A blast from my skateboarding past: My first ever skateboard

After a week of trawling through a box of old photos I finally managed to locate a photo of my very first skateboard, a 'Turbo II'. The photo confirms that it was every bit as cheap and nasty as I remember! Purchased some time around 1990, as far as I can remember it was from the Irish supermarket chain Quinnsworth's (now owned by Tesco) toy department. I don't recall it being bought for my birthday or any other particular occasion, so I must have used enough 'pester power' on my Mum to get it for me.  As you can see from the photo it had plastic trucks (!!) and terrible hard plastic wheels that took some effort to roll on. Even at that young age and without any skater friends I was acutely aware of the limitations of such a board and used to spend hours pouring over fancy 'proper' skateboards in magazines and in my local skateshop in Monkstown Wind & Wave (sadly long since gone, this shop mainly sold windsurfing gear, hence the name. It also stocked some fancy skateboarding gear). My weekly pocket money didn't stretch to buying anything better, so instead I saved up £10 to get some decent bearings put into my wheels. This was under the mistaken believe that it would make my rubbish wheels roll better. I seriously doubt it made much difference. For all it's faults, I still loved that skateboard and kept it for many years after I stopped skating. I think my mother finally threw it out in one of her cleanouts, otherwise I'm sure I'd still have it...