180: Neil Macdonald/Science Versus Life

Neil, April 2022. Photo: self portrait

To say that Neil Mcdonald is interested in skate history is a little like saying Capability Brown liked to dabble in the odd bit of gardening.

Neil is a journalist, author, curator and archivist who is obsessed, to an awe-inspiring degree, with the tales and intricacies of skate history.

It’s a fascination he explores through his essential Science Versus Life Instagram account, and which he is developing on the grandest possible scale with his forthcoming history of UK skateboarding. For me, Neil’s reverent take on the power and importance of skate history makes him more akin to a legitimate cultural curator. It’s why I kept using the word archivist during our conversation, and why I think his work is so important and much more than the mere ‘scanning of old skateboard magazines’, to paraphrase his Insta bio.

Why? Because this stuff matters. It’s important, like any history is important. It’s how we define ourselves as a culture, and how we safeguard the uniqueness of these activities many of us have based our entire lives around.

With Science Versus Life and his forthcoming book, Neil is doing nothing less than trying to preserve and present the entire pre-digital history of British skateboarding and, by extension, youth culture in this country. As you might imagine if you’ve listened to the show for a while, this mission is right up my boulevard, and I enjoyed our chat very much indeed. Hope you do too.

Listen to the episode now: