Trouble in Abingdon

In the Summer of 2019 I spent 2 weeks in Abingdon-on- Thames. It’s a small market town located South of Oxford. Filled with nothing but green trees and flat roads, I had initiallyplanned for this place to be a home base while I traveled aroundEngland. On a whim, I decided to check out the nearest skate- park google maps would take me to. I walked 20 minutes to find a dinky concrete park in the middle of a leisure center.

Once there, I met a group of teenagers skating the park. I intro-duced myself and asked if I could take pictures of them skating. They agreed, and were kind enough to let me use a skateboard and take a few laps around the park myself. I ended up staying there the whole day smoking cigarettes, talking shit, and meet- ing everybody who frequents the park. I returned to the park al-most everyday after that to take photographs of them.

On my last day, they took me to their “hideout” to have a BBQ. The Hideout was built from scrap wood, dirt, sticks, and var- ious tarps. When the day was over, one of them yelled to me, “You’re one of us now! So you need to visit again soon.” I shook my head and said “You better believe I will!”

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