I’ve been filming BMX in Newcastle for a round 4 years now, ever since Steve moved up here for university and I used to be through whenever I could to ride and hang out. I don’t know why I started filming? I think I went halfers on my first camera with my dad because I’d done ok in my GCSEs. Filming on a weekend was always good because it gave me something to watch back during the week at home in Barnard Castle, it helped keep me motivated and reminded me that there was something beyond the mundane existence of that small market town. I’ve always lived in the country, growing up it’s the best place to be I think. But once you get to a certain age, throwing stones in the river, camping out in the woods, building dens and rolling hay bails kind of loses its appeal. So BMX provided a great avenue for me to move away from it all, something that most of my school friends still haven’t managed to do.

I used to come to Newcastle with my mum sometimes when she went shopping, but most of that time was spent in fenwicks so I didn’t really know anything about it as a city. Through riding, I got to explore the town which was great being from the country. I guess I had a lot to learn. Even though this was only 4 years ago it seems like 20. The riding scene was real tight, the first day me and Steve met up with other riders together we were rolling 30 deep. But usually there would only be around 10 of us at the most riding together on a Sunday. The regulars were the likes of James Murrey, Brian Barrett, Bobby Colvin, Kune, Billy, The Mits, Nick, Kev and a few of the then young kids, Kenny B, Luke, Ricky Wong, Dan Shaw and Hassan. The ‘Jack Daniels Squad’ would all meet at Queens Banks at 1pm every Sunday. Buff Zine materialised in the summer of 2002 and provided us with a good way of communicating and gave us a physical output of our good times, which it still is.

Things have changed a lot since then. Murrey went ‘underground’ and quit soon after, Barret (possibly the best rider Newcastle has ever produced) got into drugs and faded out. More and more younger kids were riding and rolling in their own crews, Jed Smith came from Australia and had a heavy influence on the likes of Kenny and Ricky Wong. Carmine started Uni at Northumbria bringing the Hexham locals through to shred often. Eventually, more riders from Sunderland would be coming through on a weekend and using Steve’s house as a base to party and ride from.

The scene was getting massive, and now we had the connection with Sunderland, Hexham and Shields, something I’d never felt we had before.

In 2003 I finished my A levels, all I wanted to do was live in Newcastle and really be a part of it. I moved into Buff house MK1 in July that year with Olly and Carmine and started at Newcastle college studying media moving image. I bought a 3-chip camera off Hman (which I went halfers on with my kid brother) and started filming and editing hard core.

The park opened around 8 months later and the place just erupted with riding talent, shit riders got good, good riders got great. We had visitors from Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds and even as far away as Hastings. Strong bonds were forged and we became a part of the UK underground BMX Network after being somewhat introvert in the past.

Anyway, enough of the history lesson.

Around 4 months ago, I had the idea of producing a UK video zine. In the past, I guess I had filmed simply for nostalgic reasons, so we could look back on the tapes in years to come and reminisce. But now, I wanted to produce something, I wanted to share all of this with everyone I knew and show them our scene. I emailed 3 people that I knew would be striving for the same and had filming and editing skills to match their ambition. Rob Sharp, Joe Cox and James Cox. Joe was a long shot I guess because I knew he already had filming commitments with NSF3 and his own video ‘Voices’.

Rob and James got back to me and were fully up for it. And so Regions was born, a collaboration of filmers, editors and photographers from all across the UK producing a video that shows the UK in its true light.

We all agreed that current coverage of the UK scene via the video medium was ill sufficient. Not to take anything away from Clicked, but it always seemed southern biased and contained too much contest coverage. The UK scene isn’t about contests and going to Woodward, there’s a vast network of hundreds of riders all over the country killing it. All you have to do is scratch the surface. After all, how can you document a scene that you’re not a part of?

Regions is for any rider that’s travelled to another city to meet up and ride with some friends, anyone who’s gone to a jam just to see some people you haven’t seen in ages and get pissed, anyone who wants to know ‘who the hell’ that unknown shredder was at the park last night, anyone who’s proud to be British and knows the craic!