In the fourth in our series Women on Wheels, Mia Kingsley chatted to Lois Pendlebury about how she started skateboarding fifteen years ago and hasn't looked back since. 

This interview was first published in Issue 26. You can buy the issue here or subscribe to Oh Comely here. 

I meet Lois Pendlebury at Victoria station. After a brief introduction, she glides ahead of me in search of a place to talk. A long-time professional skateboarder, Lois was born in Bradford and turns thirty in September. As she weaves in and out of the human traffic, she breathes an air of agility—so it’s no surprise that she has been skating for the better part of fifteen years. But it isn’t the tricks of the trade that have captured Lois’s heart, it’s the community and adventure that skating has brought her, since her first session spent sharing a beat-up set of wheels.

How did you start skating? I was fifteen and a friend of mine had a skateboard from Argos with an alien on the bottom. We started skating on that one summer holiday before going into Year Eleven and then we snapped it, so we got a new one each after that. The first skate park we went to took us three bus journeys to get there, all our spending money, and we would eat twelve snickers just to get through it. It was a full-on mission. We would get there and skate until we were done for.

It must have been exciting, to venture out of that first skate park and explore the world of skating. It was unreal, that is why I still do it today. It’s the adventure that’s involved, the missions, the journeys.

How do you feel when you don’t have your skateboard with you? I imagine it acts as a piece of freedom. Yes, I have formed a strong attachment to my skateboard; it’s a weapon, it’s your protection, and it’s your mode of transportation. I get frustrated when I have to walk places, especially a route that I would normally skate, so I start running. Although there was a period when I would skate to work, which can be fun. I call it the muggle juggle.

The what? The muggle juggle! Muggles are like the norms, aren’t they? The non-radical.

As in Harry Potter muggles? Yes, I would just skate through them all, walking with their briefcases and their miserable faces.

Is that a well-known comparison within the skate world? No, I’m pretty sure I coined that one. I can claim that: the muggle juggle.

Have you ever had a serious injury? Yes, plenty. (Lois flicks out her whole front right tooth with her tongue.) That one is pretty bad. I can’t eat with it in.

Wow! I don’t even know how to put that into words. You will have to insert some brackets, “Lois’ front tooth just started winking at me!”

But you still do it? It’s like being Bart Simpson in real life. When you’re skating, you are in control of something. These wheels are underneath your feet. You use your feet and your body and your mind.

Read More in this series: Meg Peplowen Rides a Mobility Scooter, Pam Prescod Drives a Bus, Stefanie Mainey Competes on Roller Skates.