Funk, Soul and Skating at Stratford Centre
In the early 1980s, Stratford Shopping Centre became an unlikely hub for roller skating and dance culture in East London. With shops closed on Sundays, young people gathered in the dimly lit concourse, bringing radios and skates to turn the space into an informal rink and dancefloor. Crews such as the East Side Jammers emerged from this scene, mixing skating, dance, and social connection. The centre also served as a meeting point to exchange news about local parties and events, long before mobile phones.
By the 2000s, a new generation of skaters at Stratford developed the “Chop and Shuffle” style, a dance-based skating technique that later spread internationally, especially during the pandemic when skating resurged. Projects such as Marilyn Fontaine’s It’s a London Ting (2024) have documented this legacy, highlighting figures like Wayne Gordon, known as the “Godfather of Skating,” and showing how Stratford’s skating culture has shaped lives locally and globally.
Oral histories
DJ Pogo
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Background
DJ Pogo (Adam Montout), born 1969 in Plaistow, is a DJ, educator and co-founder of Urban Development.
Transcript
And we’re talking ’81/’82 loads of crews and people used to skateboard and roller skate in there, and, um, they’d bring a radio and just skate around there because no one was in- on Sunday, everything was closed. So on Sunday, after the shops closed on Saturday, which had to close at seven o’clock back then, and no shops were allowed to be open on Sunday, so seven o’clock, and in the evening and all day Sunday, people used to go there and roller skate. Then it went from roller skating to dancing. So people used to go there with their radios, sit them down on the little mound in the middle of the shopping centre, and put the radios there and they’d dance. They’d dance there all day. The East Side Jammers was a famous crew from East London, they came from Stratford, Forest Gate, Manor Park. They all met there. And that crew had like 20-25, people in it at one point. And loads of people used to come there and just hang out. That was a place to hang out. You know, on a Sunday.
So people would always pass there because no phones or nothing, so it’s all word of mouth. So people go there to find out who was playing, where, where we going, where, what’s the next party and this, that and the third in East London. And everyone needs to congregate there for that information, as well as just to dance. So people just go there, just to hang out.
Video
Documentary by Jack Matthew for Newham Heritage Month, celebrating Stratford Centre’s roller-skating scene from 1980s pioneers to today’s OSS crew.