skate wheels
and bits of wood.
Skateboarding at my local park brought some of my greatest friends to me.
Given me some of my greatest times.
I always thought if I could build a skatepark
that would be a great thing to be a part of.
Yeah, so I entered a competition for a three-month lease
on a piece of land in East London.
After I won the project, I suddenly realized I had no budget
and only four weeks to build it. It was quite daunting.
There's quite a bit of work involved in building skateparks.
But Andy's so, so enthusiastic to give back to skateboarding.
No matter what. Just for the love of the sport.
I threw away a job in engineering
and sort of started all again to have a go at this.
It had to be a success really, you know.
The first thing I searched for was local companies
that I could tap waste materials from.
There was a core of things I needed.
I was also up for building around what I could find.
Those ones, you can take...
I had to learn how to do a lot of things from scratch.
Granite was something I had never worked with so I had to learn how.
You know what, punt to the left, yeah.
It was really exciting the moment I realized
there were so many reclaimed materials in this area
that I could actually make this happen.
He slept there. He ate there. You could not get him out of there.
He was there 24 hours of the day.
You ride the storm with Andy,
when it comes together it's a beautiful thing to see.
Welcome to Frontside.
We've got the main sort of street course on the left here.
This was the second stage of the development of the skatepark.
This is the ride 20 ramp. The white boards are from a local art exhibition.
The ply we managed to get from McGrath's around the corner.
Standing in the park now watching it sort of well-used is a massive buzz.
Can you work out which one's the back one?
I love the vibes here. This is where we spend most of our days at.
I just think this place is amazing
considering it's all built by hand and stuff.
You even get the people at the train station up there.
They like to watch when they're waiting for their trains.
You can hear them clapping sometimes up there.
Skateboarding's been a massive part of my life.
It's brought me some of the best memories I've got,
some of the best friends I still have.
If you're passionate about something you can make it happen
and hopefully he's passed that on to the next generation of kids
that he's got working with him.
Yeah, the skatepark's only temporary,
I just hope that some of the things the kids have learnt
and some of the memories that they've got are a little bit more permanent.