Patch on a Hat - Sam Strick

“My mum and dad, Terri and Jimmy Strick, met there. I had a patch sewn on the back of my denim jacket when I was about four which was one of the first items of clothing that I remember as a child and I remember whenever I went anywhere everyone was like “Ohhh Skewjack!”. It didn’t really hit me that it meant something until I was 8 or 9.

“Then, as I got older, I started socialising with my dad and his friends who were all there and the other children. There’s a lot of people I went to school with, like my best friend from when we were kids, her parents met there and there’s another family up the road who are friends of ours, they went there and some guys who I met later in life, their parents were there.  

“It’s definitely a connection between us all. When we were 18 or 19 we’d be in the pub with our parents, other people would scoff at that and wouldn’t be anywhere near their parents, but we didn’t. And now, if I didn’t see Jack and Harry (Harvey Hoare’s sons) in the pub and Harvey was there, I’d sit and spend just as long with him as I would with Jack and Harry. The Skewjack vibe definitely enabled it. People were in the pub together and the kids were maybe able to roam a bit more, because it was so chilled. Even now, if I see my parents’ friends and they’ve had a few drinks, they always revert back to it. It’s Skewjack that everyone talks about.

“So that same patch. My mum kept it and I’ve got it on a hat now. I wore it out on Good Friday and this couple stopped me and said “Excuse me, where did you get the hat from?” I explained that I’d had this patch and I sewed it on and they couldn’t believe it. They said they hadn’t been to Cornwall for years and the last time they’d been was to go to Skewjack. They were absolutely over the moon, they were made up.  

“It’s definitely a special thing to me. I was never there, it was before I was born and I’m really proud of it. I really wanted to wear that hat, it massively means something to me and I know that Jack and Harry feel the same about it. When I made it I put a picture of it on Instagram and it was amazing the amount of people, who I didn’t realise whose parents were there, who recognised the badge and had obviously heard the same stories. I got so many messages.

“For my birthday this year my mum got me an A2 print of one of the old posters, so that’s up in my flat.  I’ve got a couple of the old T-shirts, I’ve got a couple of old vests … and the patch on the hat of course. I wear that hat all the time, but I get paranoid because I don’t want to lose it!”

 

Skewjack Stories
Sam with his mum, Terri.