London’s Working-Class Youth and the Making of Post-Victorian Britain, 1958–1971 (Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music) 3030689670, 9783030689674

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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF SUBCULTURES AND POPULAR MUSIC

Felix Fuhg

PALGRAVE STU HISTORY O DIES IN THE F SUBCULT URES AND POPU LAR MUSIC

London’ s Workin g-Class and the Youth Making o f Post-Vic torian B ritain, 1958–19 71

Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music

Series Editors Keith Gildart University of Wolverhampton Wolverhampton, UK Anna Gough-Yates University of Roehampton London, UK Sian Lincoln Liverpool John Moores University Liverpool, UK Bill Osgerby London Metropolitan University London, UK Lucy Robinson University of Sussex Brighton, UK John Street University of East Anglia Norwich, UK Peter Webb University of the West of England Bristol, UK Matthew Worley University of Reading Reading, UK

From 1940s zoot-suiters and hepcats through 1950s rock ‘n’ rollers, beatniks and Teddy boys; 1960s surfers, rude boys, mods, hippies and bikers; 1970s skinheads, soul boys, rastas, glam rockers, funksters and punks; on to the heavy metal, hip-hop, casual, goth, rave and clubber styles of the 1980s, 90s, noughties and beyond, distinctive blends of fashion and music have become a defining feature of the cultural landscape. The Subcultures Network series is international in scope and designed to explore the social and political implications of subcultural forms. Youth and subcultures will be located in their historical, socio-economic and cultural context; the motivations and meanings applied to the aesthetics, actions and manifestations of youth and subculture will be assessed. The objective is to facilitate a genuinely cross-disciplinary and transnational outlet for a burgeoning area of academic study. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14579

Felix Fuhg

London’s WorkingClass Youth and the Making of PostVictorian Britain, 1958–1971

Felix Fuhg Center for Metropolitan Studies Technische Universität Berlin Berlin, Germany

ISSN 2730-9517     ISSN 2730-9525 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music ISBN 978-3-030-68967-4    ISBN 978-3-030-68968-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68968-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover Illustration: Photo by John Pratt/Keystone Features/Getty Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

Various assumptions about British society, Englishness, Britishness, and the meaning of post-war history within the British historical self-narrative had been recently called into question. Many thoughts in the upcoming chapters are influenced by the author’s academic affiliation. Institutions like the International Research Center “Work and Human Lifecycle in Global History” at Humboldt University Berlin, The Center for Metropolitan Studies at Technical University Berlin, and the German Historical Institute London gave the author the opportunity to discuss methodological, theoretical, and historiographical challenges and issues with outstanding historians like Jürgen Kocka and Alf Lüdtke. A special thanks must be dedicated to both supervisors of the project, Andreas Eckert and Alexander Nützenadel. Dorothee Brantz, director of the Center for Metropolitan Studies, supported the project in both structural and intellectual terms. Tobias Becker and Bodo Mrozek were always helpful in our discussions of nineteenth- and twentieth-century British cultural history and the European and American histories of modern popular culture. The book also massively benefited from the collaboration with research networks in Britain which stimulated and supported the project in various ways, particularly the Interdisciplinary Network for Subcultures, Music and Social Change with Matt Worley, Bill Osgerby, Keith Gildart, and Lucy Robinson. Martin Farr and Justin Quinn Olmstead of the British Scholar Society provided space and time at the Britain and the World conferences to discuss research outcomes. The Urban History

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Group paved the way for academic and private connections to historians in Leeds, particularly Michael Reeve, whose expertise was helpful during the writing process. Further, the book could not have been written without the support of many contemporary witnesses who helped to understand what it meant to live and grow up in a fast-changing metropolis in the 1960s. By so doing, Tony Foley, Dena Sprigens, and Ian Waters widely contributed to the success of this research project. Support came from friends and family, particularly my parents and my partner who created an environment in which I could concentrate on this book.

Contents

1 Introduction  1 Part I Society  23 2 “Vulgar Nincompoops” and “Sawdust Caesars”: Generations, Adolescence, and the Historicity of Youth Culture in Post-­war Debates 25 3 “First I Look at the Purse”: Youth at Work 63 Part II City 105 4 Mods, Working-Class Youth, and London’s Transformation into a Modern Post-war Metropolis107 5 Working-Class Youth and the Social Transformation of Post-war London151

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Contents

Part III Pop 205 6 Making Britain Great Again: Popular Culture and the British Invasion207 7 Cultural Renewal and the Transnational Fashion Industry245 Part IV Space 289 8 The Creation and Use of Public Space291 9 Leisure Venues: London by Day and by Night333 10 Conclusion425 Index433

Abbreviations

ABC AFN AJY CARD CBD CCCS GLC GPI ILEA LCC LCSS LMA LYC NABC NAYC SCMS SCNVYO SPUR TNA WILYS YEO YES YHA

Aerated Bread Company American Forces Network Association of Jewish Youth Campaign Against Racial Discrimination Commercial Business District Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies Greater London Council George Padmore Institute Inner London Education Authority London County Council London Council of Social Service London Metropolitan Archives London Youth Committee National Association of Boys’ Clubs National Association of Youth Clubs Standing Conference of Music Committees Standing Conference of Voluntary Youth Organisations Society for the Promotion of Urban Renewal The National Archives West Indian League Youth Service Youth Employment Officers Youth Employment Service Youth Hostels Association

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List of Images

Image 1.1 A crowd gathers at Hyde Park Gate on the morning of Churchill’s death, 24 January 1965. (Copyright: The Print Collector/Alamy Stock Photo) 2 Image 3.1 Female sixth-form students in a secretarial class, Sedgehill School, Lewisham, South London, England, UK. Sedgehill School was founded in 1957 and was one of the first comprehensive schools in the country. (Copyright: Allan Cash Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo) 73 Image 4.1 Two ladies walking on a concourse above the street surrounded by the new modern high-rise concrete and glass buildings that were constructed in the city in the 1960s. (Copyright: Allan Cash Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo) 115 Image 5.1 Children playing dominoes in Brixton in 1966. (Copyright: Phillip Harrington/Alamy Stock Photo) 155 Image 5.2 The gym at the famous Thomas A Beckett public house on the Old Kent Road, Bermondsey, South London, 1964. (Copyright: Allan Cash Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo) 159 Image 5.3 A demonstrator is marched off during the Notting Hill Riots on 1 September 1958. (Copyright: Keystone Press/Alamy Stock Photo) 165 Image 6.1 The Foundations pop group surrounded by children at the Notting Hill playground in 1969. (Copyright: Trinity Mirror/ Mirrorpix/Alamy Stock Photo) 216 Image 6.2 “Make your own record in 3 minutes”, London, c. 1966/67. (Copyright: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd./Alamy Stock Photo)225

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List of Images

Image 6.3 Helen Shapiro, promotion picture with the Covent Garden Boys at the Covent Garden Market in November 1962. (Copyright: Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy Stock Photo) 226 Image 7.1 People mingle outside a shop in Carnaby Street, 1967. (Copyright: Allan Cash Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo) 251 Image 7.2 Girls shopping at Biba in 1966. (Copyright: Trinity Mirror/ Mirrorpix/Alamy Stock Photo) 253 Image 8.1 Children, photographed by John Gay, swinging on ropes tied to a lamppost beside the site of a demolished terraced house in either Islington or Camden in the early 1960s. (Copyright: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo) 295 Image 8.2 The Small Faces on a bomb site on Ludgate Hill, London, in September 1965. (Copyright: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo)298 Image 8.3 Young people Piccadilly, London, in August 1969. (Copyright: Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy Stock Photo) 302 Image 9.1 A group of young people at a London coffee bar in the late 1950s. (Copyright: Pictorial Press Ltd./Alamy Stock Photo) 335 Image 9.2 The Speakeasy, a pop music–oriented club in 1960s London. (Copyright: Pictorial Press Ltd./Alamy Stock Photo) 352

“Young Londoners are resilient and fast on their feet. They may be dangerously self-conscious, but when the voyeurs arrive they move out next day. Reporting on their activities is therefore difficult - by the time you read this it may have become a Domesday record of establishments sunk without a trace. But London will still be a good place to be. It’s a comfortable city if you are an aging, insolvent hipster; and if you’re young, reasonably decorative, and either talented or rich, there’s no point in going anywhere else.” Len Deighton, 1967

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

While Philip Larkin argued in his famous poem “Annus Mirabilis” that life had never been better than in 1963, this book begins in 1965. During this year, Goldie, London Zoo’s golden eagle, was recaptured after thirteen days of freedom, and Liverpool FC won the FA Cup for the first time in the club’s history. More important, however, was that Sir Winston Churchill, the man who had navigated Britain through the war, and who politically represented the Empire, took seriously ill and died. His death moved hundreds of thousands to take to the streets of London to watch his funeral parade (Image 1.1). For The Observer, Patrick O’Donovan wrote: This [the day of the funeral] was the last time such a thing could happen. This was the last time that London would be the capital of the world. […] This marked the final act of Britain’s greatness.1

The death of Churchill marked for many the definitive end of the Victorian era. The wind of change that Harold Macmillan spoke of in 1960 had already blown through Britain’s imperial politics, and with the end of the Second World War, the White House had replaced No. 10 Downing Street as the centre of world politics. With the crisis of the Empire, Victorian values, and imperial British consciousness, the

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Fuhg, London’s Working-Class Youth and the Making of Post-­Victorian Britain, 1958–1971, Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68968-1_1

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Image 1.1  A crowd gathers at Hyde Park Gate on the morning of Churchill’s death, 24 January 1965. (Copyright: The Print Collector/Alamy Stock Photo)

late-Victorian way of life also came into doubt. Winston Churchill had stood for the imperial greatness of the country, and older generations in particular saw his death as the curtain falling on an era dominated by Britain’s importance and global leadership.2 Imperial decline, according to historian John Darwin, had always elicited a fear of falling, and such a fear had shaped British politics since the turn of the century.3 In the early 1950s, the wartime and imperial nostalgia in British cinema formed a counter-reaction to a reality in which the Empire was slipping further and further away.4 The crisis of the Empire, and thus also of British identity, came to a head with the Suez Crisis in 1956, and by 1963, the economic future of the country, along with its global political and cultural role, was still uncertain. Just a few months after the death of Churchill, John Crosby wrote in the Daily Telegraph that now, from a cultural point of view, London was “the most exciting city”.5 In 1966, the American magazine Time healed the wounds from which Britain had suffered for years. “The end of

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empire”, wrote Valerie Krips, “demands a strategic realignment of Britain’s account of itself on the world stage.”6 The focus of Liverpool’s self-image, for example, shifted from its imperial past to popular youth culture in the 1960s.7 Historians of modern British youth culture are convinced that “with the British Empire’s decline, decolonization, and a lingering and problematic preoccupation with ‘class’, young Britons were in a position to challenge […] increasingly outmoded connotations of what ‘Modern Britain’ or ‘British subjects’ had evolved into since the Industrial Revolution”.8 Irene Morra writes that elements in British pop music in the 1960s correspond with “deep-seated assumptions about the international identity of that nation, [and] they also respond to prevailing social and cultural anxieties about the indigenous identity of a modern England without an Empire”.9 American journalist Piri Halasz deemed London the capital of the world again, but for pop rather than politics. Districts such as King’s Road in Chelsea and Carnaby Street in Soho were leading the world of fashion, accompanied by the rich and booming nightlife of the metropolis and the emergence of a new elite class, still associated today with the so-called Chelsea Set. The old Tory-Liberal establishment that had once ruled the Empire from the clubs along Pall Mall and St James’s Street, along with the still-powerful City of London, the Church, and Oxbridge, wrote Halasz, were giving way to a new swinging meritocracy: a creative class.10 London was the hotspot of cultural renewal, attracting people from all over Britain. Popular culture became so important that politicians were convinced they could win elections with the help and support of Britain’s new cultural elite. This, of course, provoked the unease of the old elite, which came to a head in mid-1965. Harold Wilson, who, as detractors said, had won the election only because of his status as the “Prime Minister of pop”, nominated the Beatles for the Order of the British Empire, an act that quickly provoked protests. Honoured members left the order. Hector Dupuis sent his medal back and claimed that he had been placed on “the same level as vulgar nincompoops”.11 Others, however, had foreseen that youth and its culture would determine the economic future of the country, as well as providing new opportunities for British identity politics.12 Even today, the story of “Swinging London” is an integral part of the nation’s historical post-war narrative, and still contributes to Britain’s national identity.13 Over the past few years, the story of Swinging London and its teenage revolution, often framed within the narrative of an affluent society—as

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signified by Harold Macmillan’s 1957 rally speech, has been criticised from different angles.14 Dominic Sandbrook has not only highlighted the continuation of various aspects of Britain’s past during the 1960s, but has also claimed that the social and cultural change associated with the 1960s was experienced only by a handful of middle-class cultural entrepreneurs.15 Further, he criticises the temporal structure of post-war history by pointing out that until the Beatles’ first number one hit in September 1963, the charts were dominated by artists who were broadly rooted in the 1950s, and concludes that Swinging London was the result of a “Great British Dream Factory”, existing not materially but as a figment of people’s visions of the future of the country.16 Gerard De Groot contrasts the image of the 1960s as the “decade of love” with descriptions of the violence and hate that still characterised the streets of many Western societies,17 and Frank Mort challenges the view of the 1960s as a period that entirely broke with the Victorian past by highlighting cultural continuities, such as the social and cultural meaning of scandals.18 Sandbrook, De Groot, and Mort oppose not only the views of authors such as Christopher Bray,19 Peter Chapman,20 and Jon Savage,21 but also the contemporary narrative of the 1960s as a period of social change, which stems from the positions of all political parties at the time. Conservatives saw the boom of the 1960s as an indicator of well-­ functioning capitalism; Labour was convinced that ordinary British people would now enjoy the fruits of modern life via a redistribution of wealth enabled by the establishment of the welfare state, regulated markets, and mass production; and the Marxists of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) interpreted the formation of working-class youth subcultures as a revolutionary practice in the era of the consumer society, and a revolt against the class system via a commodification of social and cultural values, through the transformation of consumption into lifestyle.22 Working-class youth culture in Britain was widely seen as an indicator (and indeed the main driving force) of social and cultural change in the 1960s, yet little has been written about the practice, formation, content, and meaning of this culture in daily urban life. This book aims to examine the emergence of modern working-class youth culture through the perspective of an urban history of post-war London. Scholars point out, “London has always been an important marker for understanding the psyche of the UK, and England in particular: the capital forms a laboratory in which general problems are tested and taken to extremes.”23 At the same time, London differed from the rest of the country, though many

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people, particularly those living in the capital, were convinced of the universal appeal and relevance of the metropolitan way of life, and used their experiences and expectations to draw a picture of the whole country.24 While the book examines how and to what extent youth culture in London gave rise to an alternative self-image for Britain, and as such contributed to the making of a post-Victorian Britishness, it specifically looks at the way in which working-class youth culture corresponded with a fast-­ changing metropolitan and urban society. Arthur Marwick—without taking a strictly chronological approach,25 and on the basis of changes in social mindsets—argues that in the 1960s, Britain put aside the Victorian “straitjacket of dullness and conformity”.26 Following Leif Jerram’s call to rewrite history through a study of street life, this book asks if, how, and to what degree the breakthrough Marwick describes was shaped by a dialogue between working-class youth culture and new forms of urbanity in the 1960s, and to what extent this dialogue became the inspiration for Britain’s new self-image, which was before long exported into the wider world with the help of the country’s new young creative class.27 Therefore, it also investigates how working-class youths in London responded to urban change. Was the culture of working-class teenagers rooted in urban dispersal and the transformation of working-­ class neighbourhoods? Did slum clearance, council housing, and urban redevelopment provide new spaces and spheres for social interaction from which modern British youth culture could develop? How were modern (and in some cases new) urban leisure venues and institutions used by working-class teenagers, and to what extent did they function as laboratories for a developing British pop culture that had its roots in the daily patterns and rhythms of urban post-war entertainment, and ultimately helped Britain re-establish its prominence on the global stage? The meaning of space and place has recently moved into focus of scholars specialised in the history of British youth culture. Matt Worley, for example, confronts the story of the origins of Punk in the world of London’s art schools in 1976 with an alternative history, explaining the arrival of Punk also with the frustration and daily life experiences of suburban kids in the 1970s.28 While Worley’s book is a try to trace the roots of and turning points in the history of a special form of British youth culture, other historians explain the arrival of an independent culture of youth with the help of certain spaces such as the youth club, the coffee bar, or the teen room at home.29 Urban historians ask in recent publications how youth claimed the public sphere in European cities in the

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twentieth century whereas academics coming from fields such as cultural geography are particularly interested in how cities gave itself a new, fresh image with the help of youth consumption and creative industries.30 Other historians too—particularly those working on the history of sexual liberation in post-war times and the history of young women history in the twentieth century—paid special attention to the street in order to reconstruct how local moral institutions controlled public spaces used for leisure purposes and social contact of young women.31 Hannah Charnock, for example, has convincingly shown how a micro history of shifting notions of sexuality in post-war times, today often called the sexual revolution, had been rooted in daily youth practices shaped by local networks.32 The spatial turn33 not just affected the ways how historians framed and explained sexual liberation experienced by the baby-boomer generation. Scholars working on black post-war history in the US also began to pay special attention to urban spaces such as streets, parks schools, or commercial venues.34 This micro history allowed to move away from reading street gangs under the umbrella of juvenile delinquency and enabled scholars the studying of black youth’s behaviour as part of the everyday struggle for civil rights and equality. In British history, gang crime and hooliganism had been traditionally situated within the arrival of an urban industrial society.35 Historians working on youth subcultures, of course, are not the only group of scholars who place their interpretations of British youth cultures within the framework of daily urban experiences and spaces historically and today still associated with teenager. The new field of youth and childhood studies that had been emerged at the crossroads of sociology, cultural studies, psychology, and media studies also see space and space as a driving force of youth cultural developments.36 It is important to notice that linkages between city culture, regional identity, the daily use, and representation of space and place and the history of an emerging independent youth culture are by no means new at all. In both fields that are standing in the middle of this project, the other end had been played a vital role in explaining changing city life or the arrival of modern youth culture. In the 1950s, John Barron Mays was one of the first post-war sociologists working on British youth culture and explained the arrival of a new form of juvenile delinquency as a result of growing up in cities.37 And while the majority of CCCS scholars were primarily looking at the media coverage and media representation of working-class youth, Dave Clarke saw in the arrival of Skinhead culture a “symbolic

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defence of a (threatened) territory”.38 This interpretation gave rise to see in Skinhead culture a subculture with its own sort of communitarianism.39 Regarding the second disciplinary strain the book work with, it can be argued that youth had been a prominent interest group for the pioneers of modern British urban studies. Peter Wilmott, for example, used working-­ class kids as a lens to study continuities and fractures within the culture of urban working-class neighbourhoods in the 1960s.40 In his comprehensive book on the history of subcultural youth studies, Mike Brake already illustrated how the history of the research field reach back to the Chicago School’s influential approach of social ecology.41 Most recently Sarah Kenny uses “the city as a way of analysing the changes to the lives of young people of Sheffield” and did not want to be a study of “the city itself”.42 This book, in contrast, has the aim to put the reciprocal relationship in the centre of analysis and by so doing also offers a fresh reading of urban and cultural change of London itself. The project is not an exclusive study of changing youthhood in Britain in post-war times but a book that unpacks the changing metropolitan culture of a global city with the help of processes of sense-making driven by as well as city experiences made by working-class kids. It uses the parameters of urban studies and cultural geography for situating the cultural transformation Britain underwent thanks to its youth in post-war times in the urban jungle of London. This means that themes such as mobility, territorial notions of city life as well as architectural change, urban planning efforts, and the locality of cultural practices are at the centre of the forthcoming 430 pages. In general, the book argues that the shift from the social and cultural patterns of Victorian Britain to a post-Victorian society, for which urban working-class youth culture was standing for, began in the 1960s, but the transformation was by no means completed during that decade. Thus, the 1960s must be viewed as a liminal period in which both the continuity of and dissociation from Victorian Britain were tangible, and experienced in the everyday cultural and social lives of London’s baby-boomer generation. London became the cultural capital of the world, and started to swing, not because the city had left its past behind, but because it combined the vision of a global cultural modernity with its own imagined traditional English past: the old and the new under the umbrella of the future. In this sense, 1960s London was involved in a process of incorporating its Victorian past into the construction of a modern British future.

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While some scholars stress that “‘modernists’ had little interest in nostalgia of any kind”,43 a closer look shows that the past never really disappeared in respect of 1960s working-class youth culture. The past and the present clashed, a conflict that working-class youth culture translated into culture and cultural identity. When Colin MacInnes wrote Absolute Beginners in 1958, youth became an important topic for the media.44 MacInnes’ protagonist was a working-­ class photographer, a character who later came to life with the success of great East End photographers such as Bailey, Donovan, and Duffy.45 From now on, Britain’s working-class youth had found its place in British culture and society. This was a surprise because three years earlier Edward Shils had complained that culture in Britain was still dominated by the old elite, raised in public schools and educated in Oxford, Cambridge, and London—an elite which left no room for the working class.46 The year 1958 was also the point in which rock ‘n’ roll encountered its own crisis.47 The global arena of pop was there for the taking, and British music and fashion, with their associations with Mod culture, were ready to fill the void left by the death of rock ‘n’ roll. While for some scholars the 1960s finally ended with the oil crisis of 1973, it makes sense for a history focusing on British popular culture to stop at 1971. It was during this year that Skinhead culture faded away—a subculture that was seen as the last surviving legacy of the Mod culture which had characterised and shaped the 1960s, and been responsible for Britain’s, as well as London’s, powerful new role in global popular culture.48 Peter Everett suggests seeing their disappearance as a line marking the end of the Swinging Sixties, because the trajectory of the rise and fall of Mod culture reflected the changing economic situation for young people in Britain.49 Between 1958 and 1971, popular culture was neither homogenous nor static, and the changing socioeconomic conditions and global politics affecting Britain, London, and the city’s youth meant that the historicity of time, as embodied in both the meaning of the past and prospects for the future, was subject to continual change.50 In terms of youth culture, too, the period was subject to fluctuation, and focal points such as the heyday of the Mod scene in 1964, or the decline of the high phase of modernism around 1965–66, fitted into but also broke free of the more general temporal structure of the decade, which Marwick separates into two phases, using the term “high sixties” to describe the years between 1964 and 1969.51

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Thus, historians have offered different temporal frameworks for the 1960s.52 “When did the sixties happen?” asks Andrew Hunt in a review article which discusses the huge variety of research perspectives, each postulating a different beginning and end.53 Marwick introduced the idea of the “long sixties”, a decade which ran, for him, from 1958 until 1974.54 Dominic Sandbrook splits the sixties into two periods, the first of which began with the Suez Crisis in 1956, marking the final end of British imperialism, while the release of the first globally reviewed  Beatles record in 1963 precipitated a second phase which ran from 1963 until 1970.55 In contrast to Marwick and Sandbrook, Hobsbawm characterises the cultural and socioeconomic revolution as a golden era which ran from the mid-­1950s to the mid-1970s.56 All the given examples show that from an academic point of view, decades are more fluid than the public understanding of history suggests, and consequently, this book focuses on the period between 1958 and 1971, while referring to the years before and after. This is necessary not least because contemporaries themselves explicitly refer to past decades, but also in that the developments and characteristics of the Swinging Sixties did not arise spontaneously. The beginnings of the consumer society first appeared around 1955,57 when Teddy Boy culture spread through London. From now on, gangs were no longer associated with poverty, but with growing affluence.58 While newspapers were printing headlines about Teddy Boys on their front pages, Britain, along with the rest of the world, was changing. The TV became ubiquitous during 1955–1956,59 as the Suez crisis, and particularly relations with America, called Britain’s role in world politics into question.60 Rock ‘n’ roll had its breakthrough as a musical genre which was later adopted by young British musicians as they redefined the global image of Britain and Britishness.61 In 1955, according to Christopher Booker, looking to the future replaced looking into the past. During this year, he wrote, “there was an unmistakable restlessness in the air, […] which was reflected in the growing consciousness of youth and the young”.62 In 1956, John Osborne—raised in a London working-­ class neighbourhood—released Look back in Anger and freshed the appearance of the British working class in British culture.63 Now, the main character who looked like a Teddy Boy symbolised that the future of the country would be determined by its working-class youth.64 Since the 1960s continued the sociocultural developments which had begun in the 1950s or even earlier, it can be argued that the teenage market was not a new phenomenon. Thus it makes sense to interpret the

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1960s not in contrast to the previous decade, but as the heyday of certain developments. Youth culture, pop, and teenage consumption exploded in the 1960s, becoming self-referential.65 By 1964–1965, teenagers “had acquired all the elements of their own culture”, and the adult world not only accepted the shift from a culture for to a culture of youth, but began to see youth and its culture as contributors to wider culture, national and transnational identities, and a progressive future.66 Time magazine dedicated its “man of the year” issue in 1966 to “all men and women under twenty-five”, thereby paying tribute to the cultural contribution of young people to the building of a modern world.67 Historically, research on British youth culture worked with material culture, music, and objects, although the CCCS—the home of research pioneers working on British youth cultures—was often criticised for their non-transparent source base. Recently, historians and ethnologists condemned the semiotic reading of youth cultural practices, particularly its ignorance towards records when describing the process of how youths commodified the meaning of consumer goods. While the next generation of CCCS researcher put special attention on forms of media attention and were in particular interested in the blaming of working-class culture and moral panics—traditionally affiliated with the media discourse on youth culture—recent works stressed the inner perspective of youth and actors involved in a variety of subcultures. This means, that historians worked with oral history, ego documents, fanzines, or lyrics in order to investigate cultural practices. For historians interested in the 1960s’ youth culture, the available sources are limited. Fanzines really boomed in the 1970s and the mass observation archives more or less stopped to collect material of post-war history. Nevertheless, a variety of sources provides insights into youth cultural practices in London and each chapter and section has its own source base. While the first chapter particularly works with media coverages in order to reconstruct how media and politics read social and cultural change through the sense of an emerging youth culture, other parts of the book work with music periodicals, youth work magazines, or reports produced by local authorities or youth projects. Oral history source books such as those published by Paul Anderson, Paolo Hewitt, Graham Lentz, or Tony Beesley were used to contrast official views at various points of the book. Further, autobiographies were used to reconstruct, for example, how Londoner’s who grew up in the city in the 1960s, evaluated the move into the suburbs.

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At various parts of the book, however, the analysis is limited to sources which primarily allow to investigate the way how media, local politics, and youth worker looked at youth and made sense out of their forms of cultural production. On the other hand, a re-reading of passages and the use of information compiled in newspaper articles within the framework of an urban history of British working-class youth culture in the 1960s allows to add another perspective to the common way of interpreting Britain in the 1960s. The decision to accept the various limitations of the sources used for writing the book, in particular consequence of a narrative writing, based on various assumptions and remarkable moments within the research process. First of all, for a historian it is worth to recall events, happenings, and historical developments. More important, however, is that the research illustrated various issues with sub- and post-subcultural theories that are mostly coming from sociology and cultural studies. Many contemporary witnesses with whom I worked with, with whom I shared the sources, and who had been involved in youth scenes in London in the 1960s are unhappy with the ideas that were formulated within academic subcultural theories. The most important reason for it is that nearly all of those approaches turned youth into highly political subjects. Just to give an example, the binary system of subcultures is a very schematic model that in truth did not really match the reality and is finally rooted in explaining social change. Youth identities were really fluid and the scenes that scholars analysed who spent most of their time in universities never had fixed boundaries. Many actors of the 1960s are unhappy with becoming subjects who consciously asked for change because that was not something they intended for themselves. This also means that many highlighted the need to pay much more attention to what they have actually done and to demystify some of the stories that had been popularised because of the success of the CCCS and their subcultural studies approach. The moral panics concept is a very good example. Of course, moral panics had been characterised British post-war society and youth troubles were often used to blame youth in general for moral decay. The problem, however, is that the popularity of the concept had caused various misinterpretations of the 1960s. While it is true that deviance and other sorts of youth-blaming approaches flourished in the world of academic psychology and by so doing also soon in the media (and finally pre-determined the perspective on and reading of youth), contemporary

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witnesses never became tired to highlight that growing up in London in the 1960s was nonetheless a violent experience. The exchange with actors who were involved in London’s youth scene in the 1960s has shown that scholars must free their mind from approaches used with academic youth studies when looking at youth in London in post-war times. I was surprised that for many with whom I talked to, even tabloid press articles were closer to the truth than the writings of the big CCCS heroes. That is one of the reasons why I decided to move away from the semiotic approaches and readings of post-war youth culture and decided to spend the lines of the book on reconstructing historical developments. I felt that the research perspectives that are influential within urban studies and urban history—particularly the focus on place and space—allow us to enclose the social and cultural shifts post-war youth was responsible for in a much more sensitive way and comes hopefully closer to the experiences that contemporary witnesses have in mind when thinking about their up-growing in 1960s London.

Society The first section of the book begins with an analysis of public debates about working-class youth and their culture and moves on to reconstruct the changing world of work and its impact on young people’s relationship with both work and leisure. Driven by both demographic trends and changing living conditions, broad public debate took place in the media, and within politics and academia, over issues such as youth, adolescence, generation, and the living conditions of the country’s working class. Government institutions, local authorities, and voluntary bodies also took part in these debates. Working-class youth culture was seen as both a driver and a product of social change. New expectations, living conditions, and leisure opportunities, as well as the re-examination of British traditions, morals, and values, later inspired journalists Jane Deverson and Charles Hamblett to refer to this generation as a distinct group of people with shared life experiences, which they called Generation X. Public debate about the living conditions of working-class youth took place with reference to the changing world of work into which young Britons were born, a topic explored in detail in the third chapter. Existing research mainly focuses on increased spending power and new spending habits, and points out that working-class youth in particular profited from

1 INTRODUCTION 

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income changes. What tends to be ignored, however, is that it was not just the increase in salaries that contributed to working-class youth culture. Firstly, working-class teenagers experienced a shift in the relationship between work and leisure.68 Psychologists, for example, predicted that the reduction in working hours would have a negative effect on working-class teenagers, and commented that the trade unions had failed to anticipate that bored youngsters might use their surplus leisure time for destructive pursuits.69 Developments in methods of production, changing patterns of employment, and the impact of automation on the nature of work affected the relationship between employees and their jobs. Contemporary sociologists were already interpreting changes in the global economy as signifying the beginning of the post-industrial society. Young working-class teenagers who left school and entered work in the 1960s did so at a time characterised by the point at which highly industrialised patterns of production were giving rise to a new organisation and structuring of society. The effects of the growth of the service industry on young people’s cultural experience were soon apparent, and the office culture that grew out of this process had a particular impact on office boys and girls.

City Cities not only symbolised economic change and the transformation of working culture in Britain, but also represented modernity and the future within their built environment—an environment in which urban youth, and its culture, lived and grew. Soon, parallels emerged between the narratives of urban renewal and of working-class youth culture. The second section of the book analyses how, symbolically and materially, the making of the modern metropolis and modern working-class culture were intertwined, as well as how social change in London left its mark on modes of cultural production. The social and ethnic composition of neighbourhoods changed in the late 1950s and 1960s. The Empire struck back with immigration and this disproportionately affected the living environment of Britain’s urban working classes. When the first post-war race riots in Britain broke out in Notting Hill in 1958, the city’s working-class youth, particularly young men known as Teddy Boys, were blamed for the violent attacks. However, a closer look at circumstances surrounding the riots shows that members of the older generation also took part in racist attacks, and as such, blaming the youth can be seen as a form of scapegoating and an attempt to absolve society overall of racism. Moreover, London’s

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working-­class youth navigated between worshipping and rejecting multicultural city life. In their analysis of the effects of mass housing, sociologists and anthropologists saw a destruction of the culturally constructed “traditional Victorian urban working-class neighbourhood”, characterised by vital community life, fostering intimacy, and based on responsibility. An examination of the daily practices of working-class teenagers, however, reveals that residents still closely identified with their boroughs. In the lives of working-class youth, locality continued to be an essential factor in personal identity, and also informed relationships. Whereas the increase in physical mobility created a new sense of identification with London as a whole, visits to other boroughs could provoke havoc, as local youth patrolled in an effort to protect their territory. Further, in terms of the social and cultural impacts of new housing schemes, sociologists were concerned that their proliferation might encourage a tendency towards the isolation of the individual. However, working-class youth on council estates formed complex friendship networks and used and created public space for cultural purposes, personal exchange, and sexual interaction.

Pop The 1960s are seen as the decade in which pop exploded and began to have an impact on people’s daily lives. The new self-image of the capital as Swinging London was largely founded on the global success of British popular culture, which helped heal the wounds caused by post-war economic difficulties and Britain’s declining political stature. Having already established itself as a respected political player on the world stage, Britain now pronounced itself the global centre of pop. The 1960s, however, were no more a homogenous period in music than in popular culture. Musical tastes and genres changed throughout the decade, but were on the whole characterised by the rise of black music. In the world of pop, Britain competed with other countries, particularly with America, but also on a national level. Cities and their respective pop scenes became rivals, meaning that historical motifs and relics of the Victorian past, such as class identities and regional rivalries, were not only brought into focus, but were exported to the wider world as an intrinsic element of pop culture. This section explores the role of British pop culture at the forefront of the transformation of pop into a conceptual art form, and how musicians in the 1960s contributed to the “cosmopolitanisation” of Britishness while

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also allowing a return to a feeling of national importance against the backdrop of a fading Empire, which had once been the foundation of Britain’s sense of international relevance. If British pop music in the 1960s was one industry and art form essential to the creation of a new image for post-Victorian Britain, characterised by the country’s global cultural standing, then fashion was the other. Thus, this section examines how fashion in the 1960s reflected as well as influenced ongoing generational conflicts in its representation of diverse notions of Britishness. London was the centre of the country’s fashion industry, attracting visitors from all over Britain as well as the world. Mass production created economic conditions that in turn affected cultural developments. The ready-to-wear trend of the 1960s constituted a retail revolution, providing access to fashion in a completely new way. The rise of the boutique changed the cultural spatial geography of London, while at the same time youth scenes had their own local tailoring networks, often connected to local minority groups, meaning that generally speaking, a new transnational interconnectedness characterised fashion and beauty culture in the 1960s.

Space This transnational pop culture, however, did not develop in isolation but within urban spaces that held great significance for young people’s cultural production. The ubiquitous reach of the television did not keep people off the streets, but instead added another level of cultural distribution to the streets, youth clubs, coffee bars, and music clubs in which fashion trends were invented and popularised. This section thus seeks to illustrate how a variety of commercial leisure venues and urban spaces created the cultural geography of the metropolis, which particularly benefited from the increased spending power of working-class teenagers, and which ultimately provided space for daily social, cultural interaction. The street is a constant theme in the history of modern British youth culture, in part because the practice of hanging around on street corners was so widespread, leading to the incorporation of street symbolism within pop culture. Loitering and juvenile delinquency, often perceived as street crime, began to dominate the image of working-class youth culture in London, and this manifested in troubled relations between youth and the police. In the late 1960s, the city’s youth began to occupy public space more consciously. This behaviour provoked conflict not only between

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youths and the authorities but also between rivalling gangs and youth cultures. New institutions such as the coffee bar differed from existing leisure venues in that they were designed to cater specifically for the lives and culture of the young, and as such featured exotic as well as continental, particularly Italian, elements in their decor. Many were influenced by, and indeed contributed to, the fragmentation of society in both their design and the entertainment they offered. The term “nightclub” represented a similar development, incorporating dance and music clubs—some of which were known for live shows, some for record sessions, and some for both—in addition to the discotheques imported from Europe, and the central and suburban dance halls, with their shabby, dreamy interiors and long-standing cultural history. Modern nightlife precipitated the shift from couples’ dances to individual dances, which naturally had an impact on gender relations. Nightclubs were also linked to the emergence of a new drug culture and fostered the consumption of black music, whose performers, along with their black fans, still faced colour bars, leading them to create their own network of clubs. Even the youth club continued to be relevant for cultural production. Although many clubs experienced a membership crisis in the late 1950s, working-class youngsters still visited them. Youth clubs came under pressure from their new commercial competitors, but also suffered from the legacy of the authoritarian civilising mission from which the youth service had tried hard to depart. As a reaction to its growing irrelevance, the service decided to modernise, integrating new concepts, particularly commercial features such as coffee bars, into its premises. It studied young people’s needs and behaviour through experimental youth projects, resulting in a shift towards “do-it-yourself” clubs and so-called doing-nothing programmes, whereby teenagers could do whatever they wanted, and in an increase in mixed clubs alongside those that catered only for girls or boys. In some cases, the old Victorian civilising and educating mission persisted, while in others, club leaders examined the adequacy of their provision for black teenagers and minority youth in order to build a truly multicultural Britain.

Notes 1. Patrick O’Donovan The Observer, 31 January 1965. 2. See Cannadine, “Prologue: Churchill, from Memory to History”, 4.

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3. Darwin, “The Fear of Falling”. 4. Booker, Neophiliacs, 92. 5. John Crosby, “London—The Most Exciting City”, Daily Telegraph, 30 April 1965. 6. Krips, The Presence of the Past, 71 f. 7. Haggerty et al. The empire in one city?, 6. 8. Feldman, “We are the Mods”, 11. 9. Morra, Britishness, Popular Music, and National Identity, Preface. 10. Piri Halasz, “You Can Walk Across It on the Grass,” Time, 15 April 1966. 11. “Für Gott und Empire,” Der Spiegel, 23 June 1965. 12. Quoted after Décharné, King’s Road, xxi. 13. See Mick Brown, “The Diamond Decades: The 1960s,” The Telegraph, 29 May 2012. 14. See Donnelly, Sixties Britain, 28–34. 15. See “The Sixties weren’t as swinging as you think,” The Sunday Times, 13 August 2006; Donnelly, “Sixties Britain: The cultural politics of historiography,” 14 f. 16. Sandbrook, The Great British Dream Factory. 17. DeGroot, The Sixties Unplugged. 18. Mort, “Scandalous Events”; Mort, “Modernity and Gaslight”. 19. Bray, 1965. 20. Chapman, Out of Time. 21. Savage, 1966. 22. See Bennett, Culture of Popular Music, 18  f. For the political and economic consensus in the 1960s, see Forman and Baldwin, Mastering British Politics, 11. 23. Groes, British Fictions of the Sixties, 96. 24. Moorhouse, Britain in the Sixties, 24 f. 25. See Seaman, Post-Victorian Britain. 26. Marwick, British Society Since 1945, 152. 27. Jerram, Streetlife. 28. Worley, No Future, 114–138. 29. See, for example, Lincoln, Youth Culture and Private Space; Bradley, “Rational recreation in the age of affluence: the café and working-class youth in London”, 71–86; Clements, Youth Cultures in the Mixed Economy of Welfare. 30. Schildt and Siegfried (eds.), European Cities, Youth and the Public Sphere in the Twentieth Century; Gilbert, “The Youngest Legend in History”. 31. See Harrison, “The streets have been watched regularly”. 32. Charnock, “Teenage Girls, Female Friendship and the Making of the Sexual Revolution in England”.

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33. Withers, “Place and the ‘Spatial Turn’ in Geography and in History, Journal of the History of Ideas”. 34. Diamond, Mean Streets. 35. Davies, “Youth Gangs, Masculinity and Violence in Late Victorian Manchester and Salford”. 36. Farrugia, “Space and Place in Studies of Childhood and Youth”. See also Skelton and Valentine (eds.), Cool Places. 37. Mays, Growing Up in the City. 38. Clarke, “Skinheads and the Magical Recovery of the Working-Class Community”, 100. 39. Menicocci, “Dream Land: The Mythical Skinheads’ Communitarianism”. 40. Willmott, Adolescent Boys in East London. 41. See Brake, Comparative Youth Culture. 42. Kenny, Unspectacular Youth, 48. 43. Allen, “British Graffiti”, 104. 44. MacInnes, Absolute Beginners. 45. Booker, Neophiliacs, 48. 46. See Edward Shils, “British Intellectuals,” Encounter, May 1955. 47. Wicke, Rock und Pop, 18. 48. See, for example, Terry Wheeler, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 82; Weight, Mod, 171; Steve Bush, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 230; Borthwick, “Skinheads,” 496. 49. Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 106. 50. Booker, Neophiliacs, 333–336. 51. See Siegfried, Time is on my side, 30. 52. King, Men, Masculinity and the Beatles, 19. 53. Hunt, “When Did the Sixties Happen?”. 54. Marwick, “The Cultural Revolution of the Long Sixties”; Marwick, The Sixties. 55. See Sandbrook, Never Had It So Good; Sandbrook, White Heat. 56. Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes. 57. See Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Austerity in Britain. 58. Fyvel, Insecure Offenders, 93 f. 59. Childs, Britain Since 1945, 61. 60. See Lucas, Divided We Stand. 61. Peterson, “Why 1955?”. 62. Booker, Neophiliacs, 39. 63. Ibid. 109. 64. Ibid. 65. Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 62. 66. Ibid. See also Mrozek, Jugend Pop Kultur, 12. For the shift, see Heilbronner, “From a Culture for Youth to a Culture of Youth”.

1 INTRODUCTION 

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67. See “Man of the Year: Twenty-five and Under,” Time, 6 January 1967. 68. See Huberman and Minns, “The times they are not changin’”. 69. Derek Miller, “Leisure and the Adolescent,” New Society, 9 June 1966.

Bibliography Allen, Dave. 2012. British Graffiti: Popular Music and Film in the 1970s. In British Film Culture in the 1970s, ed. Sue Harper, 99–114. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Baldwin, N.D.J., and F.N. Forman. 1999. Mastering British Politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Beesley, Tony. 2014. Sawdust Caesars: Original Mod Voices. Sheffield: Days Like Tomorrow Books. Bennett, Andy. 2001. Culture of Popular Music. Buckingham: Open University Press. Booker, Christopher. 1969. Neophiliacs: A Study of the Revolution in English Life in the Fifties and Sixties. London: Pimlico. Borthwick, Stuart. 1999. Skinheads. In Encyclopedia of Contemporary British Culture, ed. Peter Childs and Michael Storry, 496. London/New York: Routledge. Bradley, Kate. 2015. Rational Recreation in the Age of Affluence: The Café and Working-Class Youth in London, ca.1939–1965. In Consuming Behaviours: Politics, Identity and Pleasure in Twentieth Century Britain, ed. M. Crowley, S.T. Dawson, and E. Rappaport, 71–86. London and New York: Bloomsbury. Brake, Mike. 1985. Comparative Youth Culture: The Sociology of Youth Culture and Youth Subcultures in America, Britain and Canada. London/New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Bray, Christopher. 2014. 1965: The Year Modern Britain was Born. London/New York: Simon Schuster. Cannadine, David. 2004. Prologue: Churchill, from Memory to History. In Winston Churchill in the Twenty-First Century, ed. David Cannadine and Roland Quinault, 1–8. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapman, Peter. 2016. Out of Time: 1966 and the End of Old-Fashioned Britain. London: Wisden. Charnock, Hannah. 2020. Teenage Girls, Female Friendship and the Making of the Sexual Revolution in England, 1950–1980. The Historical Journal 63 (4): 1032–1053. Childs, David. 2012. Britain Since 1945: A Political History. Abingdon/New York: Routledge. Clarke, John. 1976. Skinheads and the Magical Recovery of the Working-Class Community. Birmingham: CCCS stencilled occasional papers.

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Clements, Charlotte. 2016. Youth Cultures in the Mixed Economy of Welfare: Youth Clubs and Voluntary Associations in South London and Liverpool 1958–1985. PhD Manuscript Submitted at the University of Kent. Darwin, John. 1986. The Fear of Falling: British Politics and Imperial Decline Since 1900. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 36: 27–43. Davies, Andrew. 1998. Youth Gangs, Masculinity and Violence in Late Victorian Manchester and Salford. Journal of Social History 32 (2): 349–369. Décharné, Max. 2005. King’s Road: The Rise and Fall of the Hippest Street in the World. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. DeGroot, Gerard. 2008. The Sixties Unplugged. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Diamond, Andrew J. 2009. Mean Streets: Chicago Youths and the Everyday Struggle for Empowerment in the Multiracial City, 1908–1969. Berkeley: University of California Press. Donnelly, Mark. 2005. Sixties Britain: Culture, Society, and Politics. Harlow: Pearson Longman. ———. 2014. Sixties Britain: The Cultural Politics of Historiography. In Preserving the Sixties: Britain and the ‘Decade of Protest’, ed. Trevor Harris and Monia Obrien Castro, 10–32. Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Everett, Peter. 1986. You’ll Never Be 16 Again: An Illustrated History of the British Teenager. London: BBC Publications. Farrugia, David. 2015. Space and Place in Studies of Childhood and Youth. In Handbook of Children and Youth Studies, ed. Johanna Wyn and Helen Cahill, 609–624. Singapore: Springer. Feldman, Christine J. 2009. ‘We are the Mods’: A Transnational History of a Youth Subculture. New York: Peter Lang. Fyvel, T.R. 1966. Insecure Offenders: Rebellious Youth in the Welfare State. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Gilbert, David. 2006. ‘The Youngest Legend in History’: Cultures of Consumption and the Mythologies of Swinging London. The London Journal 31 (1): 1–21. Groes, Sebastian. 2009. British Fictions of the Sixties: The Making of the Swinging Decade. London: Continuum. Haggerty, Sheryllynne, Anthony Webster, and Nicholas J.  White. 2008. The Empire in One City?: Liverpool’s Inconvenient Imperial Past. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Harrison, Laura. 2019. ‘The Streets Have Been Watched Regularly’: The York Penitentiary Society, Young Working-Class Women, and the Regulation of Behaviour in the Public Spaces of York, c.1845–1919. Women’s History Review 28 (3): 457–478. Heilbronner, Oded. 2008. From a Culture for Youth to a Culture of Youth. Contemporary European History 17 (4): 575–591.

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Hewitt, Paolo. 2000. The Soul Stylists: Forty Years of Modernism. Edinburgh: Mainstream. Hobsbawm, Eric J. 1994. The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914–1991. New York: Pantheon Books. Huberman, Michael, and Chris Minns. 2007. ‘The Times They Are Not Changin’: Days and Hours of Work in Old and New Worlds, 1870–2000. Explorations in Economic History 44: 538–567. Humphries, Stephen. 1981. Hooligans or Rebels? An Oral History of Working-Class Childhood and Youth 1889–1939. Basil: Blackwell. Hunt, Andrew. 1999. ‘When Did the Sixties Happen?’ Searching for New Directions. Journal of Social History 33 (1): 147–161. Jerram, Leif. 2011. Streetlife: The Untold History of Europe’s Twentieth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kenny, Sarah Louise. 2017. Unspectacular Youth? Evening Leisure Space and Youth Culture in Sheffield, c.1960–c.1989. PhD Thesis Submitted at the University of Sheffield. King, Martin. 2013. Men, Masculinity and the Beatles. Farnham/ Burlington: Ashgate. Krips, Valerie. 2000. The Presence of the Past: Memory, Heritage and Childhood in Post-War Britain. New York/London: Garland. Lincoln, Sian. 2012. Youth Culture and Private Space. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Lucas, W.  Scott. 1991. Divided We Stand: Britain, the US and the Suez Crisis. London: Hodder and Stoughton. MacInnes, Colin. 1959. Absolute Beginners. London: Allison & Busby. Marwick, Arthur. 1982. British Society Since 1945. London et al.: Penguin Books. ———. 1998. The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, c.1958–c.1974. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2005. The Cultural Revolution of the Long Sixties: Voices of Reaction, Protest, and Permeation. The International History Review 27 (4): 780–806. Mays, John Barron. 1964. Growing Up in the City: A Study of Juvenile Delinquency in an Urban Neighbourhood. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Menicocci, Marco. 2012. Dream Land: The Mythical Skinheads’ Communitarianism. Antrocom Online Journal of Anthropology 8 (1): 265–272. Moorhouse, Geoffrey. 1964. Britain in the Sixties: The Other England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Mort, Frank. 2006. Scandalous Events: Metropolitan Culture and Moral Change in Post-Second World War London. Representations 93 (1): 106–137. ———. 2011. Modernity and Gaslight: Victorian London in the 1950s and 1960s. In The New Blackwell Companion to the City, ed. Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson, 431–441. Chichester et al.: Wiley-Blackwell.

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Mrozek, Bodo. 2019. Jugend Pop Kultur: Eine transnationale Geschichte. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Peterson, R.A. 1990. Why 1955? Explaining the Advent of Rock Music. Popular Music 9 (1): 97–116. Sandbrook, Dominic. 2005. Never Had It So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to the Beatles. London: Abacus. ———. 2006. White Heat: A History of the Swinging Sixties. London: Abacus. ———. 2015. The Great British Dream Factory: The Strange History of Our National Imagination. London: Allen Lane. Savage, Jon. 2015. 1966: The Year the Decade Exploded. London: Faber & Faber. Schildt, Axel, and Detlef Siegfried. 2005. European Cities, Youth and the Public Sphere in the Twentieth Century. Aldershot/Burlington: Ashgate. Seaman, L.C.B. 1966. Post-Victorian Britain 1902–1951. London: Methuen. Siegfried, Detlef. 2006. Time Is on My Side: Konsum und Politik in der westdeutschen Jugendkultur der 60er Jahre. Göttingen: Wallstein. Skelton, Tracey, and Gill Valentine. 1997. Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Cultures. London: Taylor & Francis. Weight, Richard. 2015. Mod: From Bebop to Britpop. Britain’s Biggest Youth Movement. London: Vintage Books. Wicke, Peter. 2011. Rock und Pop: Von Elvis Presley bis Lady Gaga. München: C.H. Beck. Willmott, Peter. 1966. Adolescent Boys in East London. London: Kegan & Paul. Withers, Charles W.J. 2009. Place and the ‘Spatial Turn’ in Geography and in History. Journal of the History of Ideas 70 (4): 637–658. Worley, Mathew. 2018. No Future: Punk, Politics and British Youth Culture 1976–1984. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Ina. 2000. Austerity in Britain: Rationing, Controls, and Consumption, 1939–1955. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

PART I

Society

CHAPTER 2

“Vulgar Nincompoops” and “Sawdust Caesars”: Generations, Adolescence, and the Historicity of Youth Culture in Post-­war Debates

What did the influential post-war child-psychologist Donald Winnicott have in mind when writing, in New Society in April 1963, that the “present worldwide interest in adolescence” illuminates “the special conditions of the times we live in”?1 For Winnicott—who studied child deprivation and its consequences from a psychoanalytical point of view and who used his research to present delinquency as a sort of hope of a child that tries to overcome a painful disassociation from its mother—studying2 youth allowed to uncover the zeitgeist of a changing Britain, shaped by a new affluence and decadence. From the late 1950s onwards, teenage culture was associated equally with the dawning of a bright future and the dangers of a “broken Britain”, provoked by millions of “Sawdust Caesars”. By now, teenage culture had become closely interwoven with, and was negotiated within, research, arts, and politics. In the period between 1955 and 1971, young people attracted more attention than at perhaps any other time in history. In December 1956, the Duke of Edinburgh replied with “In a while, crocodile” to the shouts of “See you later, alligator” from young cadets on the Royal Yacht Britannia.3 The wellbeing of young people was considered an important indicator of Britain’s success as a country. For those working in the

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Fuhg, London’s Working-Class Youth and the Making of Post-Victorian Britain, 1958–1971, Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68968-1_2

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education system, the living conditions of youth reflected the social changes taking place.4 Often, high incomes and welfare policies were blamed for the increase in teenage troubles in the country, and church representatives felt that working-class youth culture gave rise to a preference for material over spiritual values and money over social responsibility.5 Politicians, the media, and parents themselves were mindful of the welfare of their offspring because of demographic developments and the significance of young people for the national economy. Economic changes, such as highly specialised modes of production, prompted officials to consider the workforce of the future.6 The attention given to young people all over Europe and America was also a reaction to the experiences of the wars which kept nearly the entire globe into check for about a half century. The German historian Mischa Honeck explains the popularity of and media attention given to youth movements in post-war with the attractiveness of “rejuvenationist narratives”, allowing to tell the story of a “fresh start”, able to overcome the “the divides of geography and ideology to recuperate from the ravages of war”.7 The baby-boom rejuvenated Britain and led journalists and politicians to evaluate young people’s living conditions. In 1959, the Queen inaugurated a new parliament and signalled that young people’s demands would become the most challenging task for the government.8 Children born in the years after 1945 reached voting age during the 1960s.9 Political parties did their best to attract the youth vote and to integrate young people into party politics.10 The Bow Group and the Fabians put young people’s needs and worldviews on the national agenda, and politicians called for the lowering of the voting age.11 While teenagers in the mid-1960s were unsure whether their generation was ready to take over responsibility, the Representation of the People Act 1969 passed through parliament, lowering the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen. In order to win the hearts of the youth, Harold Wilson asked the Beatles and Dave Clark for their support.12 John F.  Kennedy had been elected president at the age of forty-three, winning the election perhaps in part because of his youthful appearance, a symbol of America’s generational renewal.13 Being Prime Minister in the era of pop, Wilson travelled to Liverpool to re-open the Cavern Club in 1966. Other politicians flirted with the world of pop to such a degree that enemies used models to spy on cabinet ministers.14 As Prime Minister, Wilson was keen to stress that the economic future of his country would no longer be dictated by

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manufacturing industries but by the service sector. Thus, he put much effort into democratising higher education in order to unleash the economic potential of the young working class.15 The attention foisted on British youth by politicians encouraged psychologists to study adolescence.16 Erikson’s life-stage model allowed people to see juvenile delinquency from another angle, meaning that rebellion could now be regarded as a natural process of generational renewal rather than an indicator of a sick country.17 Speaking for many others, C. A. Fleming, a reader in education at London University, said in early 1961 that “it was a myth popularised […] by Stanley Hall and Sigmund Freud that the strange behaviour of teenagers was biological and inevitable”.18 In Britain, according to Michal Shapira, “psychoanalysts set the tone in discussions on juvenile delinquency” in the period between the 1930s and the late 1960s.19 Psychological arguments encouraged youth experts to see youth as a “process with a number of particular characteristics”.20 The definition of adolescence depended on institutional policies, as well as being informed by them, so that changes in the education system helped to define it as a concept. The introduction of the 11+ examination along with the tripartite education system in 1944 clearly delineated age groups, giving rise to the idea of a transitional landmark between childhood and adulthood. Many Britons, however, resisting the scientific demystification of youth, still believed that teenagers were their own “species”, blaming class and political influences for the immorality and decadence they saw as part of a general habitus.21 Negative consequences of the affluent consumer society particularly informed the perception of youth culture.22 Teenage consumerism was considered to be incompatible with common values. According to Peter Laurie, working-class teenagers’ experiences differed from those of older generations by having an independent habitus, as Pierre Bourdieu theorised in the 1970s.23 Similar to Karl Mannheim’s idea of generation,24 journalists and youth worker spoke of self-contained generational units such as “Generation X” and defined the cohort of people born and growing up under the same (new) historical circumstances with the help of key events, ultimately seeing baby-boomers as a “community of destiny”. The Suez Crisis of 1956, Yuri Gagarin’s historic journey into space in 1960, and the development of the hydrogen bomb are given as examples of events which shaped “separates the way children and parents are thinking and feeling”.25 The British sociologist John Barron Mays pointed out that economic austerity and

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war were, to contemporary youth, “little more than legends of the Napoleonic struggle were to our Victorian forebears”.26 John Wolfenden, an influential educationalist, preferred to focus on the speed of change when examining generational differences. “Space and time are not yet wholly annihilated,” he said in 1956, but both had become “far less compelling, far less controlling,” factors in everyday experience.27 For the British Labour Party, too, the pace of change had characterised up-growing.28 Cultural change was now experienced over the course of a lifetime, as the world watched trends and youth tribes coming and going almost simultaneously.29 Simultaneity encouraged people to look to the future rather than the past.30 Now, teenagers had not only “heard that man has walked out into space”, but had seen it with their own eyes.31 Psychologists noticed that young people tried to keep up with the pace of change,32 and the strain of this led to pop stars such as Mick Jagger broaching the issue of emotional distress. Teenagers were not just afraid of missing opportunities, but according to psychologists had become destabilised by the speed of change. Additionally, the Cold War and the threat of the atom bomb caused insecurity among young people, engendering an attitude of “having a good time now”, as life seemed precarious.33 According to influential newsmakers working for the Guardian, working-­class youth did not react to this insecurity with politicisation but with consumerism.34 Political engagement had been replaced by “short-­ term hedonistic goals”35 satisfied though the entertainment offered by a now established and booming teenage market. This was said to be because, in contrast with the middle-class, working-class teenagers were not educated enough to read and understand the world, a skill considered necessary in order to participate in decision-making processes.36 Rebellion for the sake of provocation was thought to be the ethos behind the behaviour of the younger generation, and had unleashed “pathological symptoms”.37 Even smoking had become an occasional rebellion, at a time when public attention had recently been drawn to the negative effects of tobacco.38 Sensation-seeking print media headlined that young people spent their time absorbed in dreams of becoming rock stars, and took it as their mission to spend as much time as possible in the immoral word of entertainment in Soho.39 Regional and national newspapers carried stories of how young people’s restlessness resulted in vandalism, an accusation to which the generation in question replied with the assertion that their behaviour was destructive only because their parents had set a bad example.40 Teenagers

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stressed that journalists had no idea about their way of life,41 and explained generational conflicts not in terms of disrespect but as a response to authoritarianism. “Angry adolescents”, according to educationalist Ronald Goldman, were the result of society’s failure to recognise young people’s right to decide for themselves.42 The Manchester Guardian commented in December 1958 that “a great deal has been said and written about the morals and manners of teen-age boys […] but very few people know what the boys and girls themselves say and think about the world which regards them with such curious disapproval”.43 Some journalists and teenagers spoke out loudly against the condemnation of the younger generation and how they were represented in films and in other media.44 Youth expert Ray Gosling, for example, warned that the country must stop treating teenagers as “social misfits”, and called for an approach whereby young people were seen as individuals rather than as representatives of a lost generation.45 The Archbishop of Westminster agreed with this point of view.46 The stigmatisation of young people appeared to glorify the past,47 despite the Labour Party noting in 1959 that juvenile delinquency had been present since the nineteenth century.48 Historians today reject the assumption that generations are homogenous entities, referring to demarcation lines such as class differences.49 Terms such as “Teddy Boy” homogenised those who wore drainpipe trousers at a time when such fashions were commonly associated with a poor moral attitude and juvenile delinquency. Cultural trends among youth, however, were transient, and thus could not reliably be used to symbolise generational change. In 1959, UNESCO wrote, “interests and activities are today changing so fast that sets of young people” that the world “can no longer think of generations in traditional terms”.50 Aside from the threat to social cohesion which was commonly perceived as arising from generational conflict, differences between the young and the old were sometimes regarded as a driving force, changing Britain for the better.51 In contrast to the apolitical consciousness which some contemporary authors attributed to youth, teenagers wanted to make the world a better place, supporting CND, the anti-apartheid movement, protests against the Vietnam War, and charity organisations.52 Christian youth organisations put effort into political education, organising summits for young people which sought to address the world’s problems.53 Youth experts, however, saw political protest as more of a provocative or lifestyle statement than true political activism.54 Sociologists, nevertheless,

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observed that young people campaigned for good human relations and were often “sensitive to all forms of personal justice, unfair criticism, intolerance and selfishness”.55 Even though surveys showed that such sensitivity was not attached to class, influential newspapers disassociated political consciousness from the country’s working-class youth and saw politicisation as a feature of campus life.56 One of the main symbols of political awareness among the younger generation was the Summer of Love in 1967, which exemplified the anti-­ materialist attitude of Hippie culture. From this point onwards, according to prominent feature sections,  political consciousness had been turned into a middle-class-dominated counter-movement.

The Birth of the Modern Teenager The debate over generational renewal in Britain had been heavily informed by the global emergence of the modern teenager, whose way of life was out of step with the still-influential Victorian values system, and thus gave rise to the question of how a post-Victorian cultural and social identity might look. An important aspect of this post-Victorian self was the idea that the new affluence destabilised young people’s relationship with old and influential social institutions. In Britain, affluence was synonymous with the concept of the teenager. This was because in the US, where it had been invented in the 1930s, the term “teenager” carried implications of a new materialism among young people in the Western world.57 American businessmen used the word in order to turn the needs of their teenage daughters into “a big and special market”.58 For many Britons, according to contemporary scholars and historians today, the rebellious nature of the teenager arose from a sense of alienation from the real world; they were thought of as the spoilt offspring of the West, living in an unrealistic bubble as aspiring pop stars, and only seeking pleasure.59 The popularity of drugs supported the assumption that having fun was considered more important than behaving responsibly.60 In contrast, some psychologists stressed that young people took drugs not just for pleasure but in order to compensate for a sense of “tremendous distance from their jobs”.61 Monotonous work meant that youth found self-expression in clothes rather than employment.62 This view was supported by youths themselves, who felt that life was fun, but referred to work as “an awful lot of nonsense in between”.63

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Alongside explaining young people’s behaviour as a response to the changing world of work, it is mentioned that migration caused teenager to re-evaluate the idea of race, and to consider a racial definition of Britishness.64 Working-class youths in Teddy Boy clothes were for example held responsible for the race riots of the late 1950s. By the end of the 1960s, gangs of youths were still involved in attacks on people of Asian appearance.65 While black culture had significantly increased its influence on British youth, very few black teenagers were involved in youth tribes in the early 1960s. The Guardian claimed to have figured out that in the seaside town riots in Brighton in 1964, just one out of five thousand Mods and Rockers was black.66 The media, however, often made the mistake of explaining racism in terms of racist subcultural identities. This helped to distance racism from the mainstream, turning it into a problem associated with working-class youth subcultures. Colour bars, the social climate, and institutionalised racism, however, had an important influence over young people’s notion of race. Subcultural identities were fragmented and complex, and in a similar manner to other communities, navigated between racism and opposition to it.67 Local authorities frequently denied the idea that youth violence was necessarily associated with racism, preferring to treat hooliganism as a menace affecting every citizen.68 Even Scotland Yard eventually accepted that youth subcultures had not been exclusively responsible for violence against Asians in the East End in 1969–70.69 Moreover, according to influential scholars, Skinheads attacked Asians because of “the cult of maleness” which aggressive youths frequently shared with West Indians.70 Pakistanis, according to a race relations officer working in Hackney, were considered to be feminised and thus incompatible with the public notion of gender.71 The apparent influence of traditional gender norms on young people’s attitudes, however, did not mean that gender relations and sexuality were not subject to change. Surveys of girls who were to be married easily shocked the country when they revealed that many were pregnant before their wedding day.72 Girls were reaching sexual maturity earlier than before, and experts warned that venereal diseases would spread widely.73 Not seldom, parents felt ashamed of daughters who went out to meet boys at night. Nevertheless, female teenagers had won new freedoms. In contrast to the early 1960s, when girls were not generally allowed to choose their own boyfriends, teen magazines came to the conclusion that girls were no longer forbidden, by the end of the decade, from going out with different boys.74

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According to contemporary scholars, “sex activity [played] a bigger part in the lives of young people than it did in previous generations”,75 in part sexuality had become the subject of wider public debate.76 By 1967, according to LSE professor Donald MacRae, “sex [was] less than ever associated with fear and guilt”,77 and young people wanted to have sex before marriage.78 In response to this change, teacher and youth worker started to address the increased demand for sex education.79 In the view of moralists and traditionalists, teenagers thought only of sex, although research established that sexual experiences among young people in the 1960s did not differ much from the experiences of those who grew up during the Second World War.80 Western countries worried that the legalisation of sexual content in films and magazines would change young people’s notion of sexuality. A survey of Danish youths, however, showed that the majority experienced no change in their perception of sexuality at all.81 Moreover, self-­ determination and the decline of restrictive gender roles characterised teenagehood in the 1960s. Girls left their parents’ homes to move into shared flats, thus escaping parental control. This was perceived as more significant than a boy leaving home.82 In “Young Girl” (1968), Gary Puckett and the Union Gap sang about a woman’s right to determine what she wanted and what she did not want.83 The image of the playgirl personified the fusion of self-determination, authority, intelligence, and beauty.84 The decade of the 1960s, known as the age of the sexual revolution, witnessed slow rather than abrupt change.85 Increased prosperity and income, according to social scientists, allowed young people to marry earlier than their parents.86 People feared that such early working-class marriages (middle-class teenagers tended to wait, as they were more likely to stay on in the education system) were caused by “shotgun” decisions which would undermine the notion of a lifetime commitment. Popular culture did not always foster the rejection of gender roles. In the late 1960s, for example, people opposed the macho attitude of the Rolling Stones.87 For many girls, the path to self-determination was a stony one, on which they encountered a variety of self-perpetuating issues. Girls were still vulnerable to pressure to comply with beauty ideals,88 and the new definition of gender roles was often not sustainable at all. Domestic work and childcare were still the mainstay of a successful life for women in the early and mid-1960s, so much so that it is no surprise to see a girl stating in 1962 that “if young girls are free in Britain, then I

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would hate to be a slave”.89 House rules differed between families, but many parents forbade their daughters from visiting venues known for allowing sexual contact.90 Gender roles dictated who should pay for dinner on a date and communicated a strong message to teenagers that couples should be of the same age.91 While such restrictions hampered new freedoms, teenagers were enjoying more than ever the breaking down of gender concepts that began to take place alongside the old-fashioned rules. This coexistence was part of an overall fragmentation of society, wherein the different elements of fragmentation perpetuated one another. The Mods and Rockers conflict, for example, was by scholars as well as contemporary witnesses interpreted within the framework of changing gender norms, with Rockers representing male culture, and disliking Mods for their “feminine” passion for clothes.92 Female participation also varied between subcultures, corresponding with the notions of masculinity and femininity that defined subcultural identities.93 Young people’s contribution to so-called moral decay was regularly illustrated by and explained with the shrinking impact of the Church. From the 1960s onwards, so the assumption, children were no longer automatically introduced to norms and values by the Church.94 While in 1965 the majority of people wanted to keep religion in the school curriculum and saw Britain as a Christian country,95 influential scientists such as Julian Huxley deligitimised the cosmological order.96 A combination of scientific scepticism and increasing affluence meant that, by 1970, “the Church [had] probably never been as unpopular among teenagers as it is today”.97 For young people, religion became an individual decision. Other (often commercial) institutions were now also able to cater to their leisure needs. Church-run youth clubs soon became associated with an ignorance of popular culture, which undermined their ability to attract local youths.98 It was not only the Church that faced difficulties in trying to engage with young people. State, municipal, and voluntarily organised youth services experienced a loss of connection with the lives of young Britons.99 Labour suggested that new mass media had changed how people used their leisure time. A rising number of children of youth-club age had become another challenge at the same time as funding for youth services stagnated. The biggest issues, however, were that youth services were blind to new needs, suffered from unprofessional staff, and were seen as being the preserve of the “white collar brigade”,100 catering mainly for children who, according to youth workers, would have found something

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to do with themselves anyway.101 In order to fight juvenile delinquency, politicians and local authorities decided to modernise youth services.102 This was thought necessary in part because commercial leisure facilities were offering new opportunities to young people, paving the way for a shift from a culture for to a culture of youth.103 While David Fowler and D. J. Taylor locate the arrival of this new “independent culture” during the inter-war years, Eric E. Hobsbawm suggests that young people’s new autonomy emerged in post-war Europe. During those years, youth was accorded the status of a distinct and specific stage in life. Commercial interests began to see the teenage market as a worthwhile investment, and this helped to consolidate the concept of teenagehood among the wider population.104 This gave young people the opportunity to establish their own set of behaviours.105 This new spending power caused a “cultural proletarianisation” of the British middle class, as teen markets explicitly catered to working-class tastes.106 Young working-class men dominated the image of the teen revolution in pop literature and in modern British theatre.107 The “kitchen sink” movement heroised the working-class man by romanticising self-­ assurance, assertiveness, sexual promiscuity, and amorality as prominent working-class features.108 Modern working-class protagonists were no longer sentenced to the “stodgy lives led by their parents”.109 Tabloids such as the Daily Telegraph warned that “teenage working class culture [had] captured the universities”, thus placing the traditional divide between upper and lower classes under scrutiny.110 The Dean of Chapel at Trinity College, Cambridge, warned in 1963 that “undergraduates can be influenced by Mods and Rockers”.111 This was considered a problem because for particularly older generations, a monotonous mass culture stood in stark contrast to the ideal of “intellectual stimulation” and traditional education.112 According to youth experts, rising incomes and new educational opportunities did not necessarily destroy young people’s working-class affiliation. In 1968, New Society reported that class differences still fuelled rivalries and local teenage identities.113 Working-class behaviour and entertainment indeed pervaded subcultural youth identities in the 1960s. The Guardian, for example, noted that working-class affiliation, conserved in youth cultural tribes, had resulted in “boys opting out of the academic rat-race and turning for alternative satisfactions to an obsession with clothes, hair styles and pop fashions”.114 In the words of E. P. Thompson, “values of leisure have been traditionally feared by employers because they

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present a counter-thesis to work”.115 Such values had become entrenched in modern teenage culture. “Commercialised synthetic products” filled the “vacuum left by the disintegration of traditional working-class culture”116 and allowed young people to physically and mentally recover after work. Although youth cultural tribes were seen as being united in their opposition to boredom, fragmentation characterised the shift in the dynamic between culture and youth.117 The Daily Mirror used the phrase “age of identity” to illustrate the idea that subcultural identities had precipitated the arrival of a new epoch.118 Styles became ways of life for certain groups of people and, according to Howard S. Becker, turned young people into “outsiders”.119 The majority of teenagers, according to a newspaper article dealing with Skinhead culture in 1970, moved away from subcultural identities on reaching their twenties.120 The public distinguished between the different groups according to their origins, manner of organisation, accessories, and style of dress, as well as the role of girls within the group, the preferred drugs and music of its members, their class, work preferences, and their relationship with violence.121 Certain tribes also favoured particular leisure venues.122 Such portrayals in the media popularised the image of youth subcultures, leading them to proliferate nationally and strengthening the confidence of their members.123 Many portrayals in newspapers, however, homogenised and simplified subcultural identities.124 The tabloid press in particular loved to report on the violent clashes and subcultural rivalries, and in doing so heightened such animosities.125 Boundaries between subcultural identities were often less stringent than people believed.126 In teen magazines, young readers rejected the labels, preferring to pick and choose, or had their own local interpretation of Mod or Skinhead.127 Further, sub-identities within subcultures emerged.128 Music publications and teenage magazines frequently found themselves opposing the stigmatisation propagated by the mainstream press.129 There was criticism from youth experts that much of the coverage of youth culture simply addressed its visible features and fail to see subcultures as constitutive elements, as well as a product, of social and cultural change.130 In the mid-1950s, according to scholars, Teddy Boys had emerged as a “revolt against egalitarianism”.131 For Dick Hebdige, Mod culture came about in response to the speed of change and the “rat race”, and the Mods’ reaction to it differed from that of the Hippies.132

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Contemporaries also felt that the burgeoning Skinhead cult in the very late 1960s was a reaction to an uncaring, individualised society.133 Material culture had become such an important source for identity-­ building that Mods alienated certain commodities from their intended function, turning them into purely fashion accessories.134 Rockers were amused by this, considering it pretentious, and felt that the Mods’ dandyism was “effeminate in style and behaviour”.135, 136 Mods, in contrast, were presented as a subculture which despised Rockers for their anti-urban lifestyle and their “peasant-like” backwardness.137 Such generalisations, of course, were often mistaken. Mod culture, for example, was frequently interpreted as a consequence of the new social mobility that emerged in mid-1960s Britain, although contemporary witnesses recall that the “really smart blokes in London” in the early 1960s came from “the poorer areas”.138 Even the Daily Telegraph acknowledged that Mod culture was rooted in working-class youth culture.139 A further association was noted between modern teenage culture and the working class, with scholars seeking to explain juvenile delinquency as a problem grounded in urban working-class districts.140 For some journalists it appeared to be “largely a mystery”,141 while others talked about new working-class opportunities and traditional working-class gang culture in an attempt to explain the increase in knife crime.142 According to the latter group, juvenile delinquency was the result of working-class people having “more than they need of everything” and teenagers no longer needing to work or assist their parents.143 Consumption needs pushed mothers into employment, and it was suggested that, because they no longer spent all their energy on childcare, they were to blame for the destructive behaviour of teenagers.144 Newspapers popularised that teenage gangs adhered to working-class territorialism and territorial identity-building, as demonstrated by fights in dance halls,145 drug incidents,146 and petty crime such as stealing.147 The nation was shocked by reports of young people’s fondness for films which contained scenes of murder and violence carried out by teenagers.148 Decision-makers, youth workers, and parents were urged to pay attention to the “most alarming development of crime amongst boys and young men”.149 Vandalism too “was perceived in Britain as being an emerging social problem”.150 The term amalgamated individual incidents into a national malaise for which young people were held exclusively responsible.151 In the aftermath of the seaside town riots,152 “youth culture [was seen as] synonymous with a commitment to delinquency”.153 Home

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Secretary Henry Brooke even saw the need to found a standing advisory committee on juvenile delinquency.154 Scholars, politicians, and youth workers examined whether prevention schemes and prosecutions were adequate in the fight against juvenile delinquency, and concluded that changes were necessary. Juvenile courts were replaced by the Family Service in the mid-1960s, which sought to advise rather than to hand out punishment.155 According to youth worker, Britain got itself into such a panic that some scholars were even suggesting that high milk consumption could be responsible for delinquent behaviour.156 Psychologists criticised the habits of society, pointing out that it had “failed to understand the psychological needs of young people” and had provided children with “a combination of dangerous toys”.157 For another group of scholars, juvenile delinquency was a mental illness caused by emotional deprivation. This was thought to be the case because Britain had a high number of repeat offenders.158 According to conservative judges, however, this interpretation was just an excuse which freed young offenders from responsibility.159 The position of clinical psychologists was challenged by sociologists, who demonstrated that the majority of offenders did not display any mental abnormality.160 Some years earlier, in 1956, the Economic Research Council had postulated that young people’s behaviour did not take place in isolation from the world in which they lived.161 Increased drinking, for example, was part of a general increase in alcohol consumption.162 Other studies looked at the transition from school to work and suggested that boys needed to be protected from drifting into crime during their first months at work.163 National Service, and in particular the ethos behind it, was also considered as a possible explanation for both, preventing and causing juvenile delinquency.164 The majority of people felt that this was not a problem of youth itself, but rather of subcultural rebellion,165 even though universities and youth committees were emphatic that juvenile delinquency was not a new phenomenon.166 The concept of a natural and an unnatural gang was explored, separating the well-behaved from the troublemakers, as the “natural” gang emerged from the natural process of growing up in a neighbourhood.167 Not everyone involved in the study of youth culture rubber-stamped the surrounding moral panic. For progressive youth workers, the notion of juvenile delinquency said more about Britain than about the lives of its teenagers.168 Vandalism had always taken place, but had not always provoked “speeches from MPS and moral outrage from magistrates”.169 Some

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experts noticed that class discrimination characterised these expressions of alarm, given that the behaviour of working-class teenagers differed little from that of university undergraduates during graduation ceremonies, with the latter being on the whole considered acceptable.170 Some scholars even sought to rationalise juvenile delinquency, in that vandalism targeted public property and was more common on larger estates in deprived areas of London, and thus could be interpreted as a protest against inequality in times of affluence.171 Similar would have been the case with Football hooligans in the late 1960s.172 Particularly in authoritarian states, the National Association of Boys’ Clubs (NABC) pointed out, rebellion was a legitimate response to repression.173 Juvenile delinquency, of course, was not a genuine British phenomenon. The release of Rock Around the Clock in 1956 precipitated press reports on so-called teenage riots in many countries.174 Forensic psychiatrist T. C. N. Gibbens travelled around the world to find explanations for teenage riots in the mid-1960s. Each country supplied its own theory with regard to youth culture as a feature of “Western European societies which have attained a predominantly industrialized and urban culture”.175 Educational changes, secularisation, and new standards of living on a worldwide scale were seen to have paved the way for a truly international youth culture.176 Increasing political cooperation fostered the exchange of ideas. According to author Arthur Koestler, British youth paid little attention to European teenage culture because the country had not yet joined the common market; the European project also having had the effect of synchronising life experiences and expectations, and in doing so giving rise to a European youth identity.177 Technological innovation allowed cultural commodities and influences to circulate around the world. During the 1950s, American popular culture had arrived in nearly every Western nation and became a non-verbal language with which teenagers from different countries communicated with one another.178 Already before the teenage market exploded in the late 1950s, young Britons had preferred to spend their free time in venues and towns affiliated with the US Army.179 In Warrington, northern England, in the early 1950s, 5000 US servicemen from the nearby Air Force base in Burtonwood flooded the small town every weekend.180 To the shame of local parents, girls from Liverpool, Manchester, and Stockport made a pilgrimage to Warrington to dance to the newest releases played for the well-off visitors from America.

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Whole subcultural identities began to circulate around the globe.181 In 1960, the magazine Men Only regarded Beatniks from the US and Britain as belonging to a unified culture, but also as distinct groups which copied one another.182 Beatniks in both countries opposed the Western middle-­ class lifestyle, and adopted common political symbols such as the beard, which represented their disapproval of and divergence from the “rat race”. At the same time, however, British Beatniks were inspired by the “unselfconscious lifestyle” of working-class teenagers, while in the US many had a fascination for the style of black people.183 Subcultural links to class, and the attitudes of subcultures towards violence, differed between countries.184 The internationality of the Beat movement was illustrated by the student protests of the late 1960s, as well as the movement’s international self-image.185 Already, in the 1950s, newspapers and scholars informed that Teddy Boys could be found in various parts of Europe and in faraway countries such as China.186 United by their “peculiarly reactive juvenile mental attitudes”, wrote Mays in 1961, British Teddy Boys, German Halbstarke and Lederjacken, and Stilyagi in the Soviet Union shared an interest in rock ‘n’ roll, popular in capitals such as London, Paris, and Moscow.187 By the mid-1960s, Mod culture “had transformed […] into an international youth movement”.188 A British teen magazine proudly announced in March 1964 that there were “Mods around the world!” At the same time, the “style Anglais” was the trend among “les hip people” in France.189 Even in Japan, Mod culture was setting new trends.190 Where subcultural identities were exported, their accompanying rivalries also kept police forces in countries such as the Netherlands busy.191 Some subcultures became so much associated with Britain that they were credited with the wider success of British culture abroad,192 whereas at home kids were proud that British Mods dominated music and fashion “throughout the rest of the world”.193 Teenage magazines updated readers on the youth scene in foreign cities, and journalists reported on young people’s drug-taking and corresponding drug policies in other countries.194 These issues were taken seriously, in part because by the 1960s, popular culture was so powerful that it could be used as a means of gaining strategic advantage in the Cold War.195 The Western Bloc was interested in the response of teenagers in member states of the Soviet Union to music and fashion from Britain and the US.196 The Manchester Guardian reported in 1956 that Spivs and Hooligans in Leningrad looked like British Teddy Boys.197 On Gorky

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Street in Moscow, Westernised teenagers were subjected to bloody attacks. Rave magazine carried an interview with a young bus driver from Russia in 1967, which revealed that the “in-kids” were involved with the well-­ developed teenage black market that was rampant in Russia’s major cities.198 Increasing transport infrastructure facilitated new direct contact between teenagers in different countries. Numbers visiting international youth festivals increased from the early 1950s onwards.199 At such events, teenagers met one another face to face and noticed that they often did not differ much in terms of style.200 The international reputation of subcultures, however, could hinder this process.201 Groups of young foreigners also became involved in conflicts with local youths, particularly when they became competitors for the same girls. The mass influx of foreign students generated questions about who were the best lovers in Europe and cast a spotlight on the unromantic nature of the British boy.202

Teenage Culture in Urban and Rural Britain: Similarities and Differences During the early 1960s, the unfolding of this international youth culture and young people’s impact on the crisis of Victorian Britishness were primarily evident within the urban centres of Britain.203 Teddy Boys, wrote Hugh Latimer in the Manchester Guardian, had their cultural origins in the shabby and dimly lit streets of the deprived working-class neighbourhoods of south London.204 Historian John Muncie cites the East End, newly built suburbs, and the satellite towns of London as points of origin for the emergence of Mod culture in the early 1960s.205 Former Skinheads note, too, that in the late 1960s, Cockney culture inspired Mods to rediscover their working-class roots in order to try to curtail the drift towards the “flower power” aesthetic of American Hippie culture.206 By the mid-­1960s, the “Swinging London” concept encapsulated British trends in pop and youth culture, which, thanks to the modern urban image they represented, were exported around the world. Cities now revolved around these subcultures and teenage scenes.207 According to influential youth market experts, mid-1960s London was the geographical centre of the British youth and pop market with a global impact, although mail order allowed people not living in cities to participate in an urban consumer culture.208 At this time, the advertising industry

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embraced the narrative of a city shaped by renewal and marketed a new lifestyle image that represented the overcoming of rationing, promoting the “baby-boomer” generation as ambassadors of a bright future.209 British celebrities carried the good news around the globe.210 Everyone wanted to know how and why London had become the centre of the global teenage revolution. Critics attempted to demystify the rise of Swinging London, blaming it on the strange fascination Americans held for British culture, while others claimed that the concept was authentic, and was rooted in the city’s vibrant street scene.211 Film-makers such as Michelangelo Antonioni visualised the change in London’s character with the help of the fancy Mod aesthetic,212 despite critical voices arguing convincingly that London was not “swinging” at all.213 The size of London, its diversity, and its anonymity meant that it encompassed a wide variety of consumers, allowing those engaged in selling products to experiment. Consumerism and popular culture shaped the lives of young people in a period remembered today for the explosion in mass media that took place. Teenagers had numerous opportunities to do “something a little more creative than sitting bored at home in front of the family TV set”.214 Young people themselves as well as their print organs were conscious that lifestyles easily differed between rural regions and cities. In 1959, the Daily Mirror wrote that for a British teenager, the Midlands were “the deadest hole of Britain”.215 Mod’s Monthly joked in the mid-1960s that, in suburban towns and villages, “you can say ‘Mary Quant’ and they think she’s the latest pop singer”.216 Notions of “urban” and “rural” had long been defined by their differences, and youth culture helped to popularise the idea of such a contrast.217 Teenagers explained what it meant to live in rural and urban areas. While in urban areas, for example, modern leisure institutions helped to offset the frustration caused by the negative effects of social change and redevelopment,218 young people “in a small town of 3000 people with not so much as the smell of a coffee bar for twenty-five miles”219 were left to their own devices. This variation in the availability of leisure opportunities gave rise to the assumption that England had become a divided country in which there were marked inequalities between the north and the south.220 Youth culture was one factor addressed by newspapers such as the Guardian, alongside high mortality rates and inadequate infrastructure, when describing regional differences.221 Geoffrey Moorhouse, an influential journalist, made the criticism that the publicity given to London overshadowed that given to the rest of the country.

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Regional interconnectedness and mass media, however, provided new opportunities for London’s cultural entrepreneurs to penetrate rural regions with their promotion of urban lifestyles.222 Regional centres emerged, of course, long before the arrival of modern British post-war youth culture.223 This meant that youth culture reproduced or rejected long existing stereotypes or regional identities. The proliferation of previously urban subcultures also meant that their meaning and function underwent a change. In the case of Teddy Boys, their rebellion became a reaction to “the boredom of life in a small, quiet town”.224 Urban sprawl and commuting helped to create a “golden circle”, denoting the catchment area of London.225 The capital’s cultural influence extended to young people from Essex, Sussex, and Middlesex. Mods from London supplied teenagers in Folkestone with drugs and exported rhythm and blues music to seaside towns such as Hastings and Margate.226 Members of local youth scenes travelled to the capital to see with their own eyes what TV programmes depicted in reports from London’s “in-places”.227 Films such as Billy Liar (1963) and Smashing Time (1967) portrayed youth migration, giving an impression that young folks from all over the country were travelling to London in search of excitement. Often, the arrival of youth cultures in regions outside London reactivated historical regional rivalries and competition.228 The Guardian, traditionally a popular newspaper in northern parts of England, proudly announced that northern youth did not cause trouble in seaside towns such as Blackpool and New Brighton.229 Other films popularised the cultural image of northern and southern towns, ultimately corresponding with existing preconceptions, which helped shape the narrative surrounding differences and similarities between northern and southern teenagers.230 Readers of teen magazines sent letters to the editors pointing out that northern youth was “further ahead in fashion than the South”,231 while stars such as Gay Singleton countered that London was “the only place for Mods”.232 Scottish Mods stressed that Mod culture was not an English but a British movement.233 In Portsmouth, teenagers wrote “Blast London” on the walls of local music clubs to express their unease with the tendency towards “Londoncentricity”. Changes in urban life and in youth cultural identities took place in negotiation with one another. According to the American sociologist Claude S. Fischer, subcultural identities, for example, had grown out of a need to compensate for the collapse of former working-class neighbourhood life.234 For historian Christine Feldman, urban renewal merged with

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Mod culture because each represented the zenith of modernity. In the modernism of post-war Britain, Cockneys invented the word “Mod” in recognition to the benefits of modern life, but the nature of cultural consumption during this period was not entirely distinct from the urban traditions of Britain’s working classes; instead it recultivated the workingclass love for “music and nightlife, street life, singing and drinking”.235 Such references to traditional urban working-class culture were even stronger in the late 1960s, exemplified by Skinheads dressing in workwear and rearticulating the traditional values and habits of workingclass life. According to the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS), such symbolism took place against the backdrop of a decline in the social and cultural security traditionally found in urban working-class districts.236 For newspapers, loneliness had become an urban malaise, and Skinheads, at the end of the decade, were seeking to counter this effect by bringing back to life the community spirit of an imagined working-class culture.237 The corner shop, the local cinema, and the notion of social reliability were positioned against the urban way of life that Louis Wirth described in terms of density, anonymity, and heterogeneity. Graffiti such as “Smethwick Mob rules here” illustrated the power of territoriality and local identities.238 Peter Terson’s 1970 drama Spring-Heeled Jack centred around a group of Skinheads “fighting to dominate the little world of the mansions”.239 The Hippies’ response to both cultural fragmentation in cities and the omnipresence of material life looked different. You Are What You Eat in 1968 demonstrated that the alternative city life, within which Hippies rebelled against the modern world’s transgression of the laws of nature, stood in tradition with a long-standing critique of urban life in Britain and the US.240 Rural camps on the West Coast in the late 1960s allowed people to escape from the commercialisation of urban Hippie communes such as Haight-Ashbury, or New York’s East Village at Lower East Side.241 And by the mid-1970s, pop art artist Peter Blake had co-­ founded the Brotherhood of Ruralists, a group of painters who revitalised the tropes of nature and rural life. Such examples illustrate that the youth-driven making of a post-­ Victorian Britishness did not break with widespread assumptions of British traditions at all. Motifs and conflicts such as the dichotomy between the historical narrative of Merry England, the longings of a peaceful, quiet life in the countryside, and the roughness of urban street life that had accompanied the industrialisation of Victorian cities in the mid of the nineteenth

44 

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century influenced the readings and self-positioning of modern British post-war youth culture. At the same time, the dawn of a new post-­Victorian era in British history was materialised in symbolised with daily experiences of a new and young generation of Brits who had been born straight after the war and who grew up in times in which the country in general and its urban societies in particular called common assumptions of Britishness into question. New gender norms and sexual freedom, the changing role of religion and its impact on the moral system, but also increasing consumption, cultural fragmentation, and the consumer society were informed by and gave rise to a new understanding of youth, adolescence, generationality within the now powerful concept of human life cycle. Conflicts between age groups, also driven and articulated by working-class youth, were in the second half of the 1950s for politicians and newsmakers often an expression of an ill society. By the end of the 1960s, however, generational conflicts were increasingly understood as a positive and necessary process of renewal shaped by changing realities within social sub-systems. Special attention was given to material culture. During the 1960s, the city’s youth had become an indicator of a post-Victorian Britain characterised by a fast-­ changing labour market and new economic opportunities. The following chapter illustrates how the arrival of a British post-war youth culture was situated in and corresponded with a changing world of work.

Notes 1. D. W. Winnicott, “Struggling through the Doldrums,” New Society, 25 April 1963. 2. D.  W. Winnicott, “Delinquency as a sign of hope”, Prisons Service Journal, 1968, 2 f. 3. See Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 25. 4. See “What’s Wrong?,” Challenge, Spring 1964. 5. See The Ven. Martin Sullivan, “A World Beyond Belief,” Challenge, January 1966. 6. The Labour Party, The Younger Generation: Report of the Labour Party Commission (London: Labour Party 1959). See also Ellis, “The Younger Generation”. 7. Honeck, “Rubble and Rebirth”, 889. 8. “Queen’s Speech outlines a heavy programme,” The Guardian, 28 October 1959.

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9. Colin McGlashan, “Under-25s just don’t care,” The Guardian, 27 September 1964. 10. James Margach, “Labour Woos The Young,” The Sunday Times, 22 November 1959. 11. John Barr, “Adults at 18?,” New Society, 13 January 1966. 12. See Aldag, “Can’t Buy Our Love”; Andrew Pierce, “Dave Clark: Why I turned down on gong from Harold Wilson,” The Telegraph, 10 December 2008. 13. See Norman Mailer, “Superman comes to Supermarket,” Esquire, November 1960. For Kennedy in Britain see Booker, Neophiliacs, 150; Bernstein, Promises Kept, 259 f. 14. See Crawford, The Profumo affair; Irving, Anatomy of a Scandal. 15. Lawrence Black, “Making Britain a Gayer and More Cultivated Country”. 16. See Erikson, Identity and Life; Erikson, Identity, Youth and Crisis. 17. “The Seven Ages of Man—Adolescence: 12 to 18,” New Society, 19 November 1964; “The Seven Ages of Man—Young Adult: 18 to 30,” New Society, 26 November 1964. 18. “Teenagers not a ‘race apart’ but all too like adults,” The Guardian, 5 January 1961. 19. Shapira, The War Inside, 138. 20. David Keith, “Transition to Maturity,” Challenge, July 1966. 21. “A generation in revolt,” The Guardian, 11 September 1962. 22. See David Downes, “Decolonising the young,” The Guardian, 23 July 1967. For an overview of the affluent teenager image see Osgerby, “The Young Ones”. 23. John Blake, “Teenage revolution,” Hackney Gazette, 30 September 1966. See also Laurie, The Teenage Revolution. For generational conflicts see Bryan Wilson, “War of the Generations,” Daily Telegraph and Morning Post, 21 August 1964. For increasing living standards and the babyboomer generation, see Roberts, “The end of the long baby-boomer generation”. For generationality as an analytical category, see Berghoff et al. eds. History by Generations. For generational habitus see Purhonen, “Generations on paper”, 96. 24. Mannheim, The Problem of Generations. 25. Wilhelm Dilthey 1889, Bd. 58. For an overview of the concept of generation and its use in history and research, see Weisbrod, “Generation und Generationalität in der Neueren Geschichte”; Jureit, “Generation, Generationalität und Generationenforschung”. 26. Mays, “Teen-Age Culture in Contemporary Britain and Europe”, 23. 27. Wolfenden, The Changing World, 10 f. 28. The Labour Party, The Younger Generation, 6. 29. Pepper, Young People Today, 1.

46 

F. FUHG

30. David Keith, “Transition to Maturity,” Challenge, July 1966. 31. The Ven. Martin Sullivan, “a world beyond belief,” Challenge, January 1966. 32. Laufer, “Adolescents under Stress,” New Society, 11 June 1970; Savage, 1966, 75. 33. Billy Butlin, “What I think about today’s youth,” Hackney Gazette, 14 April 1960. For insecurity and youth in Cold War politics, see Holt, Cold War Kids. 34. “The Teenage Adults,” The Guardian, 30 January 1970; Arthur Koestler, “Expressionist Generation,” The Guardian, 16 August 1959. 35. Mays, “Teen-Age Culture”, 23 f. 36. “What they read …,” Challenge, Winter 1962/63. 37. Ibid., 25. 38. “Secondary Modern Smoking;” The Guardian, 13 March 1962. 39. “Boy (16) planned to take a 14 Guinea Flat,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 29 May 1964; Derek Hawes, “The Alienated Generation,” Challenge, Winter 1961. 40. “Are local teenagers decadent?,” Hackney Gazette, 29 March 1963. 41. Derek Hawes, “The Alienated Generation,” Challenge, Winter 1961. 42. “Angry young people,” Challenge, July 1969. See also David Keith, “Transition to Maturity,” Challenge, July 1966. 43. Clancy Sigal, “Voices in the Darkness,” The Guardian, 7 December 1958. 44. “Guess who She’s On About?,” Jackie, 9 January 1965; The Labour Party, The Younger Generation, 5; “Teddy boys at fire were ‘wonderful’,” The Guardian, 26 August 1963; “Teddy Boys selling Church Magazines,” The Guardian, 9 September 1958. 45. “Late night argument,” Challenge, Spring 1961. 46. “The Archbishop, modern youth and the Press,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 25 February 1966. 47. Ronald Fletcher, “A Humanist’s Decalogue,” New Society, 2 May 1963. 48. The Labour Party, The Younger Generation, 6. 49. See Critcher, Moral Panics and the Media, 155. 50. Quoted in Fyvel, Insecure Offenders, 17. 51. David Keith, “Transition to Maturity,” Challenge, July 1966. For interdependences between youth, generational consciousness, and historical change, see Eisenstadt, From Generation to Generation. 52. Keith, “Transition to Maturity”; “Lord Longford speaks up for young people,” The Guardian, 15 June 1965. For young people and the CND, see Masters, The Swinging Sixties, 178-194; Taylor and Pritchard, The Protest Makers. For teenager and the Youth Against Hunger movement, see Bocking-Welch, “Youth against hunger”. 53. “The Teenage Summit!,” Daily Mirror, 5 August 1960.

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54. The Ven. Martin Sullivan, “a world beyond belief,” Challenge, January 1966. 55. Eppel, “Adolescent Values,” New Society, 28 March 1963. 56. See sit- or smoke-ins, non-violent protest for nuclear disarmament, actions against a NATO lecture at LSE. “Confrontation with the ­anarchists,” The Guardian, 20 April 1965; “Mods and moderation,” The Guardian, 20 July 1967; “Scientists shut out,” The Guardian, 1 November 1969. 57. See Savage, Teenage, xiii. 58. “Teen-Age Girls: They Live in a Wonderful World of Their Own,” LIFE, December 1944. For the role of Eugene Gilbert see Dwight Macdonald, “A Caste, A Culture, A Market,” The New Yorker, 22 November 1958; Dwight Macdonald, “A Caste, A Culture, A Market—II,” The New Yorker, 29 November 1958; Osgerby, Youth Media, 15–18. 59. Eppel, “Teenage Values”. For more information on the image of youth and discussions on consumption, see Bill Osgerby, “Well, It’s Saturday Night and ‘I just Got Paid’”. 60. See “Purple Hearts Problem Does Exist,” Hackney Gazette, 17 April 1964; Eric Clark, “Affluence cause of drug cult?,” The Guardian, 16 May 1965; Eric Clark, “Drugs,” The Guardian, 12 February 1967. For subcultural youth styles and drug-taking, see Hallam, White Drug Cultures and Regulation in London, 181–210. 61. Clancy Sigal, “Voices in the Darkness,” The Guardian, 7 December 1958. 62. John Gale, “Hipster-Mac with an American lining,” The Guardian, 3 March 1963. 63. Carole, in “The Way You Live,” Boyfriend, 2 June 1962. 64. See Tebbutt, Making Youth, 99 f. 65. See Colin Smith, “Skinhead terror in Bethnal Green,” The Guardian, 5 April 1970. In mid-1970, Pakistanis marched from Speaker’s Corner to Downing Street to protest against attacks. See Peter Harvey, ‘A Pakistani march on No. 10 demands an end to racial attacks,” The Guardian, 25 May 1970. 66. Paul Bark, “Rockers and Roast-Beef Values,” The Guardian, 2 December 1964. 67. See Colin Smith, “Skinheads hang up their boots,” The Guardian, 13 December 1970. For contemporary literature and the racist image of Skinhead culture see Copsey, When popular culture met the far right, 113. For Skinheads and Paki-bashing in media see BBC documentary “What’s the Truth about Hell’s Angels and Skinheads,” 1969. 68. Ernest Dewhurst, “Attacks not organised,” The Guardian, 11 August 1970. 69. Smith, “Skinhead terror in Bethnal Green”.

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F. FUHG

70. Bark, “Rockers and Roast-Beef Values”. 71. For the relationship between Paki- and Queer-bashing, see Clarke, The Skinheads and the Magical Recovery of Community, 177. 72. “Sex and teenager,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 30 October 1959. Geoffrey Gorer, in contrast, stated that in the late 1960s one-quarter of men and two-thirds of interviewed women were virgins when they married. See Gorer, Sex & Marriage in England Today. For more information, see Langhamer, The English in Love, 140 f. 73. See Ruth Adam, “Our Teenage Daughters,” The Sunday Times, 10 December 1961. 74. “The Diary of A Rave Girl: Ronny,” Rave, February 1964; “Anything you can do,” Boyfriend, 12 September 1964. 75. E. M. Eppel, “Adolescent Values,” New Society, 28 March 1963. See also Schofield, The Sexual Behavior of Young People. 76. For sex and public ads see Jeremy Bugler, “The Sex Sell,” New Society, 15 May 1969. 77. “Mods and moderation,” The Guardian, 20 July 1967. 78. “Strain imposed on youth by society,” The Guardian, 28 September 1963. 79. “Sex talks which may cause teenage tragedies,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 14 October 1960. 80. See Clancy Sigal, “Just Something to Do,” The Manchester Guardian, 21 December 1958; “Strain imposed on youth by society,” The Guardian, 28 September 1963. 81. Joan Rockwell, “A Self-Portrait of Danish Teenagers,” New Society, 12 February 1970. 82. “Watch out, Mum, for your teenage rebels!,” Daily Mirror, 24 April 1957; “She’s Leaving Home …,” Rave, March 1965. See also Weight, Mod, 153. 83. “Young Girl,” Rave, August 1968. 84. “The Playgirls,” London Life, 14 May 1966. 85. See Oakley, Sex, Gender and Society. 86. Griselda Rowntree, “New Facts on Teenage Marriage,” New Society, 4 October 1962; Paul Barker, “Young Marriages,” New Society, 17 September 1964; “Boom in teenage marriage,” New Society, 20 May 1965. 87. See August, “Gender and 1960s Youth Culture.” 88. “every girl should be married,” Boyfriend, 3 February 1962; “Every Girl’s Dream,” Boyfriend, 24 August 1963. 89. “Freedom? It’s A Myth,” Boyfriend, 6 October 1962. 90. Ibid. 91. “Anything you can do,” Boyfriend, 12 September 1964.

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92. See Tony Forbes from Hampstead in Jackie, 4 July 1964; “She’s asking for it!,” Jackie, 3 April 1965. For Mods’ and Rockers’ gender notions see Paul Willis, Profane Culture; Milestone and Meyer, Gender and Popular Culture, 197 f.; DeLibero, This Year’s Girl, 50. 93. See McRobbie and Garber, Girls and Subcultures, 109. 94. See Selfie and Burke, Perspectives on sex, crime and society, 20. For the role of the church as a provider of sexual norms in the 1950s and 1960s, see Nigel Yates, Love Now, Pay Later?. 95. Ronald Goldman, “Do we want our Children Taught about God?,” New Society, 27 May 1965. 96. See Julian Huxley, “Education and the Humanist Revolution,” Nature 197 (1963), Issue 4862, 8–13. 97. “Hackney Teenagers and the Church,” Hackney Gazette, 13 February 1970. For an overview of the meaning of religion in Britain in the 1960s, see Parsons, The time they were a-changing; Brown, The Death of Christian Britain, 170–192. For a transnational history, see McLeod, The Religious Crisis of the 1960s. 98. The Ven. Martin Sullivan, “a world beyond belief,” Challenge, January 1966. 99. See Ministry of Education, The Youth Service in England and Wales (‘The Albemarle Report’), London 1960, 1. 100. Brennan, Thinking about Young People. 101. See “Give youth a new aim, they demand,” Daily Mirror, 16 November 1961. For a similar argument, see Susan Cooper, “The Adolescent Ferment,” The Sunday Times, 12 October 1958. 102. See “State aid to churches on youth service,” The Guardian, 24 August 1964. 103. Heilbronner, “From a Culture for Youth to a Culture of Youth,” 578. 104. Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes, 333. 105. See Dennis Potter’s novel The Changing Forest which illustrates the arrival of modern commercial leisure culture in the coal mining area Forest of Dean. 106. See Spicer, Typical Men, 96; Buckingham, Selling Youth, 205; Montgomery, The Fifties, 149. 107. See here Colin MacInnes, Absolute Beginners. 108. Sillitoe, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning; Beider, White Working-­ class Voices, 63 f. 109. Edward Shils, “Handicapped Hedonists,” The Guardian, 13 October 1961. 110. See O’Donnell, Age and Generation, 30; John Prince, “Social Climb for Youths’ Pop Culture,” The Daily Telegraph, 7 September 1967. For more

50 

F. FUHG

information see Hewitt, “Popular Culture and Mass Culture”; Gorman, The Development of an American Mass Culture Critique. 111. “Mods dress copied at universities,” The Daily Telegraph, 27 September 1963. 112. Mays, “Teen-Age Culture,” 29. 113. Nigel Fountain, “The Telephone Mob,” New Society, 18 January 1968. 114. David Downes, “Decolonising the young,” The Guardian, 23 July 1967. 115. E. P. Thompson, “Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism”. 116. Downes, “Decolonising the young”. 117. Alex MacGuire, “The Mod-Rocker riddle,” New Society, 28 May 1964. 118. “The age of identity,” Daily Mirror, 3 September 1969. 119. “The Outsiders,” Daily Mail, 26 September 1969; Becker, Outsiders. 120. “Public Opinion on the Bovver Boys,” Daily Mirror, 9 February 1970. 121. “The Outsiders”. 122. See “From the boys’ point of view It’s all a giggle,” Jackie, 29 February 1964. 123. “Public Opinion on the Bovver Boys,” Daily Mirror, 9 February 1970. 124. See “Who’s a beatnik?,” Daily Mirror, 9 December 1960. 125. “Public Opinion on the Bovver Boys”. See also Peter Lewis’ review of Peter Terson’s version of the play Spring-Heeled Jack, originally released in 1950. See “Life’s tough for a Hell’s Angel in skinhead land”, Daily Mail, 25 August 1970. 126. When Ringo Starr was asked in the Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night (1964) if he is a Mod or a Rocker, he said that he is a Mocker. 127. “Who’s a beatnik?,” Daily Mirror, 9 December 1960; “typical teen,” Jackie, 11 September 1965. 128. “Which Way Out Are You?,” Rave, May 1964. 129. See, for example, “The Wild One,” Jackie, 11 July 1964. 130. MacGuire, “The Mod-Rocker riddle”. 131. Hugh Latimer, “The Teddies,” The Guardian, 19 June 1955. 132. Hebdige, The Meaning of Mod, 95. 133. “Public Opinion on the Bovver Boys,” Daily Mirror, 9 February 1970. 134. “Listen to mother…,” Jackie, 29 February 1964. See also Hebdige, The Meaning of Mod, 95. For records as accessories, see Phil Smee, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 71. 135. MacGuire, “The Mod-Rocker riddle”. 136. “Beau Brummel: The Mod with the Most!,” Jackie, 3 April 1965. 137. “Which Way Out Are You?,” Rave, May 1964. 138. John Simons, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, 7. 139. “Mods dress copied at universities,” The Daily Telegraph, 27 September 1963.

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140. For information on drifting into crime and urban working-class neighbourhoods, see Christopher Neubert and Mary Loughton, “The Blanksey Boys,” New Society, 21 May 1970. 141. “Causes for Juvenile Delinquency largely a Mystery,” The Manchester Guardian, 3 September 1958. 142. See, for example, “60 ‘Teddy’ Boys in Fight,” The Manchester Guardian, 27 May 1958; “Attacks by Gangs of Teddy Boys,” The Manchester Guardian, 22 December 1954. See also Ferris and Lord, Teddy Boys; Frankenstein, Varieties of Juvenile Delinquency, 199 f.; Thompson and Bynum, Juvenile delinquency, 373 f; Hendrick, Histories of Youth Crime and Youth Justice, 10; Davis, Youth and the condition of Britain, 114, 155, 157. 143. Roger Barnard, “Initiation by Violence: The Uses of Delinquency,” New Society, 27 June 1968. 144. “Why the Wild Ones?,” Hackney Gazette, 5 March 1965. See also Bagley, “Juvenile Delinquency in Exeter”, 39. 145. See “Affray charge: 16 for trial,” The Guardian, 29 April 1959. 146. P.  H. Connell, “What to do about pep pills,” New Society, 20 February 1964. 147. See “Taking the Lid Off Gangdom,” Challenge, Winter 1962/1963. 148. “It’s Dead Funny,” Daily Mirror, 21 June 1961. 149. John Wakeford, “Is Violence Increasing?,” New Society, 16 May 1963. 150. Stanley Cohen, “The Nature of Vandalism,” New Society, 12 December 1968. 151. See Martin, Juvenile Vandalism: A Study and Its Nature and Prevention. 152. Bill Osgerby, “Brighton Rocked”, 19; Grayson, “Mods, Rockers and Juvenile delinquency in 1964”. 153. Terence Morris, “The Teenage Criminal,” New Society, 11 April 1963. 154. Francis Boyd, “Group of forty to study delinquency,” The Guardian, 13 February 1964. 155. Winifred E.  Cavanagh and Richard F.  Sparks, “Out of court?,” New Society, 15 July 1965. 156. See Derek Miller, “Psychology of the Delinquent Boy,” New Society, 23 July 1964. 157. Derek Miller, “Leisure and The Adolescent,” New Society, 9 June 1966. 158. “Bag Snatching,” Hackney Gazette, 8 February 1966. 159. “The mind of a young thug—by a judge,” Daily Mirror, 14 June 1961. 160. Terence Morris, “The Teenage Criminal,” New Society, 11 April 1963. 161. Christian Economic Research Council, Social Problems of Post War Youth. 162. See Plant and Plant, Risk-Takers, 50. 163. See “The Roots of Delinquency,” Challenge, Summer 1965.

52 

F. FUHG

164. Broad, Conscription in Britain, 256; King George V Jubilee Trust, Citizens of Tomorrow, paragraph 17 and 18. 165. For delinquency as subcultural behaviour, see Lerman, “Gangs, Networks, and Subcultural Delinquency”. 166. Magarey, “The Invention of Juvenile Delinquency in Early Nineteenth-­ Century England”; Shore, “Inventing and Re-Inventing the Juvenile Delinquent in British History”. 167. Middendorf, New forms of juvenile delinquency. For a general overview, see Bradley, “Juvenile delinquency and the public sphere”. 168. “Delinquency Black Spots,” New Society, 28 May 1964; “It’s Dead Funny,” Daily Mirror, 21 June 1961; Terence Morris, “The Teenage Criminal,” New Society, 11 April 1963. 169. “Rods and Mockers,” Challenge, Summer 1964. 170. T.  C. N.  Gibbens, “Teenage riots round the world,” New Society, 6 August 1964. 171. Stanley Cohen, “The Nature of Vandalism,” New Society, 12 December 1968. 172. Ian Taylor, “Hooligans: Soccer’s Resistance Movement,” New Society, 7 August 1969. 173. Tsipursky, Socialist Fun, 12. 174. For Rock Around the Clock riots see Hall, 1956, 195 f.; Evans, The Rock ‘n’ Roll Age; Poiger, Jazz, Rock and Rebels, 89 f. 175. Gibbens, “Teenage riots round the world”, 23. 176. Wolfenden, The Changing World. 177. Official institutions too became involved in bringing young people from different countries together. In reaction to the Comintern and its youth and peace festivals in the 1950s, the CIA supported the founding of the European Youth Campaign. See Aldrich, “The Struggle for the Mind of European Youth”. 178. For the impact of American culture on young people in Europe, see Kroes, “American Mass Culture and European Youth Culture”; Wakeman, “European mass culture in the media age”, 115 f.; Elteren, Americanism and Americanization, 35, 47. For a case study in Britain, see Thomson, “Dance Bands and Dance Halls in Greenock”, 1945–55. 179. For the American Forces Network (AFN) and rock ‘n’ roll in France, see Dregni et  al., Rockabilly, 183. For the US Army and popular music in Germany, see Höhn, Gis, Veronika and Lucky Strikes. 180. “Testing Ground for Anglo American Relations,” The Guardian, 27 November 1952. 181. See the term “global village” in McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy. 182. Douglas Warth, “The Beat Generation,” Men Only, June 1960. 183. Everett, you’ll never be 16 again, 36.

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184. “The Outsiders,” Daily Mail, 26 September 1969; Peter Worsley, “Growing up and settling down,” The Guardian, 25 November 1966; Willmott, Adolescent Boys in East London. 185. Colin McGlashan, “Because they’re young,” The Guardian, 1 April 1971; Paloczi-Horvath, Youth Up in Arms. 186. Fyvel, Insecure Offenders, 27-36; “Teddy Boys in China?,” The Guardian, 30 December 1954; “Attack on West Indians in Paris,” The Guardian, 3 June 1959. 187. Mays, “Teen-Age Culture,” 23. 188. Christine Feldman, “We Are the Mods”, 10. 189. Andrew Oldham, “Mods Around the World!,” The Mod’s Monthly, March 1964. 190. “Mod Scene Booming—From England to Japan,” The Mod’s Monthly, November 1964. See also “The Young in Rebellion,” LIFE, September 1964; Weight, Mod, p. 330. 191. “Dutch mods and rockers clash,” The Guardian, 6 June 1964. 192. See Deibel, “March of Mods”. 193. “Which Way Out Are You?,” Rave, May 1964. 194. See L. R. C. Howard, “The glue-sniffing problem,” New Society, 20 June 1963; Joan Rockwell, “A Self-Portrait of Danish Teenagers,” New Society, 12 February 1970. 195. See Franz and Smulyan eds. Major Problems in American Popular Culture, 409 f.; Eschen, Satchmo Blows Up the World. For Western pop culture in the Soviet Union, see Fürst, Swinging across the Iron Curtain. 196. See Michael Wall, “East Germany’s restless youths,” The Guardian, 9 March 1962. 197. William C. Just, “The Young People of Russia—2: Spivs and Hooligans,” The Guardian, 30 September 1956. 198. “Rave in Russia!,” Rave, July 1967. 199. “200 British delegates head eastwards,” The Manchester Guardian, 2 August 1951. 200. Kenneth Pearson, “Drama in Blue Jeans,” The Sunday Times, 10 August 1958; “The Teenage Summit!,” Daily Mirror, 5 August 1960. 201. Laurence Marks, “Dutch police deport London theatre group,” The Guardian, 29 September 1968. 202. “British Boys Are Best!,” Boyfriend, 13 July 1963. 203. See Chambers, Popular Culture; Brake, Comparative Youth Culture, 59; Dimitriadis, Studying Urban Youth Culture Primer. 204. See Latimer, “The Teddies”. 205. Muncie, Youth and Crime, 168. 206. Brown, Booted and suited: the real story of the 1970s, 2.

54 

F. FUHG

207. Piri Halasz, “You Can Walk Across It on the Grass”, in: Time Magazine, 15 April 1966. 208. Zimmermann, “The Consolidation of Youth Lifestyle in the 1960s”; Breward and Gilbert, “Anticipations of London’s West End, 1955–1975,” 159. 209. Donnelly, Sixties Britain, 91. 210. “The London I Love,” London Life, 25 June 1966. 211. “The London I Love,” London Life, 11 June 1966. 212. See Lev, “Blow-Up”. 213. “In search of swinging London,” London Life, 18 June 1966; “Whatever Happened to Swinging London?,” Daily Mirror, 12 November 1971. 214. Roger Barnard, “Initiation by Violence: The Uses of Delinquency,” New Society, 27 June 1968. 215. Keith Waterhouse, “Bored Stiff! The youngsters who don’t get a fair deal,” Daily Mirror, 27 July 1959. 216. “North or South?,” Mod’s Monthly, November 1964. 217. Fischer, The Urban Experience, 7. 218. Susan Cooper, “The Adolescent Ferment,” The Sunday Times, 12 October 1958. 219. “If you’ve got the small town blues ….,” Jackie, 14 October 1966. 220. Moorhouse, Britain in the Sixties, 13. 221. George Taylor, “The Gulf Between North and South,” The Guardian, 15 August 1962. 222. Ibid. 223. Brown, Booted and Suited, 66, 70. 224. “Not Real Teddy Boys,” The Manchester Guardian, 11 December 1958. 225. Moorhouse, Britain in the Sixties. 226. Robins, We Hate Humans. 227. “Down Carnaby Street,” Mod’s Monthly, September 1964. 228. “Jimmy Savile Speaking The North and South of It,” Jackie, 30 January 1965. 229. Stanley Reynolds, “Mods and knockers,” The Guardian, 5 June 1964. 230. See, for example, Get Carter, released in 1971. 231. “North or South?”; “Mod Mailbag,” Mod’s Monthly, July 1964; 232. Hebditch, “Weekend”, 164. 233. “Mod Mailbag,” Mod’s Monthly, May 1964. 234. Fischer, The Urban Experience. 235. Feldman, We Are the Mods, 60 f. 236. Clarke, The Skinheads and the Study of Youth Culture. 237. Susan Cooper, “Loneliness,” The Sunday Times, May 1962. 238. See Miles, “Resistance or Security?,” 68.

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239. Peter Lewis, “Life’s tough for a Hell’s Angel in skinhead land,” Daily Mail, 25 August 1970. 240. Michael Wood, “Freak utopias,” New Society, 24 October 1968. 241. Dennis Livingston, “Visit to Morningstar: The Rural Hippies,” New Society, 11 April 1968. See also Daley, Going Up the Country; Webster, “Communes: A thematic typology”.

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Breward, Christopher, and David Gilbert. 2008. Anticipations of the New Urban Cultural Economy: Fashion and the Transformation of London’s West End, 1955–1975. In Creative Urban Milieus: Historical Perspectives on Culture, Economy and the City, ed. Martina Heßler and Clemens Zimmermann, 163–182. Frankfurt am Main: Campus. Broad, Roger. 2006. Conscription in Britain, 1939–1964: The Militarisation of a Generation. London and New York: Routledge. Brown, Callum G. 2000. The Death of Christian Britain. London: Routledge. Brown, Chris. 2009. Booted and Suited: The Real Story of the 1970s—It Ain’t No Boogie Wonderland. London: John Blake. Buckingham, David. 2014. Selling Youth: The Paradoxical Empowerment of the Young Consumer. In Youth Cultures in the Age of Global Media, ed. David Buckingham, Sara Bragg, and Mary Jane Kehily, 202–223. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Burke, Vincent, and David W. Selfie. 1998. Perspectives on Sex, Crime and Society. London and Sydney: Cavendish. Chambers, Ian. 1986. Popular Culture: The Metropolitan Experience. London: Routledge. Christian Economic Research Council. 1956. Social Problems of Post War Youth. London: Economic Research Council. Clarke, John. 1972. The Skinheads and the Study of Youth Culture. Birmingham: Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. ———. 2002. The Skinheads and the Magical Recovery of Community. In Cultural Resistance Reader, ed. Stephen Duncombe, 174–177. London and New York: Routledge. Copsey, Nigel. 2015. When Popular Culture Met the Far Right: Cultural Encounters with Post-war British Fascism. In Culture of Post-war British Fascism, ed. Nigel Copsey and John E. Richardson, 108–127. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Crawford, Ian. 1963. The Profumo affair: a crisis in contemporary society. London: White Lodge Books. Critcher, Chas. 2003. Moral Panics and the Media. Buckingham: Open University Press. Daley, Yvonne. 2018. Going Up the Country: When the Hippies, Dreamers, Freaks, and Radicals Moved to Vermont. Hanover: University of New England Press. Davis, John. 1990. Youth and the Condition of Britain: Images of Adolescent Conflict. London: Athlone Press. Deibel, Christiane. 2012. “March of Mods”: The Internationalisation of a British Cultural Phenomenon, the Shaping of Identity and the Role of the Media. Marburg: Tectum Verlag.

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DeLibero, Linda Benn. 1994. This Year’s Girl: A Personal/Critical History of Twiggy. In On Fashion, ed. Shari Benstock and Suzanne Ferriss, 41–58. New Brunswick and New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. Dimitriadis, Greg. 2008. Studying Urban Youth Culture Primer. New York et al.: Peter Lang. Donnelly, Mark. 2005. Sixties Britain: culture, society, and politics. Harlow and New York: Pearson Longman. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. 1956. From Generation to Generation: Age Groups and Social Structure. Glencoe: The Free Press. Ellis, Catherine. 2002. The Younger Generation: The Labour Party and the 1959 Youth Commission. Journal of British Studies 41 (2): 199–231. van Elteren, Mel. 2006. Americanism and Americanization: A Critical History of Domestic and Global Influence. Jefferson: McFarland. Erikson, Erik H. 1959. Identity and Life Cycle. New  York: International University Press. ———. 1968. Identity, Youth and Crisis. New York: Norton. von Eschen, Penny M. 2004. Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Evans, Mike. 2007. The Rock ‘n’ Roll Age: The Music, the Culture, the Generation. Pleasantville: Reader’s Digest Association. Everett, Peter. 1986. You’ll Never Be 16 Again: An Illustrated History of the British Teenager. London: BBC Publications. Feldman, Christine. 2009. ‘We Are the Mods’: A Transnational History of Youth Culture, PhD at University of Pittsburgh. Ferris, Ray, and Julian Lord. 2012. Teddy Boys: A Concise History. Wrea Green: Milo Books. Fischer, Claude S. 1976. The Urban Experience. New York et al.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Fowler, David. 1995. The First Teenagers: The Lifestyle of Young Wage-Earners in Interwar Britain. London: Woburn Press. Frankenstein, Carl. 1970. Varieties of Juvenile Delinquency. London: Gordon and Breach Science Pub. *. Franz, Katheen, and Susan Smulyan. 2012. Major Problems in American Popular Culture. Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. Fürst, Juliane. 2015. Swinging across the Iron Curtain and Moscow’s Summer of Love: How Western Youth Culture Went East. In Transnational Histories of Youth in the Twentieth Century, ed. Richard Ivan Jobs and David M. Pomfret, 236–259. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Fyvel, T.R. 1966. Insecure Offenders. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Gorer, Geoffrey. 1971. Sex & Marriage in England Today. London: Nelson. Gorman, Paul R. 1990. The Development of an American Mass Culture Critique, 1910–1960. PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley.

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Grayson, Richard S. 1998. Mods, Rockers and Juvenile Delinquency in 1964: The Government Response. Contemporary British History 12 (1): 19–47. Hall, Simon. 2016. 1956: The World in Revolt. London: Faber & Faber. Hallam, Christopher. 2018. White Drug Cultures and Regulation in London, 1916–1960. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Hebdige, Dick. 1991. The Meaning of Mod. In Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-war Britain, ed. Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson, 87–96. London: Harper Collins. Heilbronner, Oded. 2008. From a Culture for Youth to a Culture of Youth: Recent Trends in the Historiography of Western Youth Cultures. Contemporary European History 17 (4): 575–591. Hendrick, Harry. 2015. Histories of Youth Crime and Youth Justice. In Youth Crime and Justice, ed. Barry Goldson and John Muncie, 3–16. London et al.: Sage. Hewitt, Nicholas. 1999. Popular Culture and Mass Culture. Contemporary European History 8 (3): 351–358. Hewitt, Paolo. 2000. The Soul Stylists: Forty Years of Modernism. Edinburgh: Mainstream. Hobsbawm, Eric J. 1994. Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991. London: Michael Joseph. Honeck, Mischa. 2020. Rubble and Rebirth: Postwar Rejuvenation and the Erasure of History. Journal of Social History 53 (4): 889–905. Irvin Holt, Marilyn. 2014. Cold War Kids: Politics and Childhood in Postwar America, 1945–1960. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Irving, Clive. 1963. Anatomy of a Scandal: A Study of the Profumo Affair. New York: M.S. Mill Co. Jureit, Ulrike. 2010. Generation, Generationalität und Generationenforschung. Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte. https://docupedia.de/zg/Jureit_generation_ v2_de_2017. King George V Jubilee Trust. 1955. Citizens of Tomorrow: A Study of the Influences Affecting the Upbringing of Young People. London: Odhams Press. Kroes, Rob. 2006. American Mass Culture and European Youth Culture. In Between Marx and Coca-Cola: Youth Cultures in Changing European Societies, 1960–1980, ed. Axel Schildt and Detlef Siegfried, 82–108. New  York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. Labour Party. 1959. The Younger Generation: Report of the Labour Party Commission. London: Labour Party. Langhamer, Claire. 2013. The English in Love: The Intimate Story of an Emotional Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Laurie, Peter. 1965. The Teenage Revolution. London: Anthony Blond. Lentz, Graham. 2002. The Influential Factor. Horsham: GEL Publishing.

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Lerman, Paul. 1967. Gangs, Networks, and Subcultural Delinquency. American Journal of Sociology 73 (1): 63–72. Maase, Kaspar. 1997. Grenzenloses Vergnügen: Der Aufstieg der Massenkultur 1850–1970. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer. MacInnes, Colin. 1960. Absolute Beginners. London: MacGibbon & Kee. Magarey, Susan. 1978. The Invention of Juvenile Delinquency in Early Nineteenth-­ Century England. Labour History 34: 11–27. Mannheim, Karl. 2005. The Problem of Generations. In Childhood: Critical Concepts in Sociology Vol. 3, ed. Chris Jenks, 273–285. London and New York: Routledge. Martin, John M. 1961. Juvenile Vandalism: A Study and Its Nature and Prevention. Springfield: Thomas. Masters, Brian. 1985. The Swinging Sixties. London: Constable. Mays, John Barron. 1961. Teen-Age Culture in Contemporary Britain and Europe. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 338: 22–32. McLeod, Hugh. 2007. The Religious Crisis of the 1960s. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McLuhan, Marshall. 1962. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. McRobbie Angela and Jenny Garber. 1997. Girls and Subcultures. In The Subcultures Reader, ed. Ken Gelder and Sarah Thornton, 112–120. London and New York: Routledge. Middendorf, Wolfgang. 1960. New Forms of Juvenile Delinquency: Their Origin, Prevention and Treatment: Second United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, London, 8–20 August 1960. New York: United Nations. Miles, Steven. 2003. Resistance or Security? Young People and the ‘Appropriation’ of Urban, Cultural and Consumer Space. In Urban Futures: Critical Commentaries on Shaping Cities, ed. Tim Hall and Malcolm Miles, 65–75. London: Routledge. Milestone, Katie, and Anneke Meyer. 2010. Gender and Popular Culture. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Montgomery, John. 1965. The Fifties. London: G. Allen & Unwin. Moorhouse, Geoffrey. 1964. Britain in the Sixties: The Other England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. O’Donnell, Mike. 1985. Age and Generation. London and New York: Tavistock. Oakley, Ann. 1972. Sex, Gender and Society. London: Temple Smith. Osgerby, Bill. 1992. Well, It’s Saturday Night and ‘I just Got Paid’: Youth, Consumerism and Hegemony in Post-War Britain. Public Record 6: 287–305. ———. 2002. ‘The Young Ones’. Youth, Consumption and Representations of the Teenager in Post-war Britain. In Youth Identities: Teens and Twens in British

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Culture, ed. Hans-Jürgen Diller, Erwin Otto, and Gerd Stratmann, 6–23. Heidelberg: Winter. ———. 2018. Brighton Rocked: Mods, Rockers, and Social Change During the Early 1960s. In Quadrophenia and (Mod)ern Culture, ed. Pam Thurschwell, 13–34. Chur: Palgrave Macmillan. Paloczi-Horvath, Gyorgy. 1971. Youth Up in Arms. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Parsons, Gerald. 2004. The Time They Were A-Changing: Exploring the Context of Religious Transformation in Britain in the 1960s. In Religion in History: Conflict, Conversion and Coexistence, ed. John Wolffe, 161–189. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Pepper, Ronald. 1962. Young People Today. London: Incorporated Catholic Truth Society. Plant, Martin, and Moira Plant. 1992. Risk-Takers: Alcohol, Drugs, Sex and Youth. London: Routledge. Poiger, Uta. 2000. Jazz, Rock and Rebels: Cold War Politics and American Culture in a Divided Germany. Berkeley: University of California Press. Potter, Dennis. 1962. The Changing Forest. London: Secker & Warburg. Purhonen, Semi. 2016. Generations on Paper: Bourdieu and the Critique of ‘Generationalism’. Social Science Information 55 (1): 94–114. Raffe, David. 1997. The Transition from School to Work and its Heirs. In Education and Work in Great Britain, Germany and Italy, ed. Annette Jobert et al., 128–142. London and New York: Routledge. Roberts, Ken. 2012. The End of the Long Baby-Boomer Generation. Journal of Youth Studies 15 (4): 479–497. Robins, David. 1984. We Hate Humans. Harmondsworth: Penguin Press. Savage, Jon. 2008. Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture, 1875–1945. London: Pimlico. ———. 2015. 1966: The Year the Decade Exploded. London: Faber & Faber. Schofield, Michael. 1965. The Sexual Behavior of Young People. London: Longmans. Shapira, Michal. 2013. The War Inside. In Psychoanalysis, Total War, and the Making of the Democratic Self in Postwar Britain. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Shore, Heather. 2011. Inventing and Re-Inventing the Juvenile Delinquent in British History. Memoria Y Civilizacion 14: 105–132. Sillitoe, Alan. 1958. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. London: Pan Books. Spicer, Andrew. 2001. Typical Men: The Representation of Masculinity in Popular British Cinema. London: I. B. Tauris. Springhall, John. 1986. Coming of Age: Adolescence in Britain 1860–1960. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. Taylor, Richard, and Colin Pritchard. 1980. The Protest Makers: The British Nuclear Disarmament Movement of 1958–1965. Oxford et al.: Pergamon Press.

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Tebbutt, Melanie. 2016. Making Youth: A History of Youth in Modern Britain. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Thompson, William E., and Jack E. Bynum. 1991. Juvenile Delinquency: Classic and Contemporary Readings. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Tsipursky, Gleb. 2016. Socialist Fun: Youth, Consumption & State-Sponsored Popular Culture in the Soviet Union 1945–1970. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Wakeman, Rosemary. 2003. European Mass Culture in the Media Age. In Themes in Modern European History Since 1945, ed. Rosemary Wakeman, 142–166. London and New York: Routledge. Webster, Colin. 1991. Communes: A Thematic Typology. In Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-war Britain, ed. Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson, 127–134. London: Harper Collins. Weisbrod, Bernd. 2005. Generation und Generationalität in der Neueren Geschichte. Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 8: 3–9. Willis, Paul. 1978. Profane Culture. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Wolfenden, John. 1956. The Changing World and Its Effect on Adolescent Behaviour. London: Clarke Hall Fellowship. Yates, Nigel. 2010. Love Now, Pay Later? Sex And Religion In the Fifties and Sixties. London: SPCK. Zimmermann, Maíra. 2016. The Consolidation of Youth Lifestyle in the 1960s: Swinging London Through The Drapers’ Record Magazine. Journalism and Mass Communication 6 (4): 221–225.

CHAPTER 3

“First I Look at the Purse”: Youth at Work

To participate in the many new post-war opportunities cities provided for young urban dwellers, money was essential. Consumerism allowed young people to participate in what was, more than ever before, an international world of popular culture.1 “Some fellas look at the eyes, Some fellas look at the nose,” shouted The Contours in their Motown hit in 1965, but the most important thing was to “look at the purse”. Teenage lifestyles and culture had traditionally been explained in academia as a product of Britain’s shift towards an affluent consumer society “in which the sheer pace of economic growth seemed to engender a newly prosperous age of fun, freedom, and social harmony”.2 Consequently, for many young working-­class Londoners, earning money was the most important function of work.3 Cultural conservatism as well as many tabloids saw these new opportunities (economic, cultural, and social) as a threat to an imagined Britishness.4 The Daily Mirror, for example, feared in 1959 that “youth at work today [has] no idea what he wants to do either in [his] particular job or in the long term future”, but that young people had enough money in their pockets to undermine the principles of British society.5 Freed from National Service, it was expected that the British teenager entered the world of work immediately after school and was thus able to throw his or her salary down the drain. Children of school age, too, as scholars have recently figured out, received more pocket money than ever before.6 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Fuhg, London’s Working-Class Youth and the Making of Post-Victorian Britain, 1958–1971, Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68968-1_3

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“A Little Bit More Money in the Pocket”: Teenagers as Consumers In 1959, Queen magazine asked, “When did you last hear the word austerity? At this minute there is more money in Britain than ever before.”7 The question was put because two years earlier, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had addressed the new living conditions of ordinary British people, drawing a picture of an affluent country with a well-developed consumer society. His optimistic view that British citizens had “never had it so good” was shared among people all over the country.8 Increases in income generated the feeling of having more money in one’s pocket, which could be spent on consumer goods whose cost had, at the same time, come down thanks to new methods of mass production.9 Of course, the creation of new markets for household goods was not an entirely novel idea.10 Historically, the notion of adolescence had been already influenced by changing patterns of consumption in nineteenth-­ century Britain,11 and according to David Fowler, modern youth culture was rooted in the new class of young wage-earners that emerged in inter-­ war Britain.12 John Springhall, however, suggested that the prominent feature of teenagehood in the post-war period was that “affluence, with its attendant hire-purchase, consumer society ethos, its working mothers and semi-detached suburban lifestyle, made the advent of the teenager possible, even necessary”.13 Yes, the consumer society had its history; but the real shift towards the modern consumer society we recognise today took place within “the long boom or golden age [which] conventionally dated from 1945 to 1973”.14 The release of J. K. Galbraith’s book The Affluent Society in 1958 signified the dawn of a new era of consumerism. Although often regarded as a homogenous period under the umbrella of new affluence, the 1950s and 1960s differed from one another. Whereas the 1950s were ground-breaking in terms of advertising, marketing, and consumer identities, according to historians Lawrence Black and Hugh Pemberton, the affluence of the 1960s soon gave rise to neoliberal thinking.15 Britain’s post-war affluence narrative weakened in the mid-1960s. Under Wilson’s new Labour government, politics started to address growing social inequality, taking advice from social scientists such as Townsend

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and Abel-Smith.16 Similar shifts had been illustrated by new motifs within British youth culture. By the late 1960s, for example, popular culture explicitly referred to inequality and class differences when Skinheads demanded a new agenda to address class society.17 Such talk of inequality, however, should not ignore the fact that the amount of money spent on shopping in Britain indeed exploded between 1950 and 1980. Expenditure in 1980–1981 was nearly fourteen and a half times higher than in 1950–51.18 Income per person at current prices grew from £231 in 1951 to £3278 per person in 1981.19 As a result, the consumption and production of consumer and luxury goods increased between 1950 and 1969.20 Retail prices, particularly those for consumer goods and recreational facilities, declined.21 Not just the working class but young people in general benefited from economic prosperity. Whereas a boy under twenty-one years of age earned on average £2 5s 6d, and a girl under eighteen years £1 15s 1d in July 1945, their incomes rose to £5 17s 6d and £4 10s 4d respectively in October 1959. During the 1960s, income continued to increase, nearly doubling before the end of the decade.22 Now, new retailing, marketing, and business concepts targeted young working-class teenagers. London’s youth enjoyed a new shopping experience exemplified by the rise in chain stores, American advertising strategies, and new distribution channels such as mail order.23 The Albemarle Committee wrote in 1960 that “as never before, much advertising is addressed specifically to teenagers”, who were now acquiring “a sense of their own economic importance and independence”.24 The majority of teenagers were of working-class origin, and thus, similar to their working-­ class parents who were able to buy labour-saving household machines, dictated consumer tastes and trends.25 In contrast to their better-off counterparts, they left school early, normally continued to live at home in their first years of employment, and thus had money to spend on whatever they liked. Consequently, their spending power, said the British social historian Harry Hopkins in 1964, made age the “simplest and most universal of the common denominators to which the Admass Machine could be geared”.26 By 1959, the image of the new powerful teenager had already been a theme in television programmes. An ITV crew filmed teenagers in Hammersmith in an attempt to elicit information on their spending habits as well as on youth culture. The footage was broadcast under the title Rebels Without Reason.27 Even cigarette ads were created for the young audience.28 Mark Abrams’ ground-breaking study The Teenage Consumer,29 published in 1959, is

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often cited as representing the “first real awareness of the teenage revolution”.30 As a result of the ending of National Service, Abrams claimed, the five million unmarried young people in Britain under the age of twenty-­ five had a combined £900 million to invest in the British market. In comparison to 1938, this was an increase of 50 per cent in the salaries of young people and 100 per cent in terms of real spending. Spending continued to increase in the years after Abrams’ publication.31 In contrast to married people, teenagers had fewer responsibilities, enabling Britain’s working-­ class youth to choose more freely what items they would like to spend their money on.32 Abrams also addressed that “nine-tenths of teenage spending is conditioned by working-class tastes and values”.33 According to other youth experts, too, markets explicitly catered to the fast-changing tastes of white working-class teenagers.34 Businesses often looked to them because, from an economic point of view, their shared income was much higher than that of their middle- or upper-class peers. Further, spending on clothes and records was naturally limited (pop records, for example, could be bought only once until another was released). Thus, Abrams’ assumption, the teen market stayed “almost entirely working class”.35 The transformation of the modern teenager into an important consumer category, along with the corresponding consumer habits of young people in Britain, had already been analysed in the late 1950s and early 1960s.36 Working-class attitudes and tastes still influenced spending habits and were commercialised and advertised as “proper” working-class culture,37 while working-class identity began to move away from thoughts of poverty as it became subsumed by the growing image of a fancy working-class youth culture. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, it was expected that teenagers spent in total around £125 million of their shared income on pop items such as records and hi-fi systems, print journals and magazines, and tickets for cinemas, nightclubs, dance halls, and ballrooms.38 Contrary to the idea of a generation stuck at home, captivated by the television, teenagers spent a huge amount of their income on leisure activities outside the family circle. The social dimension of the cinema, which teenagers mostly visited in groups or with friends of the opposite sex, ensured that it remained an attraction. Local venues such as coffee bars or dance halls began to discover the spending power of young people and tried to attract them by selling trendy products like espresso and cola.39 Contemporary journalists and kids themselves noticed that in the early 1960s, the biggest proportion of the total teenage budget went towards

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clothing and cosmetics.40 The male clothing market was in particular fortunate in that style-conscious working-class young men easily lavished more money on clothing than their mothers and sisters together.41 The music business too was an important beneficiary of the teenage market. The 7-inch single was introduced in Britain in 1952, and this format accounted for 80 per cent of all sales by 1963. Together with the up-and-­ coming sales-based chart listings, the 7-inch single transformed the market for pop music.42 Pop music quickly became a feature of television advertising, as a result of which pop music crossed borders, “internationalising” tastes and music culture.43 The most important question for teenagers soon became who had released the most popular single that week.44 Higher incomes, however, did not mean that spending power had no limits. New Society pointed out that income increases could easily be absorbed by higher prices for goods.45 Eugene Gilbert, a leader in market research who specialised in teenage consumption in the US, was convinced in 1956 that Britain still didn’t have enough potential spending power to constitute a flourishing youth market, and stated that it would not make sense for him to open a permanent office in London.46 Living conditions of working-class teenagers also differed substantially from region to region.47 In 1961, the Guardian wrote that the affluent teenager was “not so much a ubiquitous specimen as grown-ups [liked] to imagine”.48 Young working-class people who left home had the same issues with high fixed costs as other Britons. In contrast to their predecessors, however, they were fortunate in that society saw earning no longer as the preserve of the family but instead as a function of the working individual.49 Money, for example, had to be spent on public transport.50 Those who still lived at home handed money over to their family. School pupils could either work part-time or rely fully on pocket money. “I’m 20 and don’t earn a lot yet,” wrote a frustrated teenager to Jackie in February 1964.51 A former Mod remembers that when he entered the labour market in the mid-1960s, a “huge floating labour force [was] available so wages were kept to a minimum”.52 Because of this, potential rewards of criminal activity were high and the work involved required such little effort that it appeared the only sensible choice. As a working-class boy, our subject recalls, he “hated being poorer than everybody else and rebelled”.53 Often, girls had more difficulty finding employment, although the post-war period was characterised by a further integration of girls into the labour market and thus a rising number started work after leaving school, rather than ending up in unpaid household work.54 Within employment, they

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often came up against specific obstacles. Girls earned less than boys and often felt pressure to conform to cultural expectations in regard to their appearance.55 Scholars such as Celina Todd convincingly challenges David Fowler assumption that since inter-war times a class-breaking leisure and consumer society emerged in Britain.56 Instead, her research highlight the effects class affiliation still had on the leisure culture of young Britons and stresses that although the working-class offspring had become “crucial breadwinners in interwar working-class households”, for the majority “personal affluence remained limited”.57 Due to their shortage of money, the American writer and founding member of the New Journalism Tom Wolfe argued after studying British youth culture in the mid-1960s, “it was the style of life that [made teenagers] unique, not money, power, position, talent, intelligence”.58 Robert Elms, in late 1960s London a Skinhead, remembers that clothing was important because “the look [was] one of the few things a teenager [could] control, one of the few statements they [could] make”.59 Scholars of the CCCS agreed and added the notion of class to the list of things influencing young people’s aesthetic statement. According to their studies, the fragmentation of youth culture into youth subcultures was not just the result of different tastes, behaviours, and value systems, but occurred in response to hegemonic ideas of culture, particularly the ideology of a classless society.60 The various groups accorded consumer goods symbolic meanings, as consumerism channelled the dreams, visions, and ideas of modernity within modern youth culture.61 It allowed young people to create “an identity outside [their] ascribed class, education, and occupational role, particularly when the latter [was] of low status”.62 Hebdige saw youth culture as an outcome of the class polarisation which had taken place during the development of a modern consumer and popular culture in post-war times. Clarke and Jefferson argued that working-­ class youth culture reacted in various ways to the process of embourgeoisement that found expression not only in the commodification of leisure culture, but also in the development of inner-city areas. Housing shortages, rent increases, and the gentrification of inner-city areas reflected the clash of classes in 1960s Britain.63 Young people’s class affiliation was discussed not only in terms of rising salaries and the cultural commodification of material goods but also in regard to the way in which working conditions, working culture, and the format of work had begun to change. New consumer opportunities, and

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the reduction of average weekly working hours from 44.7 in 1960 to 42 in 1970, recalibrated the work-leisure balance and led people to question the roles of work and leisure in highly modernised societies and economies.64 New concepts in the organisation of production, changing patterns of employment, and the impact of automation on work practices affected the relationship between young employees and the work they did. The redundancy of manual work created its own discord, perpetuating the old class-­ based conflicts in the form of new rivalries. Whereas Clarke and Jefferson were of the opinion that hegemonic culture penetrated daily working life and by so doing also meant that Britain’s youth cultures negotiated the meaning of work within hegemonic culture, Hebdige tended to ignore the role of the work environment and work-­ related experiences within the formation of working-class youth cultures. Today, labour historians such as Keith Gildart stress that it is no coincidence that the main protagonist in the Mod-culture rock opera Quadrophenia left school at fifteen and began to work as a dustman for the local authority.65 Jimmy’s experience of work is in tune with the zeitgeist of the mid-1960s, when young people’s lives had been turned upside down by an economic transition that had restructured the notion of work and employment in urban centres. For Jimmy, work was less a source of identity than a source of income which allowed him to participate in the material world of consumerism.

The Youth Employment Service and the Making of the Modern Urban Economy According to contemporary sociologists, working-class teenagers who left school and started work in the 1960s lived in an era characterised by a flourishing of highly industrialised patterns of production, which transformed both industry and the economy. Work became increasingly mechanised and automated which led, particularly in urban centres, to an increase in the relevance of service industries.66 The French sociologist Alain Touraine published The Post-industrial Society in 1969,67 while Daniel Bell’s 1973 study of de-industrialisation in the US popularised the concept of post-industrialism within the social sciences and humanities.68 The declining need for workers in traditional industries meant that old patterns of employment gave way to labour markets driven by the service sector. While the rate at which change was effected by automation differed

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between industries, the growth in industrial measuring and process-­ control instrumentation was evidence of the rate at which automation had accelerated.69 Harold Wilson’s “white heat” vision exemplified the zeitgeist of the “scientific revolution”.70 Experts predicted that young people would enter a labour market in which the demand in “industries such as electronics, motor cars, postal services and telecommunications and, above all, distribution”71 would mean a rise in related employment. At the same time, employment in traditional heavy industries would massively decrease. In the US, such economic developments were already further advanced. In Britain, rationalisation had an impact on day-to-day work, too. New devices such as the computer were supposed to assist employees with routine work, but often resulted in the reallocation of staff “to other jobs involving loss of status or more boring or monotonous work”, for which automated systems were not yet available.72 The reorganisation of production, rising incomes, high employment rates, and new educational opportunities meant that young people could experience the freedom and power of growing up in a society that was leaving the rigid Victorian class system behind, although, of course, as already illustrated, class still easily functioned as a sort of cultural as well as family identity. Bill Osgerby notes that for many contemporaries the Mods were symbolic of a social mobility that had destroyed the old class structures.73 Scholars back in the day felt that by the mid-1960s, even gestures and body language had become classless, and wrote that “coolness has penetrated every social level”.74 New working-class stars like Twiggy had become in public living testimony to the notion that the capitalist-inspired pursuit of happiness was here to stay.75 Not everyone agreed that modern youth culture had precipitated a new egalitarianism. The psychologist R. P. Kelvin saw in the individualism of the 1960s a trend “towards increasing emphasis on the individual’s integrity rather than on his conformity to generally accepted moral standards”.76 John Goldthorpe’s work challenged Macmillan’s statement that “the class war is obsolete”77 with the assertion that society had begun to change, “but the working class not”.78 Contrary to Ferdinand Zweig’s theory of a fusion of the working and middle classes,79 Goldthorpe moved away from hard facts such as wages, instead looking at values to help identify class differences. Surveys undertaken in the run-up to the election of 1964 revealed that people referred to class in order to interpret and make sense of life.80 Goldthorpe stressed that the theory of the bourgeoisification of the working-class lifestyle was more a myth than reality, as class differences

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still existed in spheres other than income, and the notion of blue-collar and white-collar work simply reproduced older class differences.81 While the type of affluent worker employed in specialised, skilled work was representative of a new class, he or she differed in terms of values and self-perception from other class-dependent occupational groups. Such differences appeared along the lines of the work itself, the working environment, and the meaning of work in relation to life.82 Richard Hoggart argued that working-class people’s attitudes, leisure activities, and family life were affected by typical factory work and that they suffered from a “lack of autonomy and involvement”.83 This had not changed at all. By the early 1960s, “for the great mass of industrial workers too, work [was] not a significant area of life”.84 Often, work practices and tasks themselves determined the role of work in people’s lives.85 For young people, in particular, job expectations dictated their relationship with work. Surveys illustrate that, for children of lower academic ability, “school [was] a source of boredom and frustration”.86 Monotony, traditionally associated with and held responsible for working-class leisure culture, reappeared in the context of leisure itself, exemplified by the repetitiveness of the slot machine. In mainstream society, however, people’s involvement in repetitive production began to be seen as vulgar, as it failed to match the expectations elicited by space-age ideology. Clerical office work, in contrast, became a symbol of economic and social success. Consumer and leisure culture transcended this distinction, with workers rejecting the “rat race” as being of secondary importance as long as participation in leisure pursuits was guaranteed. Young people, particularly those with few career prospects, began to search for self-realisation, identity-building, satisfaction, achievement, and meaning in other spheres of society, while “craftsmen, for example, [saw] their work as a source of self-respect”.87 “Each day, men sell little pieces of themselves in order to try to buy them back each night and weekend with the coin of fun,” wrote C.  Wright Mills of American society in the mid-­1950s.88 Sociologists observed that leisure time allowed people to “escape from the monotony of work” by entering a world wherein “a man is a boss of his own world, and can engage in meaningful tasks of his own choosing”.89 Thus, “boys and youths working in unskilled jobs were no longer loutish, but searching to take part in, well, ordinary mid-twentieth-­ century city life.”90 In contrast to the “tightly controlled work situation”, “leisure and recreation [seemed] to have provided a more negotiable

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space” in which one’s own idea of class, and identity according to it, could be negotiated.91 The transition from school to work has always been seen as a vital aspect of youth and youth culture. The culture of work attached to certain industries and types of jobs interacted with modern youth culture in the context of their shared dependency on economic trends and changes. Female typists, for example, turned in lifestyle magazines in ambassadors of Swinging London, representing the new, youthful workforce employed in the service industry in the centre of the capital.92 Contemporary writing explained changing youth-cultural practices as the direct result of changes in the world of work. Tom Wolfe, for instance, looked at daily life and routines among the prosperous holders of low-skilled office jobs.93 Wolfe visited Larry Lynch, a working-class lad from Brixton, who was one of the thousands who worked in the office blocks of Westminster and the City of London. While his colleagues went to lunch, Lynch dived into a world of upwardly mobile office clerks, who met at lunchtime raves at the Tiles club in Oxford Street. Here they found the perfect escape from the relentless boredom and repetition of work. Designer John Simon also describes the first “modernists” he saw as young people who worked in offices in Westminster and who visited lunchtime dances at the Lyceum in 1954.94 The rise of this young office-based workforce came about as the result of a crisis among the traditional industries. The nature of such industries, and their relevance for local and regional labour markets, however, differed from region to region.95 London, in contrast with both the rest of the country and other European cities, had a highly diversified economy. As the political hub of the nation and the centre of the Empire and the Commonwealth, London had been a global city long before other metropolitan centres.96 This, however, meant that industries which had once benefited from London’s special status faced a period of economic turbulence when the Empire declined. “An increasingly integrated international division of labour” in the second half of the twentieth century created a situation in which London extended its global role in finance while the city’s manufacturing sector declined significantly (Image 3.1).97 During this time, London began to experience the economic influence of new forms of business organisation and marketing strategies, most of them developed in the US.98 Business models and strategies became a global concern, and the emblems of international companies—many of which had opened their European headquarters in London—decorated the city. Together with the newly built office blocks, they constituted a

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Image 3.1  Female sixth-form students in a secretarial class, Sedgehill School, Lewisham, South London, England, UK. Sedgehill School was founded in 1957 and was one of the first comprehensive schools in the country. (Copyright: Allan Cash Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo)

visual symbol of London’s global city status, representing the centralisation of control and decision-making processes99 and the associated growing phalanx of commuters, which consisted of both managers and clerical workers.100

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This shift, of course, left its mark on class identity in London. While in the mid-1950s, 30,000 workers had been employed at the docks—traditionally an employer of the city’s working class—employment numbers declined significantly in the 1960s and 1970s.101 The docks were not the only industry dependent on overseas imports. Processing and manufacturing industries also relied on the import of raw materials.102 In the 1960s, the independence of the colonies along with economic development in Commonwealth countries placed London’s processing industries under economic pressure.103 This economic restructuring demanded that London take an alternative approach. In the view of scholars today, “Swinging London” was not just a novel marketing concept but also the symbol of a complex transformation of the city, dominated by the decline in (light) manufacturing industries.104 Between 1959 and 1975, London lost 38 per cent of its total manufacturing workforce.105 Particularly in the second half of the 1960s, the decline in manufacturing grew.106 At the same time, London’s service sector created more new jobs than anywhere else in Britain.107 The shift from an industrial city to a metropolis that began to see industrial production as secondary to other kinds of work prompted an increase in London’s wealth, but also gave rise to a new kind of inequality.108 Questions arose as to whether the crisis of light manufacturing and the boom of service industries in London would mean that young working-­ class people who entered the labour market would no longer be employed in manual work—once central to working-class identity—or might instead face unemployment. While unemployment was not a serious issue in London, job losses had become a problem in the north of England by the mid-1960s. Psychologists and youth experts warned that delinquency was now caused by unemployment, poor prospects, and financial insecurity.109 “The bulge”, a term describing the flooding of the labour market by the “baby-boomer” generation following the end of National Service, placed local authorities, industries, and the government under added pressure. The Carr Committee, however, had no doubt that Britain’s labour market was capable of absorbing the rapidly increasing number of school-­ leavers.110 Particularly in London in the mid-1960s, young people were encouraged not to accept the first job opportunity, as, in the words of the principal youth employment officer of the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA), there were two jobs available for every school-leaver. Not every expert shared the economic optimism historians today refer to when they describe the 1960s as a future-driven decade. Economists

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warned that the country could soon face an economic backlash. In 1960, trade unions put British politics under pressure—a situation which, in the view of the press, had the potential to weaken the economy.111 Further, Britain feared that Germany, France, and Japan would top its economic growth. The What’s Wrong with Britain movement was founded in order to investigate Britain’s economic instability.112 At the height of “Swinging Britain”, around 1966–67, news about economic turbulence made the headlines. Harold Wilson tried to calm the rampant panic with his “pound in the pocket” speech.113 Today, the narrative of an affluent Britain overshadows the economic issues Britain faced in the 1960s. In 1967, for example, rising taxes and dock-worker strikes called into question the idea of a self-perpetuating, flourishing economic future. Young Britons often had little faith in Britain’s economic stability.114 Even when youth employment prospered following the end of austerity, the Daily Mirror asked in March 1956, “How long will this last?”115 Many young Britons did not subscribe to the ideology of social equality and mobility, in part because the educational qualifications required for a clerical job, even at the lowest level of the public sector, were two O-levels. Consequently, one of the few industries known for their promotion opportunities was only accessible to grammar school-leavers and excluded a large proportion of secondary-modern pupils, who were still regarded as “factory fodder”, candidates for blue-collar apprenticeships, or only suited to the lowest-paid service-industry jobs. For the working class, however, the boom in new large-scale manufacturing industries compensated for the economic decline of the processing industries.116 As work in such sectors became more complex thanks to the advent of automation, employers soon began to look for young people with qualifications and good school records. Consequently, unemployment became a problem of lower-working-class youth. While in the early 1970s youth employment was characterised by rising unemployment rates, employers were able to pick the best of the bunch. Education became generally more important during the 1960s, in regard to both the labour market and career planning.117 In the mid-1960s, according to youth employment figures, “16-year olds who would have gone into banks before the war were now staying on for education” and their jobs “were being taken by the kind of pupil who would have been an errand boy 20 years ago”.118 While those with foresight—and those from better-off families—were aware that an education was essential, half of all school-leavers in 1965 still left without any qualifications. For those teenagers, wrote journalist

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Anthony Cheesewright, “prospects [were] bleak”,119 as job advertisements increasingly called for “men with experience”.120 Not just between regions but also within London, the structures within the labour market had significant differences. Big employers such as Ford in Dagenham had a huge impact on the social composition of the borough. Other areas were traditionally dominated by small-scale production and thus suffered particularly badly from economic restructuring. In Hoxton, for example, furniture-making was more than just an industry. Small workshops had historically influenced the atmosphere of the neighbourhood.121 Craftsmen worked outside their premises and in doing so shaped the character of the area. During the war, the German Luftwaffe bombed Hoxton. Timber yards burned down, and workshops that had been destroyed were relocated as factories on the outskirts of London after the war. Did such changes affect working patterns among teenagers who grew up in London’s working-class districts in the 1960s? Data from the Tottenham Youth Committee indicate that working-class boys were still employed in working-class jobs. The wider shift in the nature of work changed these patterns gradually rather than abruptly.122 Yes, London’s economy had been given a facelift, but in working-class neighbourhoods, young people’s lives were still entrenched in the traditional occupations of the working class. The tangible, geographically visible gulf between classes, and between blue-collar and white-collar work, increased. Peter Willmott discovered that, in Bethnal Green, working-class jobs still dominated the employment choices available to young workers in the first half of the 1960s, even though de-industrialisation had instigated a change in direction.123 Similar to those in Bethnal Green, nearly 79 per cent of school-leavers in Tottenham found employment in the local area. In the very early 1960s, the majority of boys worked in building and civil engineering or had jobs in the metal industry. In the service sector, distributive trades were undergoing strong growth, and, following dominant gender models, jobs in the service industries were seen as more suitable for girls than for boys.124 In certain industries, there were “greater demands for some occupations than there were vacancies” which sometimes clashed with the job preferences of young Londoners.125 Demography and the economic situation of locally relevant industries presided over unemployment rates. The group of young people called “eligible youngsters”, the disabled, and juvenile delinquents were the first to be hit by negative trends, and many of them were fortunate that, even

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between 1964 and 1967, there were “not enough young people available to fill all the vacancies”.126 Around this time, firstly the number of school-­ leavers declined; secondly, teenagers stayed longer in the education system in reaction to both new skill requirements and the political response to “the bulge”; and thirdly, a rising number of young people moved into higher education. In industries dependent on apprenticeships and training programmes, chronic staff shortages encouraged employers and factory managers to consider new ways to attract school-leavers. A clothing firm in Stoke Newington, for example, redecorated the workshop rooms of its training school with red and white wallpaper, adding “piped pop-music and blow-­ ups of the latest top-20 idols” to create a welcoming atmosphere.127 The company even asked Desmond Dekker, famous for his number-one hit song “Israelites”, to open the new training school. Since the founding of the Juvenile Employment Service in 1948, the placement of young people within local and regional labour markets had been the task of local authorities. Whereas in the post-war years the service had focused on school-leavers with poor school records, broad changes in the structure of work meant that the Youth Employment Service (YES) became a source of career advice for every teenager.128 Career guidance would no longer be the preserve of unemployed youth. Moreover, every school-leaver must be prepared for the new technological revolution, said Wyndham Davies in a House of Commons debate on the Youth Employment Service on 5 February 1965.129 Youth organisations felt that working-class children were afforded no help after leaving school, and struggled to choose a career at a time of massive economic change.130 In an effort to prepare youngsters for the labour market, youth employment officers visited schools to deliver talks about professions, recruitment practices, training opportunities, vacancies, and further education.131 Having previously been responsible for filling job vacancies,132 the YES now began to see its role as supporting a reflective process among its customers, rather than simply in delivering a young workforce. In so doing, the YES hoped to provide tools that would allow young people to identify their interests and career prospects.133 Representatives from the service met with employment agencies in other countries to discuss both national and international economic trends, juvenile employment problems, and methods for helping young people find their place in the world of work.134 The problems confronting the YES were diverse and had various causes. The influence of parents on teenagers’ job decisions, for example, meant

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that parents frequently projected their own experiences onto young people who were growing up under different economic circumstances.135 “The upward social shift in education”, wrote the Guardian in 1965, meant that “parents [were] no longer able to give children the kind of educational assistance that they got from their families 20 years ago”.136 While working-class school-leavers had once followed in their fathers’ footsteps, the decline in small-scale manufacturing made it difficult for families to organise jobs for their offspring. Parents were “overwhelmed by the complexities of modern employment”,137 prompting the YES in London to develop strategies to integrate parents in the process of careers advice. The divergence between parents’ experiences and those of young people faced with a changing labour market was consistent with the idea that 1960s Britain was shaped by “new materials, new processes, new industries, [and] technological change”.138 Labour-market experts compared the economic transformation to the Industrial Revolution, the process of replacing “muscle power in industry by machines”139 having its origins in the previous century. While this trend was continuing and even accelerating, the YES saw the future of work as being characterised by demand for non-manual workers in the service and financial industries, for the supervision of production processes, and in public administration.140 “Automatic processes” called for “craftsmen with a high level of skill”,141 as, in the words of the Duke of Edinburgh, employment patterns were being shaped by the “rapid application of science”.142 At the same time, it was thought that “the number of dull repetitive jobs with little intrinsic interest may also increase”.143 Manufacturing industries were declining, but distributive trades and catering industries provided new jobs for teenagers without A- and O-level passes.144 As a result of this, experts feared that the gap would widen between highly skilled labour and unskilled work, with less mobility between the two. To encourage social mobility and ensure the availability of a young workforce equipped for the new roles, higher education expanded to cater for working-class teenagers.145 In the early 1960s, two government white papers highlighted the need for, and lack of, skilled manpower in Britain. The Industrial Training Bill paved the way in 1964 for the first Industrial Training Boards, whose task was to provide the kind of industrial training once taught as part of National Service.146 Industrial training schemes were also a useful tool in reducing pressure caused by “the bulge”.147 Training and work skills soon became the arbiter of status for citizens, giving them a sense that they were contributing to the nation’s development.

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Social institutions placed such faith in emerging technologies that they were convinced that new production techniques would ultimately reduce world poverty. While observers of the labour market focused on the need for a well-­ educated young workforce and the benefits of technology, it was expected that the majority of teenagers were first and foremost interested in earning a decent wage. Even though apprenticeships were now available to young people with low qualifications, and in the long run increased their chances of a well-paid job, low entry-level salaries for training positions made such jobs unattractive. Parents, too, wrote the Manchester Guardian in 1956, saw “no advantages in learning […] because the differences between pay for skilled and unskilled adult labour are often slight”.148 Conscious of the negative effects of well-paid, low-skilled jobs, politicians did their best to abolish the gender pay gap in teaching in 1961, in an effort to attract young women into work other than well-paid service jobs.149 Youth employment experts also recommended that “boys and girls should […] stay in full-­time education as long as they can”,150 as service industries had begun to demand a better-educated workforce.151 The cost of the YES, along with its failures, gave rise to criticisms of the service at different phases of the post-war period.152 While some explicitly called its purpose into question, others focused on structural concerns such as working practices. Another group alleged an institutional lethargy within the YES.153 Further, staff shortages were blamed for instances of inadequate career guidance.154 Sociologists noted in the second half of the 1960s that “an astonishingly large proportion of [young people] could not remember ever having been interviewed by a youth employment officer”.155 The service also suffered from its poor image. Parents began to regard the YES once more “as a localised job-placement agency for the less fortunate”.156 Another issue was that access to career guidance was limited to a short period of time within school hours.157 In addition, by law the YES could only offer help to clients under the age of eighteen. A fast-­ changing economy, however, required a flexible service that would allow for the provision of career guidance over the course of a lifetime. The YES reacted to such criticism by examining its methods in the mid-­1960s, and in doing so realised that important improvements could be made by amalgamating the work of institutions involved in career guidance in order to maximise their collective power.158 It was also proposed that trade unionists, factory doctors, and employers should be integrated into the provision of career guidance.159 Furthermore, youth employment

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experts decided that teenagers would benefit from work experience to help with the process of choosing a career. Special facilities were planned that would imitate working environments. New work-experience schemes were introduced in schools, designed to give young people an insight into different professions.160 Careers teachers felt that their service suffered from a top-down perspective on jobs, and fifty of them decided in August 1966 to give up a week of their holidays to study work and its organisation in various sectors.161 The YES attracted criticism not just from newspapers, but from its own clients.162 Career guidance regarding skilled trades was particularly unsatisfactory,163 and many working-class teenagers with a preference for manual work had low expectations when visiting the YES. Members of an east London Skinhead gang remarked that they had found jobs on their own.164 Some of the interviewed ones commented that working-class youths were often treated differently. While those with a good education record met with their Youth Employment Officer (YEO) on the upper floors of the YES offices and received support, less-accomplished school-leavers had to stay downstairs and felt stigmatised. Not everyone involved in youth work supported such criticism. “If there is anyone to be blamed because a lad chooses the wrong job initially,” wrote the vice chairman of the Kent Association of Boys’ Clubs in an angry letter, “put it where it belongs, on the lad himself and on his father.”165 Teenagers from certain groups were held responsible for their own lack of success in employment. Alongside frequent job-changers and working-class youths labelled as juvenile delinquents, labour market experts blamed black school-leavers for their circumstances. In the view of the YES, the cultural background of a young person, rather than racism, caused specific employment problems they faced. Although it was the stated policy of the YES to avoid “discrimination on grounds of colour, race, or national or ethnic origins”,166 the organisation was not free from racist assumptions. When discussing the issues surrounding black teenagers’ employment, the Youth Employment Service cited stereotypes such as “(1) bad timekeeping, (2) taking odd days off, (3) general slowness, [and] (4) [an] inclination to take offence too easily”.167 Teachers suggested “emotional disturbances as the inevitable reaction to the sudden change from rural surroundings to an urban environment”168 as a factor in black teenagers’ problems within the education system. Further, educationalists quoted difficult circumstances at home and considered them to affect their school performance. Many

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working in the education sector considered black pupils to be “by nature and upbringing quick, energetic, emotional and noisy”,169 meaning that, for immigrants and Britain’s black children, overcoming discrimination was an additional barrier; they must already work harder in order to succeed at school. On the other hand, the YES was aware that black teenagers suffered from structural discrimination. When the first West Indians arrived after the Second World War, many faced specific problems, most notably the incompatibility of qualifications they had gained overseas.170 The discrimination faced by these newcomers was especially hard for people who perceived Britain as their motherland and came in order to help rebuild its cities in the aftermath of the war.171 For the majority of immigrants and British-born black people, personal connections remained a more important factor in finding a job than assistance provided by official institutions. Sociologists recorded widespread racism, noting that because of racist stereotypes, black employees must be “better than other candidates for up-­ grading and promotion”.172 Racist attitudes among employees discouraged managers from promoting young, qualified black workers.173 The Institute of Race Relations even went so far as to say that, in 1960s Britain, a black school-leaver, “no matter what the educational achievement”, would be “denied the opportunity of a white-collar job”.174 Official job recommendations were often low in terms of required skills, job aspirations, and respectability. The fact that many black school-leavers ended up in jobs they did not want to do left a footprint in surveys on job satisfaction. Discrimination at work took place mostly on an informal level in the 1960s.175 Discrimination on the part of both employees and managers often failed to meet the threshold for “racial discrimination” as defined by the ILO convention in 1958.176 The consequences, however, were the same. YEOs, for example, were forced to publicly criticise major retail chains for rejecting the applications of black teenagers.177 They were supported in this action by the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD). Spokesmen of stores such as Marks and Spencer denied that there was any colour bar or discrimination within their companies. A look at the flagship store of British Home Stores on Oxford Street, however, revealed that just three of ninety employees had an immigrant background.178 The Race Relations Act had come into force in 1968 to try to prevent racially motivated discrimination. From now on, employers were

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responsible for discrimination in the workplace. The act paved the way for fining employers who themselves, or through their staff, discriminated against a person.179 While racial discrimination was now illegal by law, the new mechanisms to fight it were subject to inefficiency. It is worth noting that not every act of discrimination was reported, besides which racism was frequently hidden, taking place in forms to which the definitions in the Race Relations Act were not applicable. Employers rejecting job applications claimed to do so not on the basis of racist stereotypes, but because of an ostensible lack of training or knowledge.180 Some scholars disregarded the problems new laws encountered in fighting racial discrimination, instead postulating that difficulties in the transition from school to work were attributable to class rather than race.181,182 Job-seeking was a hot topic because according to most migration experts, integration depended on black school-leavers achieving success within the labour market.183 Unless black children received equal treatment in school, suggested liberal MPs, “the seeds of racial discord [might] be sown”.184 In studying discrimination, black employees and job-seekers were normally divided into those who had recently come to Britain and were facing problems caused by migration, and those who had experienced the same educational background as white English school-leavers.185 In some cases, the structures within the education system facilitated racial segregation. Local authorities, for example, did not disperse migrant pupils because school allocation was subject to locality. The result was that there were concentrations of black children in certain schools.186 In response to bad publicity, some experts who had studied youth employment claimed that the situation for black school-leavers had improved in the 1960s, particularly in the latter years of the decade,187 and that only West Indian girls had encountered employment issues, when trying to become secretaries or receptionists.188 They explained this improvement as a result of the intensive work Britain had done over the past several years to try to “make qualifications more important than skin colour”.189 In late 1969, a group of careers officers proudly announced that it had become slightly easier to place black school-leavers in employment.190 Youth employment officers by the early 1970s also felt that black school-­ leavers were using the service in the same way as white school-leavers, although a sizeable contingent also stressed that black teenagers needed the service more than their white English counterparts.

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From School to Work: The Attitudes, Expectations, and Experiences of School-Leavers in Their First Years of Employment Job dissatisfaction, often stressed when dealing with black teenagers’ experiences in the workplace, had become a general important topic in the wider public discourse around young people at work. Various sociological surveys carried out in the 1950s and 1960s, for example, stated that identity-building shifted into the sphere of leisure, in part because the monotonous nature of work, which reflected continuing class inequalities, made young employees reluctant to build an identity around their job. At universities, scholars also began to look at job satisfaction because it was expected that the majority of school-leavers would seek employment regardless. Even though levels of satisfaction were highly subjective and depended on a huge variety of factors,191 studies carried out in the Sheffield area found that in 1959–60, only a minority of the young people interviewed were happy and satisfied with their jobs.192 Where was this dissatisfaction coming from? Before we try to find answers within the physical working environment, it must be noted that such disillusionment, as reported by academics, journalists, employers, politicians, and young people themselves, was often a perception of older generations. Further, the expression of dissatisfaction was perhaps new, but not the feeling itself. Nevertheless, records illustrate that affluence and better job prospects more than before shaped job expectations, prompting not only researchers but young people themselves to pay attention to their satisfaction levels and to leave jobs they did not like. The transition from school to work had an impact on young people’s experiences of and attitudes to employment, meaning that the issues and challenges they encountered were to some extent independent of historical influences. British youth experts wrote in magazines such as New Society that young people necessarily found themselves confronted with new social relationships when starting work and were likely to engage in self-reflection as part of this process.193 Job dissatisfaction was seen as a genuine and common experience in this self-reflection and played a part in the shift from finding an identity through one’s work to instead seeking and defining it via leisure activities. Tom Wolfe shed light on how the rise of office work in particular prompted a restructuring of the relationship between work and leisure, affecting the role and meaning of work for working-class teenagers.194

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Sociologists expected that automation led to new kinds of repetitive work195 and caused “stress and remoteness” by “replacing muscular fatigue with increased tension or mental effort”.196 Especially for Marxists, automation in the post-war period represented a new front in the process of Entfremdung (alienation).197 “Many industrial tasks”, sociologists claimed in the late 1960s, “are so devoid of stimulation that they alienate the worker from his job and compel him to look for satisfaction in areas remote from work.”198 Jürgen Habermas was convinced that the rationalisation taking place in industrialised welfare states created a new type of poverty, replacing that of the previous century.199 Local authorities noted in 1963 that many working-class school-leavers had “low and limited expectations of what life holds for them”.200 A teenager from Stratford told a group of journalists in 1964 that during school, he was constantly looking forward to moving on to work, and enjoyed spending money on things he wanted, but “many of [his] friends started work in factories where the money was good, but the future didn’t hold much”.201 Youth workers in Kensington at the same time stressed that “boring jobs” were a common experience that necessitated the provision of leisure facilities for young people.202 While sociologists and historians normally just address the political counterculture when describing the crisis of organised modernity and individualism in post-war times, a crisis the German sociologist Andreas Reckwitz described as a crisis of the so-called previous century Angestelltenkultur,203 employment patterns and work experiences of ordinary workers too called the status quo into question. Relative affluence combined with changes in working practices resulting from automation, as well as the rise of a popular culture which renegotiated common assumptions of work, provoked conflicts between working youth and older generations whose experiences of work had been very different.204 How did young people evaluate their relationship with work? When travelling around the country in order to understand the ongoing teenage revolution, two journalists named Deverson and Hamblett claimed to have figured out that school was often seen as being a waste of time, and young people “couldn’t wait to get out into the world fast enough”.205 Many kids they interviewed were simultaneously aware that they were not “really ready for it”, and there was a degree of “fear of the unknown” surrounding the transition from school to work.206 Researchers noted that teenagers frequently experienced a lack of confidence during the early stages of their working life. This insecurity was thought to be the result of

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an ambivalence in the way they were expected to behave: leaving school was seen as the beginning of adulthood, but during their first years of employment, teenagers often felt that they were still treated as children.207 In teenage magazines, youths highlighted that frustration was a frequent accompaniment to daily work.208 One reason they named was a sense of interchangeability among young people. A teenager described the moment he realised that the job he did was the wrong one for him: Why on earth do I go into this office every day and get so heated about it, just for a miserly wage packet? Where is it all leading? Is this life? Who am I and what’s it all for, anyway? I’m just one in millions and millions of people. Who would be really upset if I died […] and apart from them no one would care, no one would even know.209

Low wages frequently prompted young working-class teenagers to change jobs, and, according to British labour market experts, many began to work in unskilled jobs if an improvement in salary was promised.210 Self-­ realisation was no longer automatically the main motive for going to work,211 as illustrated by girls’ magazine Jackie, which sought to inspire young readers in February 1964 with the words, “Think of all the things you’d like to buy”.212 Headteachers also complained that young people prioritised short-term income over career prospects and that the majority no longer aspired to become the admiral of a fleet, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, but “rated themselves as clerks, manual workers, apprentices, draughtsmen, hairdressers”.213 Parents were asked to help counter this trend towards a preference for easy money over career aspirations.214 Peter Willmott observed in his ground-breaking book Adolescent Boys in East London that many young people enjoyed the fact that their free time was not compromised by ordinary, unskilled labour, which meant that they had enough time for leisure activities.215 Teenagers, particularly those who had left school without O-Levels and were employed in unskilled jobs, so contemporary witnesses in oral history interviews, found their work strenuous.216 It was not only physical labour in workshops that was gruelling, but office work too. Partly as a reaction to this, young people hoped that automation and the technological revolution would increase the need for highly specialised knowledge, precipitating the end of unskilled labour. This, a student said to Hamblett and Deverson, would require major changes to the education system, as well as having a significant impact on the structure of working life.217 Teenagers

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were often aware that automation and technological change could boost the economy and reduce unemployment, but also predicted that the need for a highly trained workforce would mainly hit the lower classes and could easily provoke large-scale strikes in the future. Differences in expectations and work experiences between non- and semi-skilled employees on one hand, and highly trained workers on the other, were manifested in the working lives of young people and often reproduced old class differences as well as formed new ones. Specialisation, for example, required training or higher education, something not every teenager had on his or her record. Stringency in regard to qualifications was a particular problem for working-class youth, who were not able to forgo pay when, for example, doing a traineeship. The proliferation of boring and repetitive roles could result in frequent job-changing, and as working-class teenagers became aware that having a successful career increasingly required a university degree, they gave to paper to sought satisfaction away from the “rat race”.218 Others told Deverson and Hamblett to do jobs that were secure but not their passion.219 The evolution of work did have an impact on young people’s relationship with popular culture, and by so doing also affected the emergence of cultural tribes among teenagers. Youth subcultural identities, such as that of the Skinheads, permeated the social climate at a time when society faced a crisis in the traditional meaning and nature of work, with manual work beginning to lose its social and cultural appeal, value, and significance.220 While the stylistic and ideological references to an imagined working-class ethos which are contained within Skinhead culture are obvious and already well-researched,221 scholars often neglect to undertake a closer examination of Skinheads’ attitudes towards work. Members of the Collinwood Skinhead gang which was active in London’s East End were aware that their educational backgrounds were not good enough to assure them a promising career. For those interviewed, work had not just a functional purpose but was also used as a way to conspicuously distance themselves from middle-class values. Middle-class culture stood in contrast to the imagined world of masculine working-class culture, and the softness and isolation of the individual it seemed to represent were seen as the hallmarks of an undesirable future, characterising the transition period from late- to post-modern society. At the same time, the gang adopted key features of the bourgeois social attitudes normally associated with Hippie culture. Collinwood gang members, for example, believed that they were responsible for themselves, and should be in control of their own lives.

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Earning money was important, but having too much of it was considered dangerous for society.222 The views of the Collinwood gang illustrate that old class conflicts continued to exist, and were manifested in negative attitudes towards office work. Some members criticised the working environment, the low wages earned by office clerks, and the dull, repetitive work, while others referred directly to the tense relationship between white- and blue-collar workers. A boy who worked as an electrician said: “When I’m working in these offices, you get these snobs who look down on you because you’re a bit scruffy.”223 Class identities circulating within certain youth cultures were not only based on work experiences, and on contact with and perceptions of other youth cultures, but were also inspired and shaped by family members, particularly in regard to their professions and their experiences of work. Affiliation with a certain class was also often based on the perception of living, school, or work environments.224 For young people and their families, class was not just an economic category but a cultural one. Frequently, they distanced themselves from the middle class by highlighting their rejection of “middle-class snobbery” and by adopting a lifestyle based on (imagined) working-class values. The impact of work experiences and career expectations on subcultural identity and leisure culture was not only observed in young people’s reporting of their daily lives. Researchers, too, claimed to have found not only that work experiences were instrumental in defining the development of leisure culture, but also that leisure activities could have a wide-reaching impact on young people’s behaviour at work. In the early 1950s, experts such as the factory doctor M. E. M. Herford suggested that cinema visits could have a negative impact on the work ethic of the teenage workforce.225 Gang culture was seen as being integral to working life, as working-­class kids preferred to work with their friends, and thus often worked in industries and companies wherein their friends were employed too.226 Labour sociologist Michael Carter pointed out that the prospect of a salary, which would allow young people to participate in modern leisure culture and to identify with youth culture, was responsible for the perception of work being not entirely negative, while on the other hand youth culture would have been responsible for distancing young people from society by creating its own set of values, expectations, and codes, and thus rendering work a secondary consideration for the purposes of identity-­ building.227 Nevertheless, modern teenage culture, according to Carter, was important for the daily job performance because it conferred “direct

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satisfaction” that could help to compensate for the “dreariness of [young people’s] hours at work”.228 In contrast to Carter, who explored the impact of leisure culture on working behaviour, Herford noticed that the changing requirements of the labour market affected leisure culture. “Those who are doing homework or attending night school”, he pointed out, “have far less time and money.”229 For Herford, this was positive as it showed that work had the potential to prevent teenagers from engaging in more dangerous elements of youth culture. Scholars who studied young people’s transition from school to work sometimes stressed a connection between an unsuccessful career or unsatisfactory work and delinquent behaviour. Some argued that uncontrolled economic change could destabilise the social order and by so doing result in a “broken Britain”. The Youth Study Group, a standing committee of the London Council of Social Service, wrote in its report in 1957 that the majority of young people found their job “all right”, but a comparison between those in employment and those leaving school indicated that school-­leavers had begun to prioritise short-term money over career aspirations.230 For Peter Willmott the subset of young workers who were known to change jobs frequently arose from the same group of troublemakers newspapers referred to when writing about delinquent teenage culture.231 The fact that millions ended up in “dead-end jobs” led to jobchanging, instability, and dissatisfaction, all of which contributed to young people forming their identity around what they did in their leisure time. Job satisfaction and young people’s identification with a job were, according to sociologists, “reflected in how often boys changed their jobs”,232 although a closer look reveals that the reasons for job-changing were diverse. While natural and plausible reasons such as making the next career step could lead to a change of role, it became a problem when it was unintentional, structurally motivated, or a sign of weakness in the local economy. In contrast to this view, The Times held that young people themselves were responsible for excessive job-changing. Contemporary witnesses today call the diagnosis of certain sociologists into question. For them, job-changing was not sign of and indicator for delinquency but resulted from the huge number of opportunities that made changing jobs an attractive proposition, even though working conditions were still, in the second half of the 1960s, “Dickensian”.233 Some experts at the time rejected scholars’ arguments that instability was the result of structural problems such as non-availability of promotion, lack of training, or boring and repetitive work, instead describing it as a symptom of personal

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problems, such as the lack of a “sense of responsibility”, and “rootlessness and faulty personal relationships”.234 Job dissatisfaction, boredom, and the resultant job-changing were taken seriously by employers and managers. According to the director of education and training for the International Publishing Corporation, the problem was that work should give life “significance and meaning”, but for too many “unfortunate people, work is monotonous drudgery”.235 In 1969, Adrian Cadbury, chairman of the Cadbury Group, began his presentation at the conference Youth at Work with an essay written by an eighteen-year-old, who said: “I don’t expect much from society after leaving school; in fact, all I ask for is a form of employment that is not too boring and enough spare time to be able to enjoy it.”236 Cadbury concluded that for too many young people, work was characterised by boredom.237 The management, according to his argument, should encourage young people to improve skills, as unskilled work went hand in hand with career stagnation. Too often, Cadbury said in his talk, employers did not build their companies around the qualifications and personalities of their staff, and did not protect them from boring and repetitive work practices. Similar to Cadbury, Alastair Sedgwick, the director of Gillette Industries Ltd., thought that employment should be seen as part of the “formula of a happy life”.238 He also suggested various strategies to try to prevent young people from experiencing frustration and dissatisfaction. One suggestion was the diversification of work tasks, echoing the view of sociologist Charles R. Walker, who wrote in 1950 that fatigue caused by repetitive and uninspiring work was a problem because it had a negative impact on work productivity.239 As employers and employees shared the same interests at heart, trade union leaders, young workers, and managers openly discussed issues deriving from automation, the unplanned reorganisation of labour, and a growing gulf between those doing skilled and unskilled work.240 The latter was manifested not just in terms of pay, but also culturally. A teenager reported that in his company, white-collar staff had a much better working environment than blue-collar workers. This could be seen, for example, in regard to toilet paper: the better-trained employees were provided with the luxurious Kelsey paper, while ordinary workers had to use Bronco.241 The unequal treatment of young employees who worked in different departments or in occupations still associated with class identities illustrates that the Victorian class system was not replaced by an affluent, classless society but still characterised young working-class people’s experiences

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within the world of work. In London—the economic powerhouse of the new labour market and an urban economy that still served the many local working-class communities—the financial as well as status gap between white- and blue-collar work and between skilled and unskilled work was particularly noticeable. Young newcomers from the Caribbean islands and their offspring must cope with similar and other forms of discrimination as most of them were treated as urban citizens not capable for higher tasks. The majority suffered from racist motivated discrimination which based on racial concepts rooted in the imperial claims of Victorian Britain. On the other hand, the rise of service industries, the introduction of training schemes, and the opening of universities for working-class youth partially allowed to break out of traditional pattern of the Victorian class society and gave Londoners the feeling to grow up in a post-Victorian city characterised by job identities no longer dominated by notions of social classes. The arrival of the consumer society, the result of a recovery of the British economy in post-war times, paved the way for a teenage consumer market with whom the rise of London’s working-class youth culture was entangled with. As consumers, teenagers stimulated retail industries by buying consumer goods such as clothes or records and commodified them into lifestyle products. They were representatives of a fragmented consumer society in which the new acceptance for cultural differences symbolised the arrival of a post-Victorian social and cultural status quo. Youth culture directly paid tribute to the changing world of work when giving office work in central London in the 1960s a cultural facelift. Style-conscious young office clerks had created a social figure, soon an emblem of the juvenile image of a city which was ready for departure into a new economic and cultural era determined by youth-driven markets and young people’s modes of cultural production. How this new city image was created is the subject of the following section in general and of the next chapter in particular.

Notes 1. See Savage, “Status, Lifestyle, and Taste”; Capuzzo, “Youth and Consumption”. 2. Osgerby, “Seized by Change, Liberated by Affluence,” 186. See also Hebdige, Subculture; Schildt and Siegfried, “Youth, Consumption, and Politics in the Age of Radical Change,” 2.

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3. For the US, see “The Luckiest Generation,” LIFE, June 1954. 4. See World Marxist Review 11:7–12 (1968), 81; “I wish we’d drop ‘teddy boy’ from the language—Sir J. Wolfenden,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 19 February 1960; Terence Morris, “The Teenage Criminal,” New Society, 11 April 1963; Dawson, The Routledge Concise History of Twentieth-century British Literature, 114. 5. Daily Mirror, Spotlight on Youth, 16. 6. Langhamer, Women’s Leisure in England, 100. 7. “Boom,” Queen, 15 September 1959. 8. See Black and Pemberton, “The Uses (and Abuses) of Affluence”. 9. Lloyd-Jones and Lewis, British industrial capitalism, 159. 10. See Weatherhill, “Consumer behaviour and social status in England, 1660–1760”. 11. For the children market in the nineteenth century, see Denisoff ed. The Nineteenth-Century Child and Consumer Culture; Savage, Teenage; Benson, The Rise of Consumer Society in Britain, 2. 12. Fowler, The First Teenagers. 13. Springhall, Coming of Age, 219. 14. Black and Pemberton, “An Affluent Society?”, 5. 15. Ibid., 6. 16. Labour Party Great Britain, Report of the 65th Annual Conference, 213. 17. For Skinheads and reflections on inequality, see Osgerby, “Seized by Change,” 186. 18. Numbers from Benson, The Rise of Consumer Society in Britain. 19. Ibid. 20. Hölscher and Loewendahl, “Anglo-German Post-War Economic Relations,” 247. 21. Department for Employment and Productivity, British Labour Statistics: Historical Abstract 1886–1968, 176 f. 22. Ibid., 116 f. 23. Nixon, Hard Sell, 19 f. For mail ordering, see Stephen Aris, “Shopping by Post,” New Society, 13 August 1964. 24. Report of the Departmental Committee on the Youth Service in England and Wales (“The Albemarle Report”), vii. 25. O’Donnell, Age and Generation, 30; Frith, The Sociology of Rock, 19. 26. Hopkins, The New Look, 425. 27. Richard Sear, “The age of spending,” Daily Mirror, 3 June 1959. 28. See O’Neill, “People’s Love Player’s”. 29. Abrams, Teenage Consumer Spending. 30. “The Ad-Men Go To War,” Challenge, Autumn 1960. 31. See Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 62. 32. “Back Street Boom-Time,” Challenge, Autumn 1960.

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33. Len Jackson, “Teenagers and their millions: this is the way they spend it,” Daily Mirror, 28 November 1958. 34. “The Ad-Men Go To War”. 35. Abrams, Teenage consumer spending in 1959. 36. Ibid., Smith, Young People at Leisure; Jephcott, Time of One’s Own. 37. See Jeremy Bugler, “Cockney culture and commerce,” New Society, 11 April 1968. 38. Numbers from Abrams, Teenage consumer spending in 1959. See also Springhall, The Coming of Age, 216. 39. Osgerby, Youth in Britain since 1945, 41. 40. For information on individual spending behaviour, see Hamblett and Deverson, Generation X, 112, 124, 131. 41. “The Ad-Men Go To War”. 42. Osgerby, Youth in Britain since 1945, 38. 43. See Maldener, “Fabulous consumerism?” 44. “‘Pops’ are still tops,” Challenge, Autumn 1962. 45. “Who has it how good?,” New Society, 23 April 1964. 46. See Osgerby, “Understanding the ‘Jackpot Market’”, 40; Blaszczyk, “What Do Baby Boomers Want,” 100; Osgerby, Youth in Britain since 1945, 37. 47. See Caine, Interpreting Rock Movies, 40. 48. “The not-so-affluent youngsters,” The Guardian, 27 September 1961. 49. Benson, Affluence and Authority, 12. 50. See “Now here’s the Teen Budget,” Daily Mirror, 11 April 1959. 51. “The Party’s Over—but she won’t say ‘Bye Bye’”, Jackie, 8 February 1964. 52. Interview with John Leo Waters, 4 and 7 May 2015. 53. Ibid. 54. See “Halt! He found Britannia wearing a duffle coat,” Daily Mirror, 31 May 1957. For more information, see McCarthy, “Women, Marriage and Paid Work in Post-war Britain”. 55. “The not-so-affluent youngsters”. 56. Todd, “Flappers and Factory Lads”. 57. Todd, “Breadwinners and Dependants”. 58. Wolfe, “The Noonday Underground,” 87. 59. Elms, The Way We Wore, 19. See also Paterson, Consumption and Everyday Life, 31. 60. Clarke and Jefferson, Working Class Youth Cultures, 10. 61. For consumption, dreaming, and modernity, see “Who has it how good?,” New Society, 23 April 1964. 62. Brake, Comparative Youth Culture, 12. 63. Clarke and Jefferson, Working Class Youth Cultures, 3 f.

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64. See Huberman and Minns, “The times they are not changin’”. For shrinking working hours and rising incomes, see John Barr, “Free Time Britain,” New Society, 15 April 1965. 65. Gildart, “Class, Youth, and Dirty Jobs”. 66. See Kitson and Michie “The Deindustrial Revolution: The Rise and Fall of UK”. 67. Touraine, The Post-Industrial Society. 68. See Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. 69. Stephen Aris, “Machines or People?,” New Society, 9 May 1963. 70. Booker, Neophiliacs, 206. 71. Aris, “Machines or People?” 72. Olive Banks and Enid Mumford, “Automation Stress in the Office,” New Society, 15 November 1962. 73. Osgerby, “Seized by Change,” 186. 74. George Melly, “Gesture goes classless,” New Society, 17 June 1965. 75. See Man Alive episode “Top Class People”, BBC, 10 May 1967. 76. R.P. Kelvin, “What sort of People?—III,” New Society, 23 May 1963. 77. “Conservative Hat Trick,” (1959), 6. 78. John H.  Goldthorpe, “Not So Bourgeois After All,” New Society, 18 October 1962. 79. See Zweig, The Worker in an Affluent Society. 80. “Election Year Britain 2: The meaning of class,” New Society, 16 April 1964. 81. Goldthorpe, “Not So Bourgeois After All.” 82. For a general overview, see Gay, Consumption and Identity at Work. 83. Stephen Cotgrove and Stanley Parker, “Work and non-work,” New Society, 11 July 1963. Relations between work experiences and cultural definitions of class are described in Sigal, Weekend in Dinlock; Whyte, The Organization Man. 84. Cotgrove and Parker, “Work and non-work”. For a similar observation for the American urban middle class see Mills, White Collar. 85. See Baldamus, “Types of Work and Motivation”. 86. Cotgrove and Parker, “Work and non-work”. 87. Ibid. 88. Mills, White Collar, 237. 89. Cotgrove and Parker, “Work and non-work”. 90. Fyvel, Insecure Offenders, 61. 91. Clarke et al. “Subcultures, Cultures and Class,” 99. 92. Karin Hart, “The Secretary,” London Life, 25 January 1966. 93. Wolfe, “Noonday Underground,” 85. 94. John Simon, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 33.

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95. Industrial concentration increased in 1950s Britain. See Shepherd, “Changes in British Industrial Concentration”. 96. King, Global Cities. 97. See Kollmeyer, “Explaining Deindustrialization”. 98. Schröter, Americanization of the European Economy, 102 f. 99. See Sassen, The Global City, 5 f. 100. Hamnett, Unequal City, 194. 101. Stone, The History of the Port of London, 200-223, particularly 211 f. 102. Humphries and Taylor, The Making of Modern London, 6. 103. Ross and Clark, London, 296. 104. Hamnett, Unequal City, 2. 105. Buck et  al. The London Employment Problem, 68. Numbers in London were even higher than in the industrial north. See Department of Employment Quarterly Estimates, Census of Population 1951–1971. 106. Joyce Egginton, “US writers see disaster for swinging Britain,” The Guardian, 19 June 1966. 107. See Greater London Council, London’s economy: trends and issues, 3. 108. For London as a Victorian industrial centre, see Stedman Jones, Outcast London, 19–32. 109. Bryan Wilson, “An Approach to Delinquency,” New Society, 3 February 1966. See also Carter, Into Work, 174 f. For youth unemployment in North England and the Midlands, see, for example, “Unemployed Youths,” The Guardian, 13 October 1959. For the spatial divide in the late 1960s, see “Optimism for school-leavers except in N.E.,” The Guardian, 5 August 1968; “Young workers feel freeze,” The Guardian, 30 September 1966. 110. Deakin, The Youth Labour Market in Britain, 62. 111. Booker, Neophiliacs, 142. 112. See Shanks, The Stagnant Society. 113. Booker, Neophiliacs, 246. 114. See Willmott, Adolescent boys in East London. 115. “What makes typists tap-happy?,” Daily Mirror, 27 March 1956. For a critical evaluation of Britain’s economic future, see Fred Lee’s letter sent to The Guardian in September 1958; “Unemployment: Some red lights,” The Manchester Guardian, 4 September 1958. 116. “Ford of Britain: Yesterday today…,” Autocar 128, 18 April 1968, 52–54. 117. Thomas Hickman, “School Leavers: how to beat the dole queue,” The Sunday Times, 25 July 1971. 118. “Today’s children and parents ‘out of contact’,” The Guardian, 23 October 1965. 119. Anthony Cheesewright, “The Job Finders,” Daily Express, 30 September 1968.

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120. Struan Coupar, “Why make us wait for work?,” Daily Express, 30 July 1971. 121. Whitehead, “Frets, Fakes and Fibreboard,” 27. 122. See also Willis, Learning to Labour. 123. Willmott, Adolescent boys in East London, 102. 124. Tottenham Youth Employment Committee, Annual Report 1959–1960, LMA MCC/EO/YE/2/34, 9–13; Dina Brook, “What about jobs for girls,” The Guardian, 17 June 1962. For paid work and young women, see Joy Larkcom, “The most important decision of them all,” The Guardian, 23, July 1967. For the 1950s, see Spencer, Gender, Work and Education in Britain in the 1950s. 125. “A Job with a Future,” Challenge, July 1970. 126. Inner London Education Authority, Careers Guidance in Inner London 1964 to 1967, 13. 127. “Top singer opens ‘Pop Shop’ for pajama girls,” Hackney Gazette, 25 April 1969. 128. Tottenham Youth Employment Committee, Annual Report 1963–1964, LMA MCC/EO/YE/2/34. For changing objectives, see Roberts, From School to Work, 34–53. 129. HC Deb 05 February 1965 vol 705 cc1395-474, particularly 1397. 130. Arthur E. Naylor, “I’m Going To Be A…,” Challenge, Winter 1961. 131. “A Day in Social Work V—The Youth Employment Officer,” New Society, 21 February 1963. 132. For daily work of the YES, see Michael Dominick, “The quiet men who help 590,000 young people to find a career,” The Sunday Times, 6 April 1969. 133. Inner London Education Authority, Careers Guidance in Inner London 1964 to 1967, 7. 134. See extracts from a memorandum on the youth employment situation in Berlin, at present in preparation, LMA ACC1888/92. Professional research and surveys on youth employment generally increased. See therefore Raffe, “The Transition from School to Work and its Heirs”; Willis, Transition from School to Work Bibliography. 135. Comments of the Secretary of the Youth Group of London Council of Social Services on the Youth in Industry Report, 25 September 1958. 136. “Today’s children and parents out of contact,” The Guardian, 23 October 1965. 137. Larkcom, “The most important decision of them all”. 138. Conference of London Youth Employment Committees, 21 March 1963, TNA LAB 43/337, 1. 139. Ibid. 140. Ibid.

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141. Ibid., 8. 142. Church Information Office, Opportunity at its Peak: Your young people will soon be leaving school—for what?, Date unknown (1960s), LMA ACC1888/107. 143. Conference of London Youth Employment Committees, 21 March 1963, TNA LAB 43/337. 144. Paul Gillett, “Doors Open for the Practical,” Challenge, Spring 1968. 145. For the expansion of higher education, see Robbins Committee, Report of the Higher Education Committee (Robbins Report), London: HMSO, 1963. 146. Geoffrey M. Jury, “Industrial training boards,” New Society, 5 June 1969. 147. “£75,000 grant for industrial training scheme,” The Guardian, 1 May 1959. 148. “‘9 30 too early for you?’ Wooing the Young Worker,” The Guardian, 16 February 1956. 149. Dilys Rowe, “A woman’s place,” The Guardian, 30 July 1961. 150. Paul Gillett, “Doors Open for the Practical,” Challenge, Spring 1968. 151. Ibid., 13. 152. See “Letters to the Editor: Youth Employment Service,” The Manchester Guardian, 23 May 1951. 153. Terry Holland, “Young Rats in the Rat Race,” Challenge, Autumn 1962. 154. Robert Blofeld, “Don’t be a flounderer,” Daily Express, 2 July 1969. 155. Michael Dominick, “The quiet men who help 590,000 young people to find a career,” The Sunday Times, 6 April 1969. 156. Antony Cheesewright, “The outlawed experts,” Daily Express, 5 March 1969. 157. Ted Higgins, “youth employment. a review,” Challenge, April 1966. 158. Cheesewright, “The outlawed experts”. 159. Higgins, “youth employment. a review”. 160. Islington Borough Youth Committee, Annual Report for year ended 31st March 1962, LMA ACC1888/105. 161. “Teachers will get inside information,” The Guardian, 1 August 1966. 162. “Employment Service ‘Farce’,” Daily Telegraph, 9 July 1965. 163. Anthony Cheesewright, “The Job Finders,” Daily Express, 30 September 1968. 164. Daniel et al. The Paint House, 61. 165. Letter concerning the article “Youth at Work”, written by H. F. Reed, Vice Chairman of the Kent Association of Boys’ Clubs, Challenge, October 1969. 166. Central Youth Employment Executive, Race Relations Act 1968, TNA CK 2 172. 167. Ibid. 168. Beetham, Immigrant School Leavers, 11.

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169. Ibid., 12. 170. F.  J. Baliss and J.  B. Coates, “West Indians at Work,” New Society, 2 July 1964. 171. See Ernest Samuel, “Don’t push too far!,” Flamingo, January 1962. 172. Sheila Patterson, “A hardening colour bar? 2: the job,” New Society, 16 March 1967. 173. Baliss and Coates write that “management usually said that white workers would not tolerate a coloured supervisor”. See Baliss and Coates, “West Indians at Work”. 174. Hiro, Black British, White British, 74. 175. “Suggestions to help integration,” The Guardian, 10 July 1969. 176. Patterson, “A hardening colour bar? 2: the job”. 177. Dennis Barker, “‘Difficulty’ over stores jobs for immigrants,” The Guardian, 21 July 1967. 178. Ibid. 179. Memorandum Youth Employment, Bradford, 1969, TNA CK 2 172. 180. Hill, Black and White in Harmony, 38. 181. Memorandum Youth Employment, Bradford, 1969, TNA CK 2 172. 182. Patterson, “A hardening colour bar? 2: the job”. 183. “Job for immigrant school-leavers,” The Guardian, 28 March 1968. 184. “MPs seek more aid for coloured pupils,” The Guardian, 26 September 1969. 185. The British-Caribbean Association, Confidential Report of Special Meeting Held to Discuss Racial Discrimination with Youth Employment Officers on February 27th 1963, March 1963, LMAACC1888/123. 186. Beetham, Immigrant school leavers, 8. 187. “Job for immigrant school-leavers”. 188. See Beetham, Immigrant school leavers. 189. Ibid. 190. “Getting in on the Act: Eric Silver on a race success,” The Guardian, 26 November 1969. 191. Carter, Into Work, 164 f. 192. Ibid., 164. 193. D. R. O. Thomas, “Youth in a New Society,” Challenge, January 1960. 194. See Wolfe, The Pump House Gang; Wolfe, “Noonday Underground”. 195. British post-war sociologists argued that new production techniques “would enable the boring and repetitive parts of the job to be relegated to machines”. See Butler and Watt, Understanding Social Inequality, 39. Robert Blauner argued in 1964 that a contrary development had taken place. See Blauner, Alienation and Freedom. 196. S.  Moos, “Automation: a worker’s balance sheet,” New Society, 6 August 1964.

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197. For contemporary discussions, see Andersson, The Future of the World, 115. For Marxist thoughts and alienation, see Giddens and Sutton, Essential Concepts in Sociology, 46–48. 198. Robert Cooper, “Alienation from Work,” New Society, 30 January 1969. 199. Jürgen Habermas, “Die Dialektik der Rationalisierung”, Merkur 78:8 (1954), 701–724. 200. Development and Public Relations Sub-Committee, The Unattached: Report by the Secretary, 15 October 1963, LMA EO/HFE/1/259. 201. Deverson and Hamblett, Generation X, 16. 202. Draft Copy Evaluation of First Three Work of the Portobello project, 17. 203. Reckwitz, Das hybride Subjekt, 16. 204. Ewa Mazierska argues that work in European film culture in the 1960s was determined by the search for self-fulfilment. See Mazierska, From Self-­Fulfilment to Survival of the Fittest, 46–99. 205. Deverson and Hamblett, Generation X, 26. 206. Ibid. 207. Ibid., 27. 208. See “The Secret Shadows,” Boyfriend, 30 March 1963; Carole, in “Life is so Boring,” Boyfriend, 2 June 1962. 209. Deverson and Hamblett, Generation X, 28. 210. See R.  E. Tapes, and B.  Cooper, and Denis McQuail, “School-Leavers Hope,” New Society, 6 January 1966. 211. Willmott, Adolescent Boys in East London, 112. 212. “All This—and Money Too,” Jackie, 1 February 1964. See also Deverson and Hemblett, Generation X, 26. 213. “How not to be top,” The Guardian, 5 November 1962. 214. Larkcom, “The most important decision of them all”. 215. Willmott, Adolescent Boys in East London, 114. 216. Interview with John Leo Waters, 4 and 7 May 2015. 217. Deverson and Hamblett, Generation X, 99. 218. Ibid., 55 f. 219. Ibid., 67. 220. For Skinheads’ response to the changing society, see Borgeson and Valeri, Skinhead, 1. 221. See Brake, “The Skinheads”. 222. W. W. Daniel, “The Rat Race,” New Society, 14 April 1966. 223. Daniel et al., The Paint House, 65. 224. Ibid., 60. 225. Herford, Youth at Work. 226. Interview with John Leo Waters, 4 and 7 May 2015. 227. Carter, Into Work, 173. 228. Ibid.

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229. Herford, Youth at Work, 71. 230. London Council of Social Service, Report of Youth Study Group on Problems of Young People in Industry 1957/58, LMA ACC1888/103. 231. Willmott, Adolescent Boys in East London, 115. 232. Ibid. 233. Interview with John Leo Waters, 4 and 7 May 2015. 234. Ibid., 71. 235. “Youth at Work,” Challenge, April 1969. 236. Ibid., 12. 237. See also “The youngsters who don’t get a fair deal,” Daily Mirror, 27 July 1959. 238. Alastair Sedgwick, “Young People in Industry,” Challenge, April 1969. 239. Charles R.  Walker, “The Problem of the Repetitive Job,” Harvard Business Review 28:3 (1950), 54. 240. “Youth at Work,” Challenge, April 1969. 241. Ibid.

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Borgeson, Kevin, and Robin Valeri. 2018. Skinhead: History, Identity, and Culture. New York: Routledge. Brake, Mike. 1974. The Skinheads: An English Working Class Sub-culture. Youth & Society 6 (2): 179–199. ———. 1990. Comparative Youth Culture: The Sociology of Youth Cultures in Youth Subcultures in America, Britain and Canada. London and New York: Routledge. Buck, Nick H., et  al. 1986. The London Employment Problem. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Butler, Tim, and Paul Watt. 2007. Understanding Social Inequality. London: Sage. Caine, Andrew. 2004. Interpreting Rock Movies: The Pop Film and It’s Critics in Britain. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press. Capuzzo, Paolo. 2012. Youth and Consumption. In The Oxford Handbook of the History of Consumption, ed. Frank Trentmann, 601–617. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Carter, Michael. 1966. Into Work. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Clarke, John, and Tony Jefferson. 1973. Working Class Youth Cultures. Birmingham: Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. Clarke, John, Stuart Hall, Tony Jefferson, and Brian Roberts. 1997. Subcultures, Cultures and Class. In The Subcultures Reader, ed. Ken Gelder, 100–111. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Daniel, Susie, and Pete McGuire. 1972. The Paint House: Words from an East End Gang. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Dawson, Ashley. 2013. The Routledge Concise History of Twentieth-century British Literature. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Deakin, B.M. 1996. The Youth Labour Market in Britain: The Role of Intervention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Denisoff, Dennis. 2008. The Nineteenth-Century Child and Consumer Culture. Aldershot: Ashgate. Donnelly, Mark. 2009. Sixties Britain: Culture, Society, Politics. Harlow: Longman. Elms, Robert. 2005. The Way We Wore: A Life in Threads. London: Picador. Everett, Peter. 1986. You’ll Never Be 16 Again: An Illustrated History of the British Teenager. London: BBC Publications. Fowler, David. 1995. The First Teenagers: The Lifestyle of Young Wage-Earners in Interwar. Britain, London: Woburn Press. Frith, Simon. 1978. The Sociology of Rock. London: Constable. Fyvel, T.R. 1966. Insecure Offenders. Harmondsworth: Penguin. du Gay, Paul. 1996. Consumption and Identity at Work. London et al.: Sage. Giddens, Anthony, and Philip W.  Sutton. 2014. Essential Concepts in Sociology. Cambridge: Polity. Gildart, Keith. 2018. Class, Youth, and Dirty Jobs: The Working-Class and Post-­ War Britain in Pete Townshend’s Quadrophenia. In Quadrophenia and Mod(ern) Culture, ed. Pam Thurschwell, 85–118. Chur: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Greater London Council. 1980. London’s Economy: Trends and Issues. London: GLC. Habermas, Jürgen. 1954. Die Dialektik der Rationalisierung. Merkur 78 (8): 701–724. Hamblett, Charles, and Jane Deverson. 1965. Generation X. London: Tandem Books. Hamnett, Chris. 2005. Unequal City. London: Routledge. Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London and New York: Routledge. Herford, M.E.M. 1957. Youth at Work: A Five Year Study by an Appointed Factory Doctor. London: Max Parrish. Hewitt, Paolo. 2000. The Soul Stylists: Forty Years of Modernism. Edinburgh: Mainstream. Hiro, Dilip. 1973. Black British, White British. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Hölscher, Jens, and Henry Loewendahl. 2002. Anglo-German Post-war Economic Relations and Comparative Performance. In Britain and Germany in Europe 1949–1990, ed. Jeremy Noakes, Peter Wende, and Jonathan Wright, 233–260. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Hopkins, Harry. 1964. The New Look: A Social History of the Forties and Fifties in Britain. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Huberman, Michael, and Chris Minns. 2007. ‘The Times They Are Not Changing’: Days and Hours of Work in Old and New Worlds, 1870–2000. Explorations in Economic History 44 (4): 538–567. Humphries, Steve, and John Taylor. 1986. The Making of Modern London, 1945–1985. London: Sidgwick & Jackson. Jephcott, Pearl. 1967. Time of One’s Own: Leisure and Young People. London: Oliver & Boyd. King, Anthony D. 1991. Global Cities: Post-imperialism and the Internationalization of London. London: Routledge. Kitson, Michael, and Michie, Jonathan. 2014. The Deindustrial Revolution: The Rise and Fall of UK. University of Cambridge Working Paper No. 459. Kollmeyer, Christopher. 2009. Explaining Deindustrialization: How Affluence, Productivity Growth, and Globalization Diminish Manufacturing Employment. American Journal of Sociology 114 (6): 1644–1674. Labour Party Great Britain. 1966. Report of the 65th Annual Conference. London: The Party. Langhamer, Claire. 2000. Women’s Leisure in England, 1920–1960. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press. Lloyd-Jones, Roger, and Merv Lewis. 1998. British Industrial Capitalism Since the Industrial Revolution. London and New York: UCL Press. Maldener, Aline. 2017. Fabulous Consumerism?—Mediale Repraesentationen jugendlicher Konsumkultur in westdeutschen, britischen und franzoesischen

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Jugendzeitschriften der 1960er und 1970er Jahre. In Populärkultur transnational: Lesen, Hören, Sehen, Erleben im Europa der langen 1960er Jahre, ed. Dietmar Hüser, 199–224. Bielefeld: Transcript. Mazierska, Ewa. 2015. From Self-fulfilment to Survival of the Fittest: Work in European Cinema from the 1960s to the Present. New York: Berghahn. McCarthy, Helen. 2017. Women, Marriage and Paid Work in Post-war Britain. Women’s History Review 26 (1): 46–61. Mills, C. Wright. 1951. White Collar. New York: Oxford University Press. Nixon, Sean. 2013. Hard Sell: Advertising, Affluence and Trans-Atlantic Relations, circa 1951–69. Manchester: Manchester University Press. O’Neill, Daniel. 2017. ‘People’s Love Player’s’: Cigarette Advertising and the Teenage Consumer in Post-war Britain. Twentieth Century British History 28 (3): 414–439. Osgerby, Bill. 1998. Youth in Britain since 1945. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ———. 2006. ‘Seized by Change, Liberated by Affluence’: Youth, Consumption and Cultural Change in Post-war Britain. In Twentieth-Century Mass Society in Britain and the Netherlands, ed. Bob Moore and Henk van Nierop, 175–188. Oxford and New York: Berg Publishers. ———. 2008. Understanding the “Jackpot Market”: Media, Marketing, and the Rise of the American Teenager. In The Changing Portrayal of Adolescents in the Media Since 1950, ed. Patrick Jamieson and Daniel Romer, 27–58. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Paterson, Mark. 2006. Consumption and Everyday Life. London and New York: Routledge. Reckwitz, Andreas. 2006. Das hybride Subjekt: Eine Theorie der Subjektkulturen von der bürgerlichen Moderne zur Postmoderne. Weilerswist: Velbrück. Ross, Catherine, and John Clark. 2011. London: The Illustrated History. London: Penguin. Sassen, Saskia. 2001. The Global City: New  York, London, Tokyo. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Savage, Jon. 2008. Teenage: The Creation of Youth: 1875–1945. London: Pimlico. Savage, Mike. 2012. Status, Lifestyle, and Taste. In The Oxford Handbook of the History of Consumption, ed. Frank Trentmann, 551–567. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Schildt, Axel, and Detlef Siegfried. 2006. Youth, Consumption, and Politics in the Age of Radical Change. In Between Marx and Coca-Cola: Youth Cultures in Changing European Societies, 1960–1980, ed. Axel Schildt and Detlef Siegfried, 1–35. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. Schröter, Harm G. 2005. Americanization of the European Economy: A Compact Survey of American Economic Influence in Europe Since the 1880s. Dordrecht and Norwell: Springer.

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Shanks, Michael. 1961. The Stagnant Society. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Shepherd, William G. 1966. Changes in British Industrial Concentration, 1951–1958. Oxford Economic Papers 18 (1): 126–132. Sigal, Clancy. 1960. Weekend in Dinlock. London: Secker & Warburg. Smith, Cyril. 1966. Young People at Leisure: A Report on Bury. Manchester: University of Manchester. Spencer, Stephanie. 2005. Gender, Work and Education in Britain in the 1950s. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Springhall, John. 1986. Coming of Age: Adolescence in Britain 1860–1960. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. Stedman Jones, Gareth. 2013. Outcast London: A Study in the Relationship Between Classes in Victorian Society. London and New York: Verso. Stone, Peter. 2017. The History of the Port of London: A Vast Emporium of All Nations. Barnsley: Pen & Sword History. Todd, Celina. 2006. Flappers and Factory Lads: Youth and Youth Culture in Interwar Britain. History Compass 4 (4): 415–430. ———. 2007. Breadwinners and Dependants: Working-Class Young People in England, 1918–1955. International Review of Social History 52 (1): 57–87. Touraine, Alain. 1971. The Post-Industrial Society. In Tomorrow’s Social History: Classes, Conflicts and Culture in the Programmed Society. New  York: Random House. Walker, Charles R. 1950. The Problem of the Repetitive Job. Harvard Business Review 28 (3): 54–58. Weatherhill, L. 1986. Consumer Behaviour and Social Status in England, 1660–1760. Continuity and Change 1: 191–216. Whitehead, Jack. 2003. Frets, Fakes and Fibreboard. The Last Years of Furniture-­ Making in Hoxton. Hackney History 9: 27–33. Whyte, William H. 1956. The Organization Man. New York: Doubleday. Willis, Paul. 1975. Transition from school to work: bibliography. Birmingham: Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. ———. 1977. Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs. Aldershot: Ashgate. Willmott, Peter. 1966. Adolescent Boys in East London. London: Routledge. Wolfe, Tom. 1969. The Pump House Gang. New York: Bantam Books. ———. 2009. The Noonday Underground. In The Sharper Word: A Mod Anthology, ed. Paolo Hewitt, 62–72. London: Helter Skelter. Zweig, Ferdynand. 1961. The Worker in an Affluent Society. New York: Free Press of Glencoe.

PART II

City

CHAPTER 4

Mods, Working-Class Youth, and London’s Transformation into a Modern Post-war Metropolis

The extent of young people’s involvement in the new, swinging image of the 1960s’ London illustrates to what extent columnists expected that urban change and youth culture perpetuated one another. Correlations, scholars and the media in the 1960s stressed when looking at urban change and the arrival of modern youth culture in post-war times, had been identified already before the 1950s. In the aftermath of the war, for example, urban planners paid special attention to young Londoners in considering how a city could provide for its youth to grow up in a secure and modern environment.1 Since Victorian times, the living conditions of young people have been important in evaluating life quality, urban policies, and planning efforts.2 The rise of the welfare state, of course, helped planners during the post-war years to fulfil their vision of a modern and egalitarian built environment, which should make in particular live better for the country’s working-class offspring. Technological innovation, rising incomes, and the arrival of the consumer society changed the way people lived in cities and what young dwellers expected from their life and their future. Mass housing was also designed to ensure that working-class kids in particular could live in a dignified manner. Growing car traffic and the lack of green space, argued promotional film The Proud City, made it dangerous for children to play in the streets.3 Reading urban redevelopment through the lens of urban

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Fuhg, London’s Working-Class Youth and the Making of Post-Victorian Britain, 1958–1971, Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68968-1_4

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youth was popular because it was no secret that town planning, with its aim to cater for the needs of communities, had a significant impact on the nature of local youth culture. Patrick Abercrombie’s plan, for example, attempted to preserve the more sympathetic elements of Victorian London while at the same time taking an approach whereby communities were no longer treated as natural entities. The idea was that community life, as well as individuals, could be supervised and organised by state interventions. Such notions of governance regulated the use of space in working-class leisure culture upon which the cultural production of youth was often dependent.4 British town planning, however, did not blindly adopt a functionalist approach to town planning which dominated the international discourse since the Athens Charter and whose aim to cluster urban areas restricted relations between work, leisure, and living.5 Moreover, Abercrombie assumed that social problems could be solved by “manipulating the physical built environment”.6

Youth, City, and Modernity: Symbolic Relationships and Experiences of Urban Modernism in the 1960s Nevertheless, a functional reorganisation of city life had been the dream of influential post-war planners in London. Suburbanisation, the introduction of commercial business districts, and social, cultural, and economic changes caused by urban renewal transformed how young people grew up in post-war London and became incorporated into their cultural identities. In the process of urban change, working-class teenagers were by no means passive consumers, but actors who reformulated city life and who contributed to the way in which urban redevelopment took place. They raised questions about how modern British city life should look, and what it could mean for a new post-imperial British consciousness. By the mid-1960s, the communication between urban youth and urban planning went even so far that planning departments listened to the ideas of teenager and invited them to meetings in order to discuss redevelopment plans.7 Similarly important was that the fashions adopted by young people in the post-war years showed an awareness of having been born in urban centres.8 Styles began as part of grassroots culture arising out of the streets, council estates, bomb sites, parks, youth clubs, neighbourhoods, and schools, and developed alongside the new urban leisure opportunities. According to Ian Chambers, the dialogue between urban youth culture

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and the urban environment soon shaped popular urban culture in general.9 As a result of this process, the teenage revolution formed the foundations of a new image for the city, turning the old, imperial London into the international capital of coolness. On a discursive level, urban modernism and modern youth culture collaborated to revitalise London’s global image by developing a new, symbolic language of modern Britishness. Interactions between these factors, however, were not just of a discursive but also of a material nature. Regarding the first, urban renewal was similar to youth culture characterised by rapid change, a factor which concerned psychologists who studied its effect on people’s mental disposition.10 Urban planners presented their vision of a modern London in terms of changes to the physical landscape. Photographers and other cultural commentators used images of young citizens to narrate and illustrate the notion of London as a cutting-edge city. Picture series styled workingclass teenagers as “neo-flâneurs, passionate spectators of urban life who incorporated aspects of the Baudelarian dandy and […] vigorously embodied relationships to the city”.11 These teenagers, according to Amy Helen Bell, “situated their youthful rebellions against the urban spaces of London […] and presented themselves as sartorial exclamation points in the postwar debates over urban renewal, consumerism and evolving gender and class identities”.12 Ken Russell, for example, arranged four girls on a bomb site in Southam Street, North Kensington, for Picture Post in June 1955, in a visual expression of bomb sites as uncontrolled space. Whilst in one sense reflecting the danger and brutality of the photograph’s location, the Teddy Girls are presented as symbols of the future of post-­Victorian and post-war London, posing on the rubble of the destroyed past. Tower blocks in particular became a tangible symbol of Britain’s future in the late 1950s.13 Similarly to a globally successful British youth culture, they enabled people to think positively about the future instead of romanticising the past. Thus, it is no surprise that a young generation of photographers chose sites that allowed them to portray youth culture against a backdrop of urban renewal. Modern architecture, alongside youth culture, symbolically represented a new affluence, the arrival of the consumer society, the success of British culture as a whole, and the post-­ imperial makeup of urban British communities. Together, both tropes demonstrated Britain’s progress, from a country known for its political strength to one successful in exporting culture. This notion of post-Victorian modernity had been first exemplified by the Festival of Britain in 1951. Conceived during a time of economic

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difficulty,14 the festival invited people on a journey towards finding and defining the future of the country, with an emphasis on modern arts, design, industry, science, and architecture.15 The Festival of Britain paved the way for associations between modern arts, architecture, crafts, and design, a creative self-image of Britain with whom soon young Londoners identified themselves with. It not only celebrated the end of the Second World War, but also redeveloped the waterfront and dockside at the South Bank. Its site was, for many Londoners, their first contact with modern, futuristic architecture. The Festival of Britain allowed Britain’s “outstanding contributions to the civilised world”16 to be seen from another angle. Arts, design, and architecture shifted the focus away from a Britain that had civilised the world through colonisation to one whose worldwide influence was to a great extent aesthetic. This new concept of Britishness reappeared in the Swinging London image fifteen years later, and in the process popularised an understanding of British identity which in the 1960s became the central tenet of Mod culture. For Mods, contemporaries remember, modernism “expressed far more than musical preference”.17 By the early 1960s, it had become a word which stood for a complex array of ideas and attitudes. Richard Weight writes that working-class youth transformed the vision of urban modernity, as expounded by the Festival of Britain, into mainstream culture.18 To some degree, the Festival itself directly influenced the young creatives involved in Swinging London. Mary Banham wrote that many young visitors were “amazed by all the steel and glass” used in the modernist festival buildings, and as a consequence decided to study architecture.19 The increasing influence of young people within architecture was illustrated by the founding of Polygon magazine in the late 1950s. Polygon attempted to break down the barriers between popular culture, art, and architecture.20 Clip-Kit followed in the 1960s. Architecture critic Reyner Banham even suggested that phrases such as “Wham! Zoom! Zing! Rave!” were not invented by the world of pop but had come from “underground architectural progress magazines”.21 This did not surprise as by 1958–59, “modern” was the word that ruled Britain and referred to nearly everything. Working-class youngsters were now growing up within a city that favoured purity of line in architecture.22 John Simons, fashion designer and Mod icon of the 1960s, even goes so far as to say that Mods stood in tradition with “Picasso’s Cubist revolution or the Bauhaus school or new

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music”.23 Culturally, in his view, they were doing the same “as the architects when they moved away from Art Nouveau to […] purity of line” with the only difference that the majority of the East End involved could hardly read or write.24 Richard Weight, leading historian within the field of the history of Mod culture in Britain, agrees with Simons and writes that Mod culture copied this ethos in its fashions, and in doing so “repositioned modernism back in the city where it had begun as an avant-garde movement”.25 In parallel with the eclecticism and diversity of modern architecture and design, Mods in the 1960s felt free to experiment with different forms and modes of cultural self-expression. Their style, Richard Weight again, sought to represent “the city in opposition to the suburbs”, “attacked the social conservatism of suburbia”, and set “it against the exciting cosmopolitanism, vibrancy and eroticism of the city”.26 This was the case because in TV series such as Power Game, “dolly birds” walked across the concrete piazzas of the City of London, in a display of modernist symbolism. Models were on TV and in print media staged in front of new tower blocks and in so doing associated the image of modern architecture with notions of youth and the city’s creative scene. Youth culture in general dominated from the mid-1960s onwards the discourse surrounding the birth of a modern world, with design magazines predicting that London’s swinging youth scene, centred around Carnaby Street, might one day “rank with Bauhaus as a descriptive phrase for a design style”.27 Urban spaces had an important purpose in conveying ideas of modernity and thus played a key role in the historical origins of Mod culture. Winston Churchill had once stated that “we make our buildings and afterwards they make us”.28 This vision was also proved by guides, designed to help students handle the new physical and cultural experience of urban life.29 Henry Lefebvre illustrated how space, both aesthetically and materially, popularised ideas and visions.30 Modern working-class youth culture and urban renewal mingled within a cross-disciplinary interpretation of British modernism because young people’s cultural expression incorporated elements of modern architecture as a result of growing up surrounded by newly built estates. From the Festival of Britain onwards, modern architecture was no longer the preserve of a small group of architectural pioneers.31 A Mod from Barnfield Gardens, southeast London, recalls that many teenagers involved in youth scenes had either grown up in, or moved into, new estates.32 Here, modern architecture provided youngsters with a sense

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of living and growing up in modern times, and fostered the perception that expectations could differ from the years of post-war austerity. The London County Council’s (LCC’s) installation of Henry Moore’s statue Draped Seated Figure in front of the Stifford Estate in 1966 illustrated the parallel that was drawn between the modern council estate and the Moore work, each in their own fashion representing the dawn of a new era. Such normalisation of modern art allowed the promotion of post-war recovery as an intersectional process which could have a noticeable impact on the daily lives of working-class people. Slum clearances reorganised street life. Multi-storey tower blocks, in parallel with the launch of the Sputnik satellites in 1957, epitomised the technological space age, as working-class people were no longer confined to the ground but also occupied aerial space. Well before the 1960s, London as the heart of the Empire was a global city, but in the post-war era the capital incorporated the aesthetic forms and economic visions seen in other cities, first in the US and later all over the world. Financial and service industries boomed in the new post-­colonial economic setting.33 Youth culture, along with the economic modernisation of London, was born of an international sharing of ideas. Both had been named in public debates on the role of Britain as entities injecting global references into the concept of Britishness, and in doing so helped give rise to a new, modern British identity, that was soon itself exported across the world with a reputation for its broad cosmopolitan consciousness. Parallels also appear when asking where most of these external references within youth culture and architecture were originally coming from. In keeping with its response to America’s influence on international youth and popular culture, urban design in London tried to keep pace with the cultural and architectural glamour of American cities, which were leading the world in a second phase of architectural modernism.34 In May 1957, the New York Times wrote that “London [now] has a New  York skyline”.35 The exhibition “New Sights of London” at the Ceylon Tea Centre in 1960 explored the idea that new office buildings in central London had turned the city into “a second New York”.36 Property developers suggested that Britain would “do well to look at the American readiness to set up massive programmes”.37 In 1965, quality papers such as the Sunday Times were proud to be able to write that Britain was the home to Europe’s tallest flats, as this was seen as an indication of Britain’s close alignment with America in comparison to other European countries.38 Londoners in particular, according to the Ministry of Housing in

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the 1960s, accepted the shift from horizontal to vertical living.39 Plans for south London in 1956 even relocated a school to a skyscraper. Now, pupils would be taught one hundred feet above the ground, growing up within the new, vertical environment of modern urban living.40 Urban design and youth culture not only shared a fascination with American popular culture and aesthetics, but also demonstrated the manner in which British modernism navigated between American and European influences. According to an article in London Life, British avant-­ garde architects Alison and Peter Smithson also acknowledged “their debt to the [interdisciplinary and European-dominated] Modern Movement”.41 Herbert Read welcomed this because his own “British version of Continental modernism” rejected “what [he] saw as the vulgarity of American mass culture”.42 For conservatives, both, the idolisation of American popular culture among young people and the standardised global modernism dominated by the influence of American town planning, threatened Britishness and British culture.43 Such a British tradition of anti-Americanism pervaded all aspects of daily life and thus drew together the discourse around youth culture and urban planning. Criticism of the realisation of a modern London matched Hoggart’s fear of a cultural Americanisation driven by working-class youth culture, suggesting that anti-Americanism was not so much a movement as a social and cultural attitude.44 In architecture, Americanisation was identified with the monotony and repetitiveness of American mass culture to which Britain’s youth in particular paid tribute.45 Inspired by American city architecture, in the opinion of architectural reviewer Robert Maxwell, many buildings in London simply resembled office blocks.46 When Lewis Mumford visited London in 1962, he criticised the loss of historic sites which had once helped define the city’s unique identity.47 Mumford argued that London was “in danger of turning into a mass of undistinguished, if not uniform, high buildings, encircled and penetrated by ever-wider lanes of motor traffic”.48 For him, British cities differed from those in America, being closer in character to European cities, where urban forms had their own historicity. The new skyline degraded an English aesthetic identity, manifested in the city’s brick buildings, and made them look like toys.49 For traditionalists who rejected the cross-disciplinary modernism driving both youth culture and architecture in the 1960s, London was London because of its Georgian squares, or the many beautiful parks designed by John Nash.50 Thus, it is no surprise that conservative

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politicians, along with the author Ian Fleming, protested against Ernö Goldfinger’s plans for his modern home in Hampstead in 1938, claiming that his design would be incongruous with the eighteenth-century character of the area.51 The Royal Fine Art Commission argued in 1955–56 that high-rise buildings were often poorly attuned to the historic architectural landscape.52 The Living Town exhibition, organised by the Society for the Promotion of Urban Renewal (SPUR),53 also warned that a concentration of office buildings in the inner city could result in the loss of certain features that made London unique.54 Town planners such as David Eversley feared, in the late 1960s, that “Britain’s greatest cities could follow America’s in becoming poverty-stricken urban shells”.55 Donald MacRae, a sociologist from Oxford, suggested that London’s once-outstanding reputation had been premised on its distinctiveness, in contrast to the American suburban dream.56 In the view of these critics, London and other British cities could only hope to survive in a competitive global environment between cities by rejecting the promotion of “American city life” as an ideal model. Ultimately, however, London moved on to become a vertical city. Planners, politicians, and architects all subscribed to the new fashion for high-rise buildings, erecting tower blocks in working-class areas such as Hackney in the early 1960s. From this point on, high-rise buildings were seen as the most efficient solution to both overcrowding and the lack of open space. Young Londoners, in their travels around the city, passed glass and concrete office blocks like the Bowater Building in Knightsbridge or the new Thorn Building in Upper St. Martin’s Lane (Image 4.1). In modernism’s pursuit of the transition from life on the ground to life above it, plans were drawn up for elevated pedestrian walkways, or “streets in the sky”.57 From suburban houses to modern flats on council estates, working-class teenagers were growing up with gas, electricity, hot water, and modern bathrooms.58 A growing number of young Londoners had the privilege of growing up in a city which, even in its architecture, paid tribute to a transdisciplinary modernism by translating popular culture into an urban aesthetic. The Post Office Tower, according to Piri Halasz, had become a symbol of both modern architecture and popular culture.59 The design of the building referred to the idea of design following function, exemplifying a purist, defensive, but trenchant understanding of modernity that would have matched the Mods’ attitude of understatement. Reyner Banham explored the architectural interpretation of Swinging London in reference to the

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Image 4.1  Two ladies walking on a concourse above the street surrounded by the new modern high-rise concrete and glass buildings that were constructed in the city in the 1960s. (Copyright: Allan Cash Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo)

Levy complex at Euston Road. Banham thought that the urban design of a swinging metropolis should incorporate provision for future needs and in addition foster a conversation between public, commercial, and private spaces.60 Pop art now pervaded the public arena. The Apple boutique on Baker Street, owned by the Beatles, was decorated with a forty-foot-high psychedelic mural in November 1967.61 The painting, however, had to be

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removed because nothing should be done that would be “detrimental to a high-class shopping area”.62 In the light of London’s reputation as a cutting-edge city of art, pop, and youth culture, citizens and columnists in particular looked to buildings for an aesthetic representation of its evolution from an imperial city to one whose image was built around a swinging cultural scene. Some saw the reflection of Swinging London in Centrepoint, a 385-foot-high, thirty-four-storey skyscraper that crowned St Giles Circus and described as “pop-architecture” by virtue of its pleasing and popular design.63 Architects experimented with designs for entertainment venues, and in 1965, Ernö Goldfinger built in south London one of the most modern picture-houses in the world.64 Modern shopping centres were built in urban working-class areas such as Elephant and Castle, concentrating retail provision in inner-city areas.65 London continued to be a polycentric city, even though boroughs like Westminster and the City of London were essentially transformed into commercial business districts (CBDs). In Westminster, between 1954 and 1957, the number of factory workers decreased by 10 per cent, while at the same time retail trade increased.66 In Chelsea, it was estimated that the early 1960s saw 3373 residents displaced, as the professionalisation of retail went hand in hand with the decline of family businesses. In Westminster, the number was even higher.67 The contemporary view, however, held that Britishness in town planning also referred to the idea that areas should have not just one discrete function, but several. The preservation of this multifunctional arrangement was considered even more important in areas of national interest.68 Henry Brooke, Minister of Housing and Local Government, halted the plan of Jack Cotton, a property millionaire from Birmingham, to build a skyscraper at Piccadilly Circus, calling instead for a scheme that would address the needs of the area.69 There was also criticism of plans to redevelop Leicester Square, as it was suggested that they would turn the area into purely a tourist hotspot without any value to Londoners.70 Town planning could no longer ignore the interests of citizens.71 Young people did not  necessarily see themselves as benefiting from urban renewal. The suburban sprawl that took place in Britain as on the other side of the Atlantic where suburbanisation had been an essential part of town planning had a massive impact on young people who grew in post-war London. Richard Weight interprets Mod culture as a rebellion against the suburbs and satellite towns “where most of them had been raised”.72 Scholars today highlight that new towns may have offered “both

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economic growth and the urban lifestyle demanded by a new generation”,73 thereby taking their place alongside the country’s youth culture as part of a new “Britishness” which sought to fill the gap the loss of the Empire had created.74 Nevertheless, young Londoners seldom enjoyed the move to the outskirts of the city.75 Janet Street-Porter, a contemporary witness, writes that there was no difference between living in a small suburb and life in Afghanistan, or on Mars. Friendship circles broke up, and young people “plunged into commuting right across London for hours”,76 just for the purposes of seeing friends or going to school. Visits to clubs and concerts depended on train timetable. According to autobiographic notes, for the majority of working-class parents, “suburbia represented everything modern and practical”,77 but for their offspring, suburbs did not provide many leisure opportunities. Often, life expectations were one factor separating young newcomers from the local youths. Before long, leisure opportunities for youngsters became the subject of discussion.78 The Albemarle Report, for example, found that new mobility among young people would require major changes within the country’s youth services.79 Youth clubs in London reacted to this by changing their opening hours, preferring to make use of facilities close to Tube and train stations. Young people’s complaints about the need to commute, as well as concern over the increasing problem of traffic jams, were shared by town planners, who were able to see the negative effects of suburbanisation.80

City and People in Motion: Internal Migration to London and the Physical Mobility of Working-Class Youth A significant contributing factor to urban sprawl was the motorisation of British society. The increase in car ownership in Britain, and in London in particular, epitomised a new kind of mobility. The new quality of travelling as well as the speed of transit became the measure of a city’s progress. London did its best to keep pace with modern urban planning in an era of acceleration embodied by the tremendous speed of capital investment flows, the proliferation of consumer goods, and the motorisation of city life. In the 1960s, mobility had become a political ideology, in part because the advent of mass production and new labour markets called for a flexible workforce.81 Already before the post-war era, London’s cultural and

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economic status motivated people from all over Britain to move to the capital. Migration stimulated urban creative industries, and in doing so determined a city’s position within the ranks of its global competitors. 82 The 1960s represented the first decade with a truly physically mobile youth (across all classes) and it is no surprise that the full-time ravers had been named by contemporary witnesses “the first ‘drop-outs’, travelling the country with sleeping-bags.”83 Mobility soon became a topic in a world of popular culture that was trying to tackle the life experiences of potential fans. When the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967, “She’s Leaving Home” told the story of seventeen-year-old Melanie Coe, who fled from her suburban home to live a cosmopolitan life in London. Olivia Manning’s novel The Doves of Venus had also explored the theme of runaways.84 Girls in particular developed a new self-confidence, which manifested in travelling.85 Magazine articles triggered such desires.86 In London, according to Rave, girls could do what they wanted.87 At the same time, young people met on certain barriers. Often, landlords did not trust young people,88 which led to cases of teenagers being stranded without proper accommodation. Some returned, disillusioned, to their home counties.89 The disapproving press published stories of teenagers moving to London without their parents’ permission.90 Such articles reflected the majority view that young people primarily wanted to live the “West End Life”.91 Parents feared that cosmopolitan areas of London, such as Soho, provided the opportunity for sexual contact with foreigners, provoking a degree of moral panic.92 The view in London, on the other hand, was that internal migration was a cause of juvenile delinquency.93 Girls in particular were thought to be at risk of being drawn into the immoral world of strip clubs.94 Next to fear, the mobility of girls was hampered by rigid family models.95 In some cases, however, parents showed an understanding of their daughters’ motivations. In August 1959, a mother told Chelsea Juvenile Court that her child had had good reasons to run away because her hometown was an “isolated country place” with “no picture-house or dance hall”.96 London’s cultural life was not the only inspiration for moving to the capital. The Barlow Report, published in 1940, addressed labour migration from northern England to the southeast.97 Between 1952 and 1960, according to the influential journalist Geoffrey Moorhouse, 40 per cent of new jobs created in Britain were in London.98 “London needs [the] influx of juvenile labour,”99 announced the Guardian in 1961.100 The influx of

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young people into London moved at its own pace, and for a period of time, changed the face of the city.101 The YES helped to find accommodation. If young people needed to commute, they were able to claim fare vouchers for use on trains.102 For as long as young people were less mobile than older people, many of whom were already earning money, they required official support. The Ministry of Labour implemented a scheme to help people under the age of eighteen who had to live away from home in order to take part in training or an apprenticeship.103 Youth services warned in the late 1960s that migration to London, in combination with the badly paid jobs that were available, was causing serious problems,104 including rough sleeping.105 Youth magazines such as Jackie reacted to this by asking for measures to address the situation and for taking problems seriously.106 In 1965, Rave claimed to have figured out that young Britons also came to London after “looking at all the jobs in the newspapers”.107 A girl from Manchester, for example, told the journalist that in her home town, she worked in a boring office, whereas London offered her the opportunity to “find herself”. Another girl stressed in her interview that coming down to London allowed her to become a publicist for pop stars.108 Information material was produced in an effort to introduce young people to the good and bad sides of urban life, its task being to teach provincial teenagers the things they needed to know in order to survive in the metropolis. The message of such material was that life in the city was different from that in the provinces, in terms of intensity, density, and speed. Information covered the cultural, economic, and social spheres of London. Some publications treated young women as humans without agency, even though their authors were probably aware that girls in the 1960s were fortunate in experiencing greater freedom than those in previous decades.109 Brochures also informed students about London’s Bohemian culture, offering advice on where to live and how to behave in order to become part of the scene. Better job opportunities,110 but specific features of metropolitan life in particular, made London seem an attractive prospect for youth workers, too. The example is given of a youth leader from Shropshire who moved to London because he wanted to work in an urban working-class area, which he felt would present different challenges to those encountered in the neighbourhoods of his hometown.111 Some youth workers also mentioned that they were attracted by the youth problems mentioned in press reports about London.

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Migration from continental Europe and from other parts of the globe served as a complement to internal migration. The Swinging London image, which swept across both America and the European mainland in the mid-1960s, encouraged young people in particular to move to London.112 Here, girls from the British countryside were meeting their continental counterparts.113 Foreign students were offered help by various organisations in finding their way around.114 While on one hand, the arrival of foreign youth had been used to stress the new openness of British society, newspapers, on the other hand, suggested that young continentals were responsible for some less positive elements of modern youth culture such as shoplifting.115 Many newcomers faced a challenging housing situation.116 Girls found it easier to find accommodation, as landladies in particular were more willing to rent space to female lodgers.117 The first port of call for new arrivals was often a hostel. Still rare in the early 1960s, youth hostels allowed people to move to London before finding a room or a flat to rent.118 Within these hostels, many young people built their first social networks. Youth hostels had not been intended for housing new migrants, however, but travel groups. For the same reason, the accommodation provided by public institutions such as local schools was sometimes only available on a temporary basis, over holiday periods.119 When the number of customers exploded in the 1960s, the Youth Hostels Association (YHA) organised a meeting with other voluntary associations to discuss accommodation opportunities in London.120 The World Assembly of Youth was already founded in 1949 in order to promote global cooperation between youths living in various parts of the world and both summer accommodation and permanent youth hostels, of course, had been a prerequisite for this. Plans for new student hostels were also supported by the LCC, as such hostels would reduce the pressure on the housing market. A major issue, however, was that statutory regulations did not allow the council to be directly involved in the provision of facilities. Local authorities and the Department of Education cross-financed the first youth hotel, which opened in London in 1970. At this time, the housing situation had become so difficult that in 1969, large numbers of young people had no alternative but to sleep in London parks.121 The International Youth Hotel, situated between Waterloo, Victoria, and Euston stations, had 500 beds for young Britons and foreign visitors and in addition offered modern leisure facilities. The new institution was an alternative to hostels provided by the YHA Trust, which ten years

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previously had been involved in the opening of a new hostel in Holland Park, thanks to the Parks Committee of the LCC and the Town Planning Sub-Committee.122 Some national youth organisations had their own facilities,123 used for short trips on which teenagers from the provinces could find themselves “enjoying the social and entertainment facilities that the most famous capital city in the world offers”.124 Some young people arrived in London in their own vehicles. Mobility had become such a political topic by the 1960s that it was discussed in the context of gender and class inequalities. In the early part of the decade, a quarter of the teenagers interviewed in Peter Willmott’s research project on youth in Bethnal Green owned their own transport vehicle.125 It is said that Hippies in London painted their bicycles white and kept them unlocked in the late 1960s, in a philanthropic gesture aimed at giving everyone a fair chance to be mobile.126 Motorisation helped to realise the idea of a city no longer separated into different suburban worlds. Scholars working on youth warned that individual ownership of vehicles fostered territorial conflicts and teenage riots when it allowed young people to travel into “foreign” territory.127 The part played by motor vehicles in respect of the pressures associated with masculinity also caused problems, so much so that there were calls to take vehicles away from delinquent teenagers.128 Londoners feared that young people could now commit crimes and leave the scene quickly, and there were concerns that old territorial conflicts would re-emerge.129 Fast driving soon became associated with working-class youth and became a national topic of conversation. In Willesden, ninety-five boys were fined for riding or driving too fast in one night, prompting the youthworker magazine Challenge to ask whether a ban on young people using motorcycles was the only way to tackle the problem.130 Barbara Castle, who was transport minister between 1965 and 1968, put significant effort into raising the age limit.131 Statistically, according to a House of Commons debate, 67.3 for every 100,000 motorcyclists died on the streets of Britain in 1966, a rate three times higher than that of car drivers.132 Castle, however, encountered resistance from organisations such as the British Lambretta Owners’ Association, of which 40 per cent of members were sixteen in 1966. Psychologists from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents warned that young people “have a considerable amount of excess emotional energy to get rid of”.133 Defenders of the existing age limit proposed a compromise in the form of new and better training schemes. Castle even received a petition signed by 27,000 people in

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protest against a new age limit. It took another four years to bring a new law into force.134 In the meantime, motorcycle clubs were considered best placed to train young people in safe riding and respecting traffic regulations. In a broad effort to improve safety, they collaborated with the police and local authorities, and some organised street rallies.135 These clubs, such as the prominent 59 Club in Hackney Wick, were founded all over London.136 Once a Church-run youth club, the 59 Club gave youngsters the opportunity to fix and modify bikes, promoted biker culture in an attempt to improve the image of Rockers,137 and organised a club programme,138 which included a screening of the forbidden biker film The Wild One. The 59 Club afforded Rockers as well as Mods a space to pursue their passion until the seaside town riots in 1964 provoked the (also spatial) splitting up of the club. In the pursuit of mobility, youths made headlines in tabloid as well as quality papers for “borrowing” vehicles. The East London Hackney Gazette, for example, quoted a magistrate in one east London court who said that he saw cases every day of “irresponsible people dashing around on other people’s vehicles and thinking that it was fun”.139 Sentences for stealing vehicles spanned from a week in custody to a spell in a crowded detention centre.140 In other cases, teenagers were sentenced for buying scooters with stolen money.141 Reasons for stealing, of course, were manifold. Some youths claimed that they stole motorcycles because they wanted to learn to ride. Others provoked the annoyance of magistrates when they tried to cite boredom as an excuse for theft.142 Another reason given was that public transport stopped at night.143 Special bus services ran at night, but were frequented by trouble-making gangs and were thus given a wide berth by other teenagers.144 Girls in particular suffered from the lack of late-night services, although some used this as an excuse to sleep at their boyfriend’s house, explaining to their parents that they had missed the last bus.145 Night-time events were often timed to coincide with train timetables, so that in Soho, “outside the Tube stations, suburban all-night ravers and Brixton coloureds gathered”.146 At railway stations, young people waited for their trains to the suburbs and outskirts, though the stations at times played host to disturbances. In mid-1964, the Daily Mirror reported that hundreds of members of rivalling youth gangs attacked one another at Waterloo Station.147 Experimental youth projects attempted to provide better solutions for stranded teenagers.

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Young people shared with older generations their desire for individual mobility.148 Many teenagers, however, did not yet earn their own money. London, in contrast to other cities, had an underground, and the Tube was the fastest option for travelling as the rapid increase in vehicular traffic began to cause congestion. Bus fares were cheaper than Tube tickets, but young people often dodged the fare anyway.149 Public transport allowed young people to experience parts of London which had not been accessible to their parents. Young people’s use of public transport, particularly in larger groups, fuelled conflicts with other passengers and with drivers.150 In the mid-1950s, Teddy Boys drew attention by causing trouble on buses.151 Prejudiced bus drivers banned young passengers when their appearance suggested they were associated with certain youth cultures. A bus driver, for example, recommended to a Beatnik in the very early 1960s that he “get some shoes and look civilised” before boarding the bus.152 In the late 1960s, intercity train journeys were sometimes used for organised fights between Skinheads travelling to support rival football teams.153 Teenagers from both south and north London, as well as from the outskirts, used public transport in particular in their pilgrimage to Covent Garden to visit the Lyceum. The journey itself formed the first part of this ritual.154 Teenagers, so former kids involved in the Covent Garden scene, often travelled four or five times a week into the city. On trains, they sometimes met local VIPs or “big names” from London’s Mod scene. Travelling in such close quarters brought youngsters from different parts of London together, often, according to contemporary witnesses, resulting in “singing and dancing James Brown style”.155 Most teenagers preferred to stand when using the train, as seats were sometimes dirty, so sitting down might ruin their outfit. Stations such as Tottenham Court Road became tantamount to venues in themselves, as places where teenagers could mingle with the thousands of other young people.156 Motorised vehicles not only carried people but also helped shape personal and community identities.157 Biker gear, for example, had become fashionable, being worn independently of riding a motorcycle, and was in public, so a teenager to a youth work magazine, associated with rowdy behaviour.158 Motorcycling constituted not just a way of life but a well-­ organised scene, whereby “every Saturday night […] hundreds of black-­ jacketed, teenage motorcyclists move[d] off in groups towards the M1”.159 One of them was Joe Williams, a builder’s labourer with an “Adam Faith” haircut and a black leather jacket who provided the youth work magazine Challenge with information. Biking was, for Williams, an escape from a

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boredom that youth clubs were unable to quench. Rockers would meet at the Busy Bee Café in Watford,160 and before long, the subculture began to attract tourists, who arrived at the Busy Bee on a quest to see the “coffee bar cowboys”161 with their own eyes. The “ton-up” and the “roundabout game” became the hallmarks of the Rockers’ aggressive, loud, and exhibitionist behaviour. For the roundabout game, a Rocker would put a record on the jukebox, rush to his motorcycle, and attempt to ride around a nearby roundabout, returning before the record ended. In contrast to the portrayal of Rockers in the media, the Busy Bee crowd did not see themselves as troublemakers and criticised the hostile campaign against their group.162 Scooters too became part of youth cultural identity.163 They were status symbols, some of them more prestigious than others, and allowed youngsters to make their mark locally, affording them some success with girls.164 Contemporary witnesses remember that it was considered fashionable to modify one’s own scooter, and accessories were added in an effort to impress onlookers. Tuning and modifying became ubiquitous, reflecting the arrival of the new consumer society, and enabling young people to define, and display, their own individual style.165 According to the scholars of the CCCS, the penchant of youth cultures for creating their own “DIY” styles, as well as their appropriation of certain fashions as a signal of group allegiance, meant that consumer goods such as scooters became not just objects, but symbols of values and identities.166 Youngsters printed stickers and installed rare chrome-plated accessories, which could only be obtained if one had the right personal connections.167 Style and tastes were highly fragmented, with some preferring a purist approach while others favoured heavy modification.168 Some Mods went so far as to inscribe “ACAB”, an acronym of “All Cops Are Bastards”, on the windscreen of their scooter.169 Others used the provocative slogan “Good luck Harry Roberts” in order to gain attention. Roberts had shocked Britain in 1966 with the killing of three policemen in Shepherd’s Bush. London was the go-to place for scooter equipment, and young people from all over Britain travelled to the capital in order to buy scooters and accessories.170 The cost of such items presented a problem for working-­ class youth and not seldom young people bought on loan or asked family members for financial help. Some teenagers spent all of their money on scooters.171 On top of the purchase price came running costs.172 Thus some teenagers bought used scooters, while others decided to sell their scooters and focus instead on other consumer items pertaining to Mod

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culture, particularly clothes. The glamour of the scooter meant that even the process of purchasing one became something of a special event. Eddy Grimstead’s scooter shop in the East End, advertised in specialist magazines such as Scooter World,173 was an attraction in itself.174 Pride & Clarke in Brixton occupied an entire street. Presenting the scooter at the right spot was equally important. Clubs in particular were considered a good place to display your vehicle.175 Cruising around, riding past the council houses of friends, and waiting in front of buildings while sitting on your scooter were all part of the ritual behaviour enjoyed by youngsters who called themselves Mods. Elegant Italian consumer goods such as the Gaggia espresso machine, or indeed the scooter, encapsulated a notion of la dolce vita and enabled Mods to create a new aesthetic, characterised largely by looking cool and posing, which was partly inspired by Italian waiters in Soho.176 The attractive sound of the scooters added to this vibe, helping to consolidate the image of these machines as “sexy, curvy, delicate like Brigitte Bardot”.177 Mods and Rockers clashed in terms of style.178 Rockers referred to Mods as “hairdryers”,179 a derogatory term referring to the limited speed one could achieve on a scooter in relation to a motorcycle. This slower pace, however, was in keeping with the relaxed image many Mods liked to present.180 They “use their scooters to get themselves around, but Rockers ride motor-bikes just to show off and try to prove they are men”, stated a boy from Hampstead in the July 1964 issue of Jackie.181 This, however, did not mean that the advent of faster mobility was less important for Mod culture. Hebdige writes: “for confirmation of the centrality of speed in the Mod’s lifestyle one need look no further than to the cultural significance assigned to the scooter.”182 Such style-conscious young people were encouraged by the fact that there was no crash-helmet law in Britain, which meant that riding a scooter would not ruin one’s hairstyle.183 No crash helmets, however, also meant no protection, and teenagers were regularly injured in accidents on London’s streets.184

Swinging London and the New City Image: Pattern, Locality, Networks In the media, the increased mobility of young Londoners was used, alongside urban renewal, to create a new public image of London. Once the political and economic centre of the world, the brain and heart of the

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Empire,185 recent scholars working on London have addressed that the capital was turning into the swinging cultural metropolis of the 1960s.186 Cultural entrepreneurs, some with a working-class background, now took centre-stage, catering for the tastes of young working-class Londoners.187 In April 1966, Piri Halasz published her “Swinging London” article in Time, proclaiming to the world that London’s youth and the city’s creative scene were at the forefront of the global lifestyle industry. Observers, however, who lived in the British capital had already begun to notice certain developments earlier.188 Two years before the release of Halasz’s article, on 18 January 1964, the American journalist John Crosby had paid tribute to London’s new swinging scene in the New York Herald Tribune.189 Halasz’s article, nevertheless, was the main catalyst for London’s new global cultural image, boldly announcing, “London is not keeping the good news to itself.”190 TV programmes, such as Go, Go, Go, Said the Bird, kept the world abreast of the latest goings on in the capital of pop.191 International newspapers described England now as the country where “the wind of today blows most strongly”, while the French Le Monde concluded that “if one flag deserves to fly over the hot-pot of the sixties, there is no doubt that it should be the Union Jack”.192 Film-makers, newspapers, and television programmes were free to explore every facet of the swinging city in the knowledge that it was a subject with a guaranteed audience.193 Johnny Rogan, author of Ray Davies’ biography, wrote that the “Swinging Sixties was merely a marketing myth, a media creation and a distracting chimera”.194 The myth succeeded because the communicated image was a welcome one, in spite of the feeling that “London was now entering the age of the repeat, recycling and feeding upon its own mythology”.195 By the mid-1960s, politicians, city officials, and those tasked with overseeing the country’s global image were ready to exploit the idea of Britain as a cultural nation. London itself aggressively marketed its new self-image, as in 1967, when headlines appeared about a promotional car for the city, painted in pop-art style.196 London’s reputation attracted tourists from all over the world, and the arrival of these visitors seemed to consolidate the city’s position within a competitive global market.197 Alex Faulkner said, London’s “influence felt most widely in foreign countries”.198 Carnaby Street replaced Downing Street as London’s most famous location by setting fashion trends around the world.199. The creators of this culture became the nation’s new

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ambassadors, and their models paraded to the beat of pop music on every continent.200 Swinging London parties boomed in cities like Paris, featuring red double-decker buses, taxis from London, and dresses from Carnaby Street.201 In late 1965, contemporaries like Paul McCartney could not pinpoint exactly when “England exploded”.202 Historians today face a similar question. Many agree that Britain’s new image replaced the old-fashioned identity of London sometime during the mid-1960s. According to Jon Savage, it started with the seaside town riots, as this event perhaps triggered for the first time a global awareness of Britain’s “youthquake”. Juliet Gardiner focusses on the idea that Harold Macmillan’s “Wind of Change” speech in 1960, marking the end of a country, was once synonymous with political power.203 Some scholars take the view that Swinging London was actually coming to an end when Piri Halasz published her article in Time. At this juncture, pop music from America was taking its place in the cultural lives of Britain’s youth more strongly again, and the “energy and creativity” unleashed by the Beatles had started to fade.204 Halasz’s tribute to London, however, was important for other reasons. Her article staked London’s claim as an important player in popular culture, strongly setting forth the case that the British contribution was, and would continue to be, on a level with that of America. Halasz’s piece illustrated what it meant for a city to swing, and how Britain’s capital had become a major producer of global popular culture. It addressed the cultural landscape of the city, formed by its music venues and nightclubs.205 Such institutions, she argued, compared favourably with their counterparts in other major cities. The Daily Mirror wrote that New  York used “modern weapons” in order “to wrest the title [of the ‘Swinging City’] from London”.206 In features such as “Boom Cities!” and “Inside Our Great Cities”, British newspapers invited readers to share thoughts about the greatness—or non-greatness—of their home city.207 The image and identity of a city were no longer determined purely by hard facts, but also depended on soft factors. People used their city’s cultural scene, its employment opportunities, its urban structure, design and specification, its youth culture and music clubs, and finally the quality of education available as indicators for evaluating its “greatness”.208 Some interviewed dwellers favoured low unemployment rates, or modernisation and redevelopment plans, while others considered the success of a football club more significant.209 All, though, agreed that a thriving teenage

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cultural scene had the power to transform an ordinary city into a booming one. Coffee bars, clubs, or successful fashion designers could help propel a city into the spotlight.210 London fought off the global competition with its own, interdisciplinary reading of modern culture, which assimilated architectural renewal, youth culture, and the popular music scene into a cohesive whole.211 Halasz herself brought urban change and popular culture together. She not only described the physical, urban symbols of London’s new cultural meritocracy, but also explained that cultural production was no longer concentrated in the city centre, but instead had moved to west London.212 Furthermore, it was suggested by some that the “city [was] not swinging at all”.213 Soho did “swing”,214 but life on the outskirts of London was often not much different from that in the parochial towns of the Midlands. In comparison to other global urban centres, however, London was special, as the city consisted not just of its high streets, but of the many small and interesting sites that had survived the Great Fire of 1666. They were, in the words of journalist Harford Thomas, unofficially constituted “the heart and soul of London”.215 Historically, Londoners had always been familiar with Soho, while Chelsea, up until the 1950s, according to the Sunday Times, had been something of “a geographical no-man’s land”.216 Soho had entertained London’s working classes for centuries, although their long history did not mean that these areas were not subject to change over time.217 By the mid-1960s, factors such as the increase in tourism and plans for urban redevelopment highlighted new concerns for local businessmen. Norman Shrapnel, a well-known newspaper journalist in the 1960s, did not object to change as such, but felt that Soho had failed to preserve its cultural past. Visitors did not find themselves confronted with historic monuments, or physical reminders of Soho’s history, and thus Shrapnel felt that its great cultural contribution was going unrecognised—and furthermore, unmonetised.218 At the same time, this short-term memory was Soho’s unique selling point. It was an unspoken law that the district lived from night to night, and thus an important part of its popularity was the idea that “what happens in Soho stays in Soho”. Regulative laws, however, limited the freedom of entertainment businesses to transform into big business. The Licensing Act of 1961 tightened the definition of a club, so that many business owners had to restructure.219 In reality, new regulation had little effect on the sex business in Soho. Policies against illegal sex magazines in particular were hard to execute.

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Halasz did not just explore the geographical sites of Swinging London, but used the actors she identified within the scene to illustrate the arrival of a new British identity—one which transcended and pluralised the notion of Britishness, despite having its origins in London, because, in the words of the Sunday Times in late 1959, “London is not England”.220 For Halasz, London differed from Britain as a whole because the capital initiated a reciprocal dynamic between cultural imports and exports, thus fostering a cultural hybridisation.221 Diversity infiltrated popular culture, resulting in the city’s globally successful “blend of ‘flash’ American, polished Continental and robust old English influence that mixes and merges in London today”.222 Britain, so the assumption, set worldwide trends with the fashion and music it exported, in part because London was home to so many foreigners, and in the process helped to promote a new image, not just of London, but of the country as a whole. London was not automatically seen as being unrepresentative of wider British culture, in that among the members of its swinging middle-class meritocracy, often referred to as the “Chelsea Set”, were those who had themselves only recently arrived in the city from provincial areas.223 Alongside migration and cultural diversification, the concept of Swinging London represented, encapsulated, and solidified change in that the new meritocracy Halasz cited as the driving force behind the scene had come about as a result of the welfare state, and ultimately as a reaction to the rigid class system of Victorian Britain.224 As an American, however, Halasz was in danger of overemphasising the new classlessness. She overlooked the fact that class had not disappeared, but had re-emerged in the form of cultural identity-building. In popular culture, for example, the theme of class and notions of working-class life permeated storytelling. Michael Caine and Terence Stamp also frequently referred to their Cockney background. The character of Alfie Elkins, the Cockney chauffeur in Bill Naughton’s novel Alfie, paid tribute to, and in doing so (re) legitimised, the working-class lifestyle in its modern interpretation of Cockney culture, which embraced the pleasures and difficulties of metropolitan life.225 For Americans, who saw class as an old-fashioned concept in times of economic growth and new social equality, the British obsession with the notion seemed somehow dubious. Soviets, in contrast, felt affirmed in their class consciousness when Radio Moscow presented Swinging London as a new form of “proletarian chic”.226 The persistence of class as a cultural theme at this time suggests that London’s cultural regeneration and particularly the popular narrative that

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was created around change and presented youth-driven popular culture as a reinvention of the city did not fully abandon the past in its quest for a different future. A closer look reveals that the Swinging London vision both relied on and referred to the city’s historic image in the media and in turn gave rise to a new image of Britain that itself did not deny, and at times incorporated, the country’s cultural heritage. The cover of the Time issue in which Halasz’s article appeared combined modern pop art with traditional symbols such as “Big Ben” and a Rolls-Royce car. Frank Mort goes further, exploring the role of scandal in the emergence of Swinging London, and positioning the new zeitgeist as more or less a continuation of Victorian London.227 This taste for sensationalism also dominated reporting of the Swinging London scene, and the press mythologised the lives of the Chelsea Set. Scandal had become a buzzword on the front pages of the tabloid press, painting a picture of extraordinary goings on in the night.228 The older generation was annoyed by the self-assurance and provocative behaviour of King’s Road celebrities such as Anna Redburn, better known as “Barefoot Anna”, who was reported to be in hospital after suffering a drug overdose.229 From the late 1950s onwards, the Chelsea lifestyle had—thanks to the sensation-seeking media—become something of a soap opera. In this new fictitious world, promiscuous girls in miniskirts were pictured lying surrounded by fan-letters, occasionally falling foul of the envy and jealousy inspired by their lifestyle. In 1967, the death of an eighteen-year-old Parisian, who “was found murdered on her bed in a Chelsea flat yesterday with […] pictures of boyfriends scattered around”, was a real-life crime story and a sort of relationship drama which tabloids such as the Daily Mirror, inspired by contemporary film culture, exaggerated.230 In a similar vein to Chelsea’s Bohemian way of living, the term “Soho style” was created to capture a lifestyle characterised by affluence and self-assurance, along with recklessness, violence, gang culture, youth culture, and sexual profligacy. This way of life, so local as well as national newspapers, led to so-called Soho incidents,231 events that together amounted to a public nuisance, and whose cause was considered to be the materialistic lifestyle of the young people involved, which the Church of England condemned with the utmost rigour.232 Soon, government officials and social workers implored youngsters not to be lured by the superficial attractions and bright lights of the West End and suggested that commercial pleasures had a malign influence on the young, leading them astray.233

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Traditionally, Soho had appeared in the media in relation to stories about organised crime.234 Soho merged fiction with non-fiction,235 narrating a melodrama in which teenagers, by the 1960s, had become the main protagonists.236 Films such as Expresso Bongo presented Soho as “the square mile of London gaiety”.237 Moreover, the search for authenticity in film-making persuaded directors to integrate locals into their films, popularising the idea that ordinary people were responsible for London’s new glamour.238 In such narrative, both youth culture and crime were symbolically, as well as materially, well suited to Soho’s cosmopolitan character, as each was associated with foreign influences. For the media, Soho fostered the integration and coexistence of cultures and lifestyles in such a unique manner that in some streets, terraced houses were interspersed with a variety of shops. Gambling bars and strip clubs had their entrances above or below restaurants, which offered foreign food to the sensation-seeking clientele. The appeal of these curious eating-places formed a parallel with the lure of the exotic entertainment, in so far as each offered a sense of escape from ordinary daily experiences such as work.239 The cosmopolitan leisure pursuits of young folk in Soho helped to broaden the idea of Britishness to include foreign elements. On the other hand, however, the new spotlight on British popular culture had an isolating effect. Those who were present at the time recall that the perception of Swinging London as superior to comparable scenes in other countries discouraged young people from looking elsewhere; why should they, when there were globally respected artists and designers at home?240 Thanks to media coverage, colourful districts such as Chelsea and Soho were before long just as popular among tourists as Buckingham Palace or “Big Ben”. In contrast with more historic, traditional, and somehow conservative sights, such areas symbolised “culture, initiative, casualness, [and] wild parties”, with visitors flocking to see with their own eyes the “talented people” who moved “up or down or resting for the moment, with nationalities of all kinds taking part”.241 Just like the fashionable districts of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco or New York’s Lower East Side, Swinging London in the early 1960s had become a tourist attraction. The newfound importance of fashion, pop music, and youth culture for the tourism sector can perhaps be considered the forerunner of what is now referred to as “new urban tourism”.242 “It’s all this publicity about a swinging city,” wrote the Guardian,243 and London’s clubs, according to the Daily Telegraph, made good money, attracting visitors from all over the world.244 Tourist agencies hired well-informed young people to show

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tourists all the “in” places, though these changed frequently.245 London had become the centre of a modern, swinging Britain in the mid-1960s, which, of course, provoked the resentment of other parts of the country. During the World Cup in 1966, other regions complained that visitors showed a reluctance to stay anywhere but in London.246 The rise in tourism, however, dissuaded local residents from visiting popular leisure venues and boutiques. In addition, it was poignant that, while commentators paid tribute to the great contribution of London’s working-class youth to cultural renewal, guides to Swinging London catered for “homely couples from Pine Bluffs, Virginia, frenetic Scandinavian architects, and young German girls” instead of working-class teenagers.247 Young Londoners began to denounce Carnaby Street for its focus on tourist business, complaining that there were hardly any facilities apart from shops.248 The view of foreigners, in contrast, was that “Chelsea in fact […] [was] suburban and fashionable”, but attracting these visitors, it was suggested by the local Westminster & Pimlico News in 1965, had “killed the origin of the reputation”.249 Planners, politicians, and entrepreneurs considered ways of improving these fashionable districts, for businesses and locals as well as visitors, and discussed proposals for Carnaby Street to become London’s first traffic-free shopping district.250 The Carnaby Street Association of shop-owners and residents largely supported this idea,251 while others feared that pedestrianisation would make the street less attractive to enthusiastic shoppers who arrived by car.252 Tourists themselves expressed their disappointment in London, as the stories they had heard at home through the global circulation of the Swinging London narrative had not necessarily given an accurate picture of the city.253 While older residents blamed “sixteen-year-olds” who “[suffered] from acne” for transforming art into lifestyle, and in doing so destroying Chelsea’s uniqueness,254 young visitors declared that they were bored by the city.255 “How much is true and how much a hoax?” asked the Guardian in June 1966.256 The question of whether Swinging London was real encouraged the BBC to produce the documentary Three Swings on a Pendulum in 1967. While such projects aimed to demystify the concept of Swinging London, commentators claimed that the term was wrong because London had always held a leading role within global culture, and it was just that nobody had really noticed before.257 Julian Holland, a journalist, used the Haymarket to illustrate the idea that London was setting new trends centuries earlier. Other journalists located the origins of Swinging London in

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Victorian times. Additionally, the terms “swinging” and “swinger” had been used in the seventeenth century. Thomas Otway popularised these words to describe the unconventional, the avant-garde, the hip—the people who were “in revolt against the boring majority”.258 Thus, the phrase “Swinging London” was said to be misleading because it implied that London, and with it Britain, had previously been “stuffy, dull, and frigid”.259 Geoffrey Fletcher, author of guidebook The London Nobody Knows, also comments on the propensity of London to “take things up”: “ideas, men and women, rock-and-rollers, popular showbiz culture, hipsters, outré clothes—with an intensity at times almost savage, sucks them dry and moves on”.260 As early as the 1890s, he argued, “London was well aware that the Beardsley period was a bubble too fragile to last”.261 Another problem was that London advertised a way of life, but could not guarantee that citizens would have the opportunity to participate in it.262 Sunday Times journalist Peter Dunn described how high living costs had become a burden for young Londoners.263 In the late 1960s, the Daily Mail reported that teenagers used stolen cheques to go shopping in the King’s Road.264 In May 1970, a local traders’ association estimated that this cost shops around £10,000 per week, a figure that did not account for shoplifting. What has happened to the street which was once “in full swinging swing”,265 asked The Times in 1970, reflecting the view that gentrification had turned the city from an experimental melting-pot into a place that no longer catered for the many, but only for the few.266 By the end of the decade, young residents were sharing insights into their daily struggle to get by, forming a counter-narrative to the image of Swinging London.267 Alongside high living costs for residents, economic pressure hampered the activities of those involved in London’s cultural revolution. Mary Quant’s success, for example, led to rent increases on the King’s Road.268 The new hipness of the area put pressure on local people in creative industries. In January 1964, Westminster & Pimlico News reported that a former grocer’s shop “has been let at what is believed to be the top rate ever paid for shop premises in King’s Road”.269 On Carnaby Street too, rents exploded.270 In November 1971, the Daily Mirror asked what had happened to Swinging London.271 The “selling out” of areas that had once represented the city’s cultural identity killed London’s vibe, and stalled its creativity. A total of £110 million of the £140 million invested in the Covent Garden area around 1972 came from private developers.272 “Community life”, declared the Sunday Times, “is being brutally

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bulldozed out of existence.”273 Those who loved to dance at the Lyceum protested shoulder to shoulder with residents, declaring that “people are more important than money”.274 Newspapers feared that Soho would be the next urban village to disappear.275 In the years before the cultural revolution devoured itself, boutiques competed with one another on high streets, and shops no longer catered for the needs of locals. The King’s Road had once been the main artery of Chelsea and historically had provided for the everyday needs of its residents. Now, behind the glamour of the modern King’s Road, in the words of James Dickens, the local Labour candidate, “There [were] old people, widows and the sick living in deprivation and poverty.”276 By 1968, Swinging London was almost over. While many pointed their finger at the inner dynamics of cultural success, others blamed the government’s failure to offer financial support to young creatives. In early 1967, the Sunday Times had already commented that “London never sleeps. But the swinging image is overdone and boring”.277 Many myths that once shaped the new global image of the city disappeared by the end of the 1960s or had become criticised by protagonists who took part in the youth-driven cultural revolution that exploded by the mid of the decade. Even if many of them had good reasons to do so, a closer look reveals that—thanks to the city’s working-class youth as well as to open-­ minded architects and urban planners in the 1960s—London had become a city that was architecturally, culturally, and in terms of urban planning and housing no longer a relic of the Victorian and Georgian past. The city’s working-class youth, young Brits who moved to London but also redevelopment projects local authorities, the council, and architects initiated against the uncontrolled urban growth of an industrial centre in the nineteenth century, formed a discursive unity which represented a modern capital known for being open for experiments within the sphere of cultural production. A major source of inspiration in industries such as fashion or music had become the multicultural working-class neighbourhood but also the new cultural inner-life of large working-class housing estates which are both addressed in the following chapter.

Notes 1. Abercrombie, and Forshaw, County of London Plan; Abercrombie, Greater London Plan. 2. See Dickens, Oliver Twist (1836) and Morrison, A Child of Jago (1896).

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3. The Proud City, 1946. See also Thomson, Lost Freedom, 33 f. 4. See MacDonald, and Shildrick, and Blackman eds. Young People. 5. Klemek, The Transatlantic Collapse of Urban Renewal, 37. 6. Batty and Marshall, “The evolution of cities”, 551. 7. “Town will take teenage advice,” The Guardian, 5 July 1963. 8. Elms, Way We Wore, 20. 9. See Chambers, Popular Culture. 10. See John Madge, “Urban Change: Can We Adapt?,” New Society, 5 December 1963. 11. Bell, “Teddy Boys and Girls as Neo-flâneurs in Postwar London,” 3. 12. Ibid. 13. Booker, Neophiliacs, 45. 14. Ibid., 86. 15. Conekin, “The autobiography of a nation”: The 1951 Festival of Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003); Vernon, Modern Britain, 377; Strange and Carnevali, 20th Century Britain, 39 f. 16. Advance Programme for the Festival of Britain 1951 (London, 1950). 17. Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 53. 18. Weight, Mod, 8. 19. Mary Banham, “Sixty years on from the Festival of Britain,” The Architectural Review, 28 June 2011. See also Banham, A Tonic to the Nation. 20. Siegal ed. Mobile, 23. 21. Reyner Banham, “Zoom wave hits architecture,” New Society, 3 March 1966. 22. See Gold, The Practice of Modernism. 23. John Simons, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, i. 24. Ibid. 25. Weight, Mod, 10. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid., 8 f. 28. See Goldberger, Why Architecture Matters, Chapter I. 29. Harris ed. The Student Guide to London, 69. 30. Lefebvre, The Production of Space; Gottdiener, The Social Production of Urban Space. 31. Bullock, Building the Post-War World, xi f. 32. Dennis Monday, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 39. 33. Hamnett, Unequal City, 1 f. 34. See Trachtenberg and Hyman, Architecture, Chapter Thirteen. 35. “A Familiar Skyline Adorns Bank in London’s West End,” New York Times, 21 May 1957. For more on London’s changing skyline see John Rosselli, “The skyline of London,” The Guardian, 4 February 1961.

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36. Diana Rowntree, “New designs for London,” The Guardian, 11 March 1960. 37. Neil Wates, “Urban renewal: US and UK,” New Society, 31 December 1964 38. See “A cinema for the age of Goldfinger,” The Sunday Times, 24 January 1965. 39. John Barr, “What kind of homes do people want?,” New Society, 11 November 1965. 40. “Skyscraper School,” Daily Mirror, 12 December 1956. 41. B.  S. Johnson, “The Moron-Made City,” London Life, 23/29 October 1966. 42. Weight, Mod, 9. 43. See Wilford, “Britain: In Between”, 35 f. 44. See Elliott and Atkinson, The Age of Insecurity, 33. 45. See Middleton, In the Groove, or Blowing Your Mind, 168. 46. Robert Maxwell, “Frontiers of Inner Space,” The Sunday Times Magazine, 29 September 1963. 47. Lewis Mumford, “The Sky Line: London and the Laocoon,” The New Yorker, 4 November 1961. 48. “Lewis Mumford Lament For London,” The Guardian, 7 January 1962. 49. Booker, Neophiliacs, 264. 50. Dominick Elwes, “The Rape of London,” Lilliput, March 1960. 51. See Dunnett and Stamp, Ernö Goldfinger, 14. For anti-modernism in British town planning, see Klemek, The Transatlantic Collapse of Urban Renewal, Conclusion. 52. “Beauty and the Building,” The Manchester Guardian, 23 February 1957. 53. See “Letters to the Editor: Anti-Americanism,” The Manchester Guardian, 28 December 1950. 54. “Problems of Urban Renewal,” The Guardian, 15 June 1960. 55. “Cities could become urban shells,” The Guardian, 10 June 1971. 56. Donald MacRae, “Old urbanism,” New Society, 24 September 1970. 57. Documentary The Pedway: Elevating London, directed by Chris Bevan Lee, 2013. 58. Foynes, “The Rise of the High-Rise,” 30. 59. Priscilla Chapman‚ “63: The Year in Design,” The Sunday Times Colour Magazine, 29 December 1963. 60. Reyner Banham, “Joe Levy’s contemporary city,” New Society, 6 November 1969. 61. “Fall of the Beatles’ Goddess,” The Sunday Times, 9 May 1968. 62. Ibid. 63. Karin Hart, “White Elephants or Good Investments?,” London Life, 18 June 1966. 64. “A cinema for the age of Goldfinger,” The Sunday Times, 24 January 1965.

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65. See “The Elephant and Castle,” The Guardian, 28 January 1963. 66. “Brave new London,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 25 March 1960. 67. “But … is Chelsea’s Progressing?,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 11 March 1960. 68. “Piccadilly Plan Inquiry Ordered,” Daily Mirror, 21 May 1960. 69. “‘No’ to this Piccadilly Skyscraper,” Daily Mirror, 20 May 1960; Atticus, “Planners Pugnacious,” The Sunday Times, 17 April 1960. 70. Robert Harling, “In Place of Piccadilly,” The Sunday Times Weekly Review, 12 January 1964. 71. Jean Stead, “Plan as they please …,” The Guardian, 12 November 1969. 72. Weight, Mod, 10. 73. Wakeman, Practicing Utopia, 206 f. For suburban sprawling and commuting, see “The Big Juggler,” The Sunday Times, 29 March 1964; Peter Hall, “Lesser London,” The Guardian, 24 January 1971. 74. See “New towns assessed,” New Society, 18 December 1969. 75. Street-Porter, Baggage, 136. 76. Ibid., 138. 77. Ibid., 154. 78. See L.  Pitt, “Leisure in a New Town,” Town and Country Planning, March 1961; Dan Waldorf, “New Town Youth Club,” New Society, 2 March 1967. 79. See Maclure ed. Educational Documents, 260. 80. “Danger of American urban sprawl,” The Guardian, 2 November 1964. 81. See Virilio, Speed and Politics. 82. Piri Halasz, “London: The Swinging City,” Time Magazine, 15 April 1966. 83. Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 41 f. 84. See Manning, The Doves of Venus. 85. Ellen Goyder, “Travelling girls,” New Society, 20 January 1966. 86. See comic story “Look Out, London Here I Come!,” Jackie, 22 October 1966. 87. “She’s Leaving Home …,” Rave, March 1968. 88. “Beatnik barred from bus,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 16 September 1960. 89. “Runaway Girls Asked A Policemen,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 2 October 1959. 90. See, for example, “Under Beatnik’s Influence,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 2 April 1965. 91. “The three girls in the big city,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 25 March 1960. 92. “Runaway found in Soho,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 24 January 1964. 93. See Regoli et al. Delinquency in Society, 11.

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94. “Court is told—what goes on at a Soho ‘clip-joint’,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 13 February 1959. 95. Holloway, Women and Work in Britain, 194 f. 96. “Isolated village girl was bored,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 14 August 1959. 97. Barlow, Royal Commission on the Distribution of the Industrial Population. 98. Moorhouse, Britain in the Sixties, 20. 99. “The not-so-affluent youngsters,” The Guardian, 27 September 1961. 100. Ibid. For more information, see Harris, Labour Mobility in Great Britain; Hadjifotiou, The analysis of migration. 101. Harris ed. The Student Guide to London, 5. 102. “The not-so-affluent youngsters.” 103. Carter, Into Work, 137. 104. “Optimism for school-leavers except in N.E.,” The Guardian, 5 August 1968. 105. “Boys came to London for work—sent to approved schools,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 8 May 1959. 106. “The Big City—is it as bright as it’s painted?,” Jackie, 24 September 1966. 107. “She’s Leaving Home …,” Rave, March 1965. 108. Ibid. 109. Lestre, London’s Good Girl Guide, 8 f. 110. Ibid. 111. “Youth invaders from the provinces,” Hackney Gazette, 26 May 1967. 112. See Favell, Eurostars and Eurocities, 80; Wilson et  al. “‘Van Tour’ and ‘Doing a Contiki’,” 116. 113. Lestre, London’s Good Girl Guide, 8. 114. Perraton, A History of Foreign Students in Britain, 81–113. 115. See “Italian girl arrested in West End: father travels from Milan,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 23 January 1959. 116. Harris, The Student Guide to London, 17. 117. Ibid. 118. See Waters, Growing Old But Not Up. 119. Coburn, Youth Hostel Story; Youth Hostels Association, A Short History of the YHA. For youth hostels in Western Europe, see Schildt, “Across the Border.” 120. Conference on Summer Accommodation for Young Visitors to London. Memorandum Concerning A London Reception Centre, 26 November 1963, London, LMA ACC1888/103. 121. “London’s First Youth Hotel,” Challenge, January 1970. 122. London County Council, Holland Park, Holland House (Electoral Division—South Kensington) Proposed Lease to Youth Hostels Trust of

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England and Wales. Report by Valuer, 23 February 1961, LMA CL/ PK/2/59. 123. National Association of Youth Clubs, Come to London. Look, Learn and Listen. 124. Ibid. 125. Peter Worsley, “Growing up and settling down,” The Guardian, 25 November 1966. 126. Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 98. 127. Roger Barnard, “Initiation by Violence: The Uses of Delinquency,” New Society, 27 June 1968. 128. London Evening Standard, 19 May 1964. 129. See “Gang on Wheels Beat Up Boy, 15,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 11 June 1965; “Youth in a van loaded with weapons,” Hackney Gazette, 22 October 1968. 130. “The Motor-cycle and …,” Challenge, Summer 1961. 131. “Motorbikes: Too Young at 16?,” Hackney Gazette, 23 September 1966. 132. See HC Deb 20 April 1967 vol 745 cc161W. 133. “Motorbikes: Too Young at 16?” 134. See Skelton, A Life Awheel, 191. 135. “Not just good fun … even for the Straight Eight,” Challenge, Summer 1961. 136. See also Stuart, Rockers!, 56 f. For more information see Look At Life documentary 59 Club. 137. See Ramsey, The Ace Cafe Then and Now. 138. “‘59 Club’s’ Rock ‘n’ Roll Ride to Clacton,” Hackney Gazette, 1 May 1962. 139. “Out to Stop this Kind of Fun,” Hackney Gazette, 18 March 1960. 140. See “Youths Stopped on Missing Scooter,” Hackney Gazette, 22 October 1968. 141. “Boy stole to buy scooter,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 16 January 1959. 142. “Bored, so they took Scooter,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 3 January 1964. 143. “Boys were late, took scooter,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 29 May 1959. 144. “Hooligan traps,” The Guardian, 24 January 1972. 145. “The Girls who Missed the Bus,” Boyfriend, 1 June 1963. 146. Roy Kerridge, “My life as a West End clubman,” New Society, 1 October 1970. 147. “200 teenagers in ‘Battle of Waterloo’,” Daily Mirror, 4 May 1964. 148. Kopper, Popular tourism in Western Europe and the US, 50 f. 149. “Girl was going to her first party,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 6. February 1959.

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150. See George W. Goetschius and M. Joan Tash The Report of the London Y.W.C.A. Coffee Stall Project, March 1965, 28. 151. See ‘“Teddy Boy” in a Bus Incident,” The Manchester Guardian, 3 August 1954. 152. “Beatnik ‘barred from bus’,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 16 September 1960. 153. “Minister in talks on match thugs,” The Guardian, 14 August 1970. 154. Micky Modern, in: Anderson, Mods, 35. 155. Pat Farrell, in: Anderson, Mods, 138. 156. Brian Carroll, in: Anderson, Mods, 86. 157. See Hebdige, Subculture, 104. 158. “The Motor-cycle and …,” Challenge, Summer 1961. 159. “The Night Riders,” Challenge, Summer 1961. 160. Walker, The Cafe Racer Phenomenon, 7. 161. See “The coffee-bar cowboys,” The Guardian, 8 June 1961. 162. For motor bikes and a rocker’s cultural identity, see Leese, Britain since 1945, 82. 163. See Hebdige, The Meaning of Mod, 88, 93. 164. Roland Kelly, in: Anderson, Mods, 103. 165. For the relationship between consumer society and the idea of individual choice see Trentmann, “The Long History of Contemporary Consumer Society,” 108. 166. See Hebdige, Subculture, 93. For bricolage and motorbikes see Willis, Profane Culture, 53. For material culture and youth identity see Buchli ed. Material culture, 153. 167. Roland Kelly, in: Anderson, Mods, 103. For flashy colours see Jim Lush, in: Anderson, Mods, 109. 168. Patrick Uden and Liz Woodcraft, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 63. 169. See Bernie Price, in: Anderson, Mods, 109. 170. Anderson, Mod, 103. 171. David Illsley, in: Anderson, Mods, 43. 172. Dave Dry, in: Anderson, Mods, 103. 173. For Eddy Grimstreads scooter shop, see Barnes, Mods!; Hebdige, Hiding in the light, 111; Levy, Ready, Steady, Go!, 114; Weight, Mod, 164. 174. Dave Dry, in: Anderson: Mods, 109. 175. Fletcher, “Tobacco Road,” 160. 176. Alfredo Marcantonio, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 73. 177. Irish Jack Lyons, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 70. 178. See Hawkins, The British Pop Dandy, 46 f. 179. Irish Jack Lyons, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 70. 180. Steve Austin, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 72 f. 181. Tom Forbes from Hampstead, Jackie, 4 July 1964.

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182. Hebdige, The Meaning of Mod, 95. 183. See “A Rocker Speaks Out,” Jackie, 27 June 1964. 184. Steve Austin, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 73. See also Don Lang from Nottingham, in: Jackie, 4 July 1964. 185. Schneer, London 1900, 3 f. 186. See Ball, Imagining London, 63; Inwood, A History of London, 867; Eade, Placing London, 63; White, London in the Twentieth Century, 341 f.; Sandbrook, White Heat, 238–261. 187. See Abrams, Teenage Consumer Spending in 1959. 188. See Savage, 1966. 189. “Whatever Happened to Swinging London?,” Daily Mirror, 12 November 1971. 190. Halasz, “Great Britain.” 191. “Review: Go, Go, Go, said the Bird on ITV,” The Guardian, 27 October 1966. 192. Boyer et al. The Enduring Vision, 898. 193. Millard, Beatlemania, 196 f. 194. Rogan, Ray Davies, 255. 195. Ibid. See also Millard, Beatlemania, 196 f. 196. Denis Holmes, “Swinging London gets a pop-art car,” Daily Mail, 5 January 1967. 197. See tourist guides such as Dallas, Swinging London; Halasz, A swinger’s guide to London; Deighton, London dossier. 198. Alex Faulkner, “Swinging London ‘City of Decade’,” The Daily Telegraph, 12 April 1966. 199. “Swinging London ‘Lures the Tourists’,” The Daily Telegraph, 13 April 1966. 200. “British Models a Hit in Brazil,” The Daily Telegraph, 15 September 1967. 201. Celia Haddon, “The Most London Night,” Daily Mail, 2 December 1966. 202. Paul McCartney, in: London Life, December 1965. 203. Gardiner, From the Bomb to the Beatles, 114. 204. Ibid. Rave magazine asked in February 1966: “The British Boom—Is it Over?” 205. For inter-urban competition, popular culture, and city-marketing, see Höpel, “Economic Effects of Urban Cultural Policy,” 229. 206. “Battle of the Swingin’ Cities,” Daily Mirror, 7 May 1966; “Briefing/ goes to Paris,” The Guardian, 11 April 1965; “If this is decadence, let’s have more,” The Guardian, 13 January 1966. 207. “Into 1967! The Booming Mirror Salutes the Booming Cities!,” Daily Mirror, 2 January 1967. 208. See “We’re the GREATEST!,” Daily Mirror, 12 January 1967.

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209. “The Heat, the Soul, the Salt and the Vinegar,” Daily Mirror, 20 February 1967; “History of £50m offices fight,” The Sunday Times, 24 July 1966. 210. “The Heat, the Soul, the Salt and the Vinegar.” 211. See Tobe, Film, Architecture and Spatial Imagination, 82 f.; Jones and Canniffee, Modern Architecture, 59 f. 212. See Rycroft, Swinging City, 65–82. 213. Pearson Philipps, “Where the action is in town,” Daily Mail, 25 May 1968. 214. Norman Shrapnel, “Hotspot village desires only peace,” The Guardian, 10 October 1967. 215. Harford Thomas, “A look at London,” The Guardian, 12 August 1967. 216. “Atticus joins The Chelsea Set,” The Sunday Times, 22 November 1959. 217. David Haworth, “The Two Faces of Soho,” Men Only, April 1963. 218. Norman Shrapnel, “Hotspot village desires only peace,” The Guardian, 10 October 1967. 219. “The way to sit tight in Soho,” The Sunday Times, 6 December 1964. 220. “Inside Our Great Cities,” The Sunday Times, 22 November 1959. 221. See Donnelly, Sixties Britain, 91. 222. Halasz, “Great Britain”. 223. See also Griffiths “Rivalling the Metropolis”. 224. See Marwick, Britain in the Century of Total War, 407; Hoggart, Use of Literacy. 225. See Alfie, directed by Lewis Gilbert, 1966. 226. “Party line on swinging,” The Guardian, 12 June 1966. 227. Mort, “Scandalous Events”. 228. See “Musician falls from club window,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 17 June 1960. 229. “Barefoot Anna (of the Chelsea Set) in a Mystery,” Daily Mirror, 12 November 1959. 230. “Chelsea Pyjama Girl Murdered,” Daily Mirror, 20 September 1967. 231. See “Office Boy Accused of Hold-Up. Soho ‘Incident’”, Hackney Gazette, 30 March 1965. 232. “Swinging city no sign of a full life”, in: Daily Mirror, 20 August 1966. 233. See “Bright Lights ‘Superficial’. The Commercial West End,” Hackney Gazette, 15 March 1963; “Youth seems to go mad after West End trips”, Hackney Gazette, 5 August 1968. 234. See Connor, The Soho Don; Morton, Gangland Soho, Kirby, The Scourge of Soho. See also Pim, Jumpin’ Jack Flash. 235. David Haworth, “The Two Faces of Soho,” Men Only, April 1963. 236. For clashes, see, for example, “Youth had knife in Soho street fight,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 20 February 1959. For youths and street

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life in Chelsea and Soho, see “Readers Letter written by Reginald D. Jones, Let’s Call It—Beatnik Parade,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 23 September 1960; “Youth Today by Ursula Bloom,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 5 March 1965. 237. “Set in Soho,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 3 January 1960. 238. See “Boy Meets Girl—King’s Road Style,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 26 August 1966. 239. “A slice of Soho,” The Sunday Times Magazine, 21 January 1968. 240. Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 72. 241. “I Say It’s Now Suburbia, Not Bohemia,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 30 April 1965. 242. “Tourist ‘Must’ in Swinging London,” Financial Times, 24 February 1967; “Swinging London ‘Lures the Tourists’,” The Daily Telegraph, 13 April 1966. 243. Eric Clark, “Hardly the ticket for World Cup fans,” The Guardian, 10 July 1966. 244. “A whole scene swinging … that’s London’s brash new clubland,” The Daily Telegraph, 13 May 1965. 245. Fiona MacCarthy, “Ambassadors for swinging trends,” The Guardian, 27 July 1966. 246. Clark, “Hardly the ticket for World Cup fans”. 247. “Swinging London ‘Lures the Tourists’”. 248. “Eheu, Carnabia,” New Society, 12 October 1967. 249. “I Say It’s Now Suburbia, Not Bohemia,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 30 April 1965. 250. “Carnaby St. man unhappy over ‘no traffic’ precinct plan,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 23 June 1967. 251. Ibid. 252. “Eheu, Carnabia.” 253. Lev, “Blow-Up, Swinging London, and the Film Generation”; Gibson, “The Fashioning of Julie Christie and the Mythologizing of ‘Swinging London’”. Another movie involved in the creation of Swinging London was Smashing Times, directed by Desmond Davis, 1967. 254. “Schizophrenic Chelsea—how an Australian paper sees us,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 15 April 1960. 255. “Swinging London? It just bored Ingrid,” Daily Mirror, 21 April 1967. 256. “As the miniskirts grow shorter,” The Guardian, 10 June 1966. 257. Julian Holland, “Swinging London, vintage 67,” Daily Mail, 23 March 1967. 258. Booker, Neophiliacs, 53. 259. “As the miniskirts grow shorter,” The Guardian, 10 June 1966.

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260. Geoffrey Fletcher, “Memories live on in Soho,” The Daily Telegraph, 3 October 1969. 261. Ibid. 262. “Come Fly with Us, Fellas, Please!,” Daily Mirror, 7 August 1972. 263. Peter Dunn, “A tale of two typists,” The Sunday Times, 29 October 1967. 264. James Lewthwaite, “King’s Road is Easy Street for cheque bouncers,” Daily Mail, 24 December 1968. 265. “Philip Howard looks at London,” The Times, 13 May 1970. 266. Sandra Wordsworth, “London’s depressing, if you want a decent place to life,” The Daily Telegraph, 14 October 1966. 267. Carol Egan, “Swinging or Slumming. Which word for the capital?,” The Daily Telegraph, 14 October 1966. 268. Gwen Nuttall, “Chelsea: amateur or professional?,” The Sunday Times, 26 March 1967. 269. “Two Years Empty Shop Is Let—at record rent,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 17 January 1964. 270. Shop-owners received offers from property companies. See R.  Barry O’Brien, “Carnaby Street Rivals in Feud,” The Sunday Telegraph, 22 January 1967. 271. “Whatever Happened to Swinging London?,” Daily Mirror, 12 November 1971. 272. Tom Hutchinson, “The village called Covent Garden,” The Sunday Times, 30 April 1972. 273. Ibid. 274. Ibid. 275. Nicholas Taylor, “Soho: The Next ‘Village’ to Go?,” The Sunday Times, 7 May 1972. 276. “Behind the glitter of the King’s Road, …,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 25 September 1964. 277. “The Insomniac City,” The Sunday Times, 1 January 1967.

Bibliography Abercrombie, Patrick. 1945. Greater London Plan: A Report Prepared on Behalf of the Standing Conference on London Regional Planning. London: HMSO. Abercrombie, Patrick, and J.H. Forshaw. 1943. County of London Plan: Prepared for the London County Council. London: Macmillan. Abrams, Mark. 1961. Teenage Consumer Spending in 1959. London: The London Pr. Exchange. Anderson, Paul. 2014. Mods: The New Religion. London: Music Sales. Ball, John Clement. 2004. Imagining London: Postcolonial Fiction and the Transnational Metropolis. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

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Banham, Mary. 1976. A Tonic to the Nation: the Festival of Britain 1951. London: Thames and Hudson. Barlow, Montague. 1940. Royal Commission on the Distribution of the Industrial Population. London: HMSO. Batty, Michael, and Stephen Marshall. 2009. The Evolution of Cities: Geddes, Abercrombie and the New Physicalism. The Town Planning Review 80 (6): 551–574. Beesley, Tony. 2014. Sawdust Caesars: Original Mod Voices. Sheffield: Days Like Tomorrow Books. Bell, Amy Helen. 2014. Teddy Boys and Girls as Neo-flâneurs in Post-war London. The Literary London Journal 11 (2): 3–17. Blundell Jones, Peter, and Eamonn Canniffee. 2007. Modern Architecture Through Case Studies 1945 to 1990. Oxford: Architectural. Booker, Christopher. 1969. Neophiliacs. London: Collins. Boyer, Paul S., et al. 2008. The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People Sixth Edition, ed. Boston: Cengage Learning. Buchli, Victor. 2004. Material Culture: Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences Vol. 2. London: Routledge. Bullock, Nicholas. 2002. Building the Post-war World: Modern Architecture and Reconstruction in Britain. London and New York: Routledge. Carter, Michael P. 1966. Into Work. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Chambers, Ian. 1986. Popular Culture: The Metropolitan Experience. London: Methuen. Church Gibson, Pamela. 2019. The Fashioning of Julie Christie and the Mythologizing of “Swinging London”: Changing Images of Sixties Britain. In Film, Fashion, and the 1960s, ed. Eugenia Paulicelli, Drake Stutesman, and Louise Wallenberg, 135–148. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts. Coburn, Oliver. 1950. Youth Hostel Story. London: National Council of Social Service. Conekin, Becky E. 2003. ‘The Autobiography of a Nation’: The 1951 Festival of Britain. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Connor, Michael. 2003. The Soho Don: Gangland’s Greatest Untold Story. Edinburgh: Mainstream. Dallas, Karl F. 1967. Swinging London: A Guide to Where the Action Is. London: Stanmore P. Deighton, Len. 1967. London Dossier. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Donnelly, Mark. 2005. Sixties Britain: Culture, Society and Politics. Harlow: Pearson Longman. Dregni, Eric. 2018. The Life Vespa. Minneapolis: Motorbooks. Dunnett, James, and Gavin Stamp. 1983. Ernö Goldfinger. London: Architectural Association. Eade, John. 2001. Placing London. New York and Oxford: Berghahn.

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Elliott, Larry, and Dan Atkinson. 1998. The Age of Insecurity. London and New York: Verso. Elms, Robert. 2004. Way We Wore: A Life in Threads. London: Picador. Everett, Peter. 1986. You’ll Never Be 16 Again: An Illustrated History of the British Teenager. London: BBC Publications. Favell, Adrian. 2008. Eurostars and Eurocities: Free Movement and Mobility in an Integrating Europe. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Fletcher, Alan. 2009. Tobacco Road. In The Sharper Word: A Mod Anthology, ed. Paolo Hewitt, 126–131. London: Helter Skelter. Foynes, Peter. 1995. The Rise of the High-Rise: Post-war Housing in Hackney. Hackney History 1: 29–35. Gilbert, David. 2004. London of the Future: The Metropolis Reimagined after the Great War. Journal of British Studies 43 (1): 91–119. Gold, John R. 2009. The Practice of Modernism: Modern Architects and Urban Transformation, 1954–1972. London and New York: Routledge. Goldberger, Paul. 2009. Why Architecture Matters. New Haven: Yale University Press. Gottdiener, Mark. 1985. The Social Production of Urban Space. Austin: University of Texas Press. Griffiths, John. 2018. Rivalling the Metropolis: Cultural Conflict Between London and the Regions c.1967–1973. Contemporary British History 33 (4): 1–24. Hadjifotiou, N. 1972. The Analysis of Migration Between Standard Metropolitan Labour Market Areas in England and Wales. London: University College. Halasz, Piri. 1967. A Swinger’s Guide to London. New York: Coward-McCann. Hamnett, Chris. 2003. Unequal City: London in the Global Arena. London and New York: Routledge. Hawkins, Stan. 2009. The British Pop Dandy: Masculinity, Popular Music and Culture. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate. Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Routledge. ———. 1988. Hiding in the Light: On Images and Things. London: Routledge. ———. 1991. The Meaning of Mod. In Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-war Britain, ed. Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson, 87–96. London: Harper Collins. Hewitt, Paolo. 2003. The Soul Stylists: Forty Years of Modernism. Edinburgh: Mainstream. Hoggart, Richard. 1957. Use of Literacy: Aspects of Working Class Life, with Special Reference to Publications and Entertainment. London: Chatto and Windus. Holloway, Gerry. 2005. Women and Work in Britain Since 1840. London and New York: Routledge. Höpel, Thomas. 2008. Economic Effects of Urban Cultural Policy in the Interwar Period in France and Germany. In Creative Urban Milieus: Historical Perspectives

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on Culture, Economy and the City, ed. Martina Hessler and Clemens Zimmermann, 229–254. Frankfurt: Campus. Inwood, Stephen. 1998. A History of London. London: Macmillan. Kirby, Dick. 2014. The Scourge of Soho: The Controversial Career of SAS Hero Detective Sergeant Harry Challenor MM. Barnsley: Pen & Sword. Klemek, Christopher. 2012. The Transatlantic Collapse of Urban Renewal: Postwar Urbanism from New York to Berlin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kopper, Christoph. 2015. Popular Tourism in Western Europe and the US in the Twentieth Century: A Tale of Different Trajectories. In Made in Europe: The Production of Popular Culture in the Twentieth-Century, ed. Klaus Nathaus, 41–56. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Leese, Peter. 2006. Britain Since 1945: Aspects of Identity. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Lefebvre, Henri. 1984. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell. Lentz, Graham. 2002. The Influential Factor. Horsham: GEL Publishing. Lestre, Stephen. 1968. London’s Good Girl Guide. London: Wolfe. Lev, Peter. 1989. Blow-Up, Swinging London, and the Film Generation. Literature Film Quarterly 17: 134–137. Levy, Shawn. 2003. Ready, Steady, Go!: Swinging London and the Invention of the Cool. London: Fourth Estate. MacDonald, Robert, Tracy Shildrick, and Shane Blackman. 2010. Young People, Class and Place. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Maclure, Stuart. 1979. Educational Documents: 1816 to the Present Day. London: Methuen. Manning, Olivia. 1955. The Doves of Venus. London: Heinemann. Marwick, Arthur. 1968. Britain in the Century of Total War: War, Peace and Social Change 1900–1967. Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown and Company. Middleton, Richard. 1986. In the Groove, or Blowing Your Mind? The Pleasures of Musical Repetition. In Popular Culture and Social Relations, ed. Tony Bennett et al., 159–176. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Millard, André. 2012. Beatlemania: Technology, Business, and Teen Culture in Cold War America. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Moorhouse, Geoffrey. 1964. Britain in the Sixties: The Other England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Morton, James. 2008. Gangland Soho. London: Portrait. Perraton, Hilary. 2014. A History of Foreign Students in Britain. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Pim, Keiron. 2017. Jumpin’ Jack Flash: David Litvinoff and the rock’n’roll underworld. London: Vintage. Ramsey, Winston G. 2002. The Ace Cafe Then and Now. London: Battle of Britain International.

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Regoli, Robert M., John D.  Hewitt, and Matt DeLisi. 2011. Delinquency in Society: The Essentials. Sudbury: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Rich, Paul. 1990. Race and Empire in British Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rogan, Johnny. 2015. Ray Davies: A Complicated Life. London: Vintage. Rycroft, Simon. 2011. Swinging City: A Cultural Geography of London, 1950–1974. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate. Sandbrook, Dominic. 2007. White Heat: Britain in the Sixties. London: Abacus. Savage, Jon. 2016. 1966: The Year the Decade Exploded. London: Faber & Faber. Schildt, Axel. 2007. Across the Border: West German Youth Travel to Western Europe. In Between Marx and Coca-Cola: Youth Cultures in Changing European Societies, 1960–1980, ed. Axel Schildt and Deflef Siegfried, 149–161. Oxford: Berghahn Press. Schneer, Jonathan. 1999. London 1900: The Imperial Metropolis. New Haven: Yale University Press. Siegal, Jennifer. 2002. Mobile: The Art of Portable Architecture, ed. New  York: Princeton Architectural Press. Skelton, Richard. 2016. A Life Awheel: The ‘auto’ Biography of W de Forte. Dorchester: Veloce. Strange, Julie-Marie, and Francesca Carnevali. 2007. 20th Century Britain: Economic, Cultural and Social Change. London and New York: Routledge. Street-Porter, Janet. 2004. Baggage: My Childhood. London: Headline. Stuart, Johnny. 1987. Rockers! London: Plexus. Thomson, Matthew. 2013. Lost Freedom: The Landscape of the Child and British Post-War Settlement. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tobe, Renée. 2017. Film, Architecture and Spatial Imagination. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Trachtenberg, Marvin, and Isabelle Hyman. 1986. Architecture, from Prehistory to Postmodernity. New York: Abrams. Trentmann, Frank. 2009. The Long History of Contemporary Consumer Society: Chronologies, Practices, and Politics in Modern World. Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 49: 107–128. Vernon, James. 2017. Modern Britain, 1750 to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Virilio, Paul. 2006. Speed and Politics: An Essay on Dromology. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e). Wakeman, Rosemary. 2016. Practicing Utopia: An Intellectual History of the New Town Movement. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Walker, Alastair. 2009. The Cafe Racer Phenomenon. Dorchester: Veloce. Waters, Ian. 2011. Growing Old But Not Up: Tales of a Continuing Youth. Chippenham and Eastbourne: Publisher unknown.

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Weight, Richard. 2013. Mod!: From Bebop to Britpop, Britain’s Biggest Youth Movement. London: Vintage Books. White, Jerry. 2008. London in the Twentieth Century: A City and Its People. London: Vintage. Wilford, Hugh. 2006. Britain: In Between. In The Americanization of Europe: Culture, Diplomacy and Anti-Americanism after 1945, ed. Alexander Stephan, 23–43. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. Willis, Paul. 1878. Profane Culture. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Wilson, Jude, David Fisher, and Kevin Moore. 2008. ‘Van Tour’ and ‘Doing a Contiki’: Grand ‘Backpacker’ Tours of Europe. In Backpacker Tourism: Concepts and Profiles, ed. Kevin Hannam and Irena Ateljevic, 113–127. Clevedon et al.: Channel View Publications. Youth Hostels Association. 1969. A Short History of the YHA. St. Albans: Trevelyan House.

CHAPTER 5

Working-Class Youth and the Social Transformation of Post-war London

London’s new swinging self-identity was also grounded in the multi-­ cultural face of the city which had started to call common assumptions of Britishness into question. In the new self-narrative and the image the country’s media as well as politicians loved to export into the wider world, a modern Britain meant a life of affluence, with rebuilt cities and a burgeoning welfare state, together ensuring that “baby-boomers” grew up in a time of new freedoms and allowing for cross-cultural experimentation of which Commonwealth migration soon had become part of. The Kinks saw in Swinging London a narrative “about imperial decline, an end, not a beginning”.1 Post-Victorian Britain and post-Victorian London in particular were characterised by the changing ethnic composition of former white working-class neighbourhoods and the circumstance that many immigrants had come from the West Indian working class consolidated the idea that working-class identity was not determined by race. Piri Halasz saw protests against the Suez intervention as indicative of an ongoing repositioning of Britishness by young people.2 In the words of President Truman’s Secretary of State, post-war Britain “had lost an empire” but had “not yet found a role in the world”.3 Youth culture, especially in its interaction with migration and black urban life, started to play a prominent part in the establishment of this new role. Swinging London, acccording to Halasz, saw a broadening acceptance of the

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Fuhg, London’s Working-Class Youth and the Making of Post-­Victorian Britain, 1958–1971, Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68968-1_5

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“other”, through cultural entrepreneurs paying tribute to the visible diversification of Britishness. The experience of growing up in a metropolis that was becoming more multicultural than ever before prompted young people to ask “what defines their own ethnicity”.4 The consolidation and “cosmopolitanisation” of British identity, however, scholars stress when looking at young working-class people’s modes of cultural production in post-war times, was not a straightforward process. While international entanglements in popular culture, the success of black music, and the integration of non-Western influences into the national soundtrack encouraged young working-class citizens to re-evaluate Britain’s relationship with the wider world, the old imperial consciousness remained.5 Politically, young Londoners were growing up at a time when Macmillan supported the idea of rapid independence for Britain’s colonies. At the same time, Conservative think-tanks responded to Macmillan with the view that Kenya should not become independent before 1970.6 Certain “die-hard imperialists” were even of the opinion that the whole notion of independence ought to be rejected.7 The relationship between black immigrant families and white urban working-­ class youth had never existed in isolation from the overall political climate in Britain, and against a backdrop of imperialist sentiment, relations continued to be contentious and ambivalent throughout the 1960s. While the arrival of the Empire Windrush precipitated the “irresistible rise of multi-racial Britain”,8 the Equals, a multiracial band from London, must hope in 1970 that in future, the country would “see the black skin blue eyed boys” and “they ain’t gonna fight no wars”.9 Migration, nonetheless, gradually began to dismantle remaining imperial attitudes during the 1960s. In contrast to older citizens, who perceived the decline of the Empire as a humiliation, young people were in the situation to see the end of the imperial project could signify a new era in which their ideas, tastes, and ways of life were no longer overshadowed by Britain’s attachment to imperial power.10 Mixing with other races became easier. Often, it  was not seen as a political statement, but was simply the by-product of daily life in the metropolis. This pragmatism resulted in a change in race relations that was able to be sustained in the longer term. Mixing took place within the context of an overall climate of racism and panics about Commonwealth immigration. The notion of race was still central to national identity in Britain.11 Some citizens feared that the welfare state was under threat from migration,12 while others perceived sympathetic social policies and

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affluence as cushioning the impact of decolonisation on national pride. Even in the late 1960s, the journalist Nigel Fountain wrote in New Society, considerable numbers of Britons felt that life in England “was better in the nineteenth century when there was an empire”, and preferred a stop of immigration.13 Young Londoners were still growing up with the idea of “civilising” other nations, alongside ideas of cultural backwardness versus supremacy, as such worldviews were hard to eradicate simply by virtue of granting formal political independence. The passing of the Jamaica Independence Act officially put the Caribbean islands on a level with Britain, but racist terms, such as “sambo, coon, wog, nignog, spade”, reproduced the tenets of an old but persistent racist construction of Britain and British identity, which was particularly pervasive in everyday culture.14 School textbooks explained history in a manner characterised by “unsullied nostalgia for the days of the Empire”.15 Historically, popular culture and youth movements had been infiltrated by imperialist propaganda up until the mid-twentieth century,16 but from this point onwards, Britain’s new political orientation towards Europe, also supported by young Britons with their fondness for continental fashion, provided an alternative to the imperial notion of Britishness. Post-­ war films illustrate how popular culture navigated between imperial nostalgia and a critical evaluation of the imperial past.17 On the other hand, old-fashioned ideas of backwardness and racial differences were still being reproduced in some corners of popular culture. In Dr. No (1962), Agent No.7 “consistently reassured the First World of its hegemonic position”.18 War comics incorporated national stereotypes and communicated a strange image of foreigners to young people.19 Within British universities, student circles developed a new political consciousness. Daily experiences as well as the independence to former colonies had increasingly taught young ones that “blacks can no longer be regarded as ‘coons’ at seaside concert parties nor as slaves”.20 This challenge of former common assumptions of Britishness, however, was not limited to well-educated youngsters. Thanks to Britain’s youth, multiculturalism soon outgrew its purpose as a political project to engender a post-Victorian identity.21 While race riots in the late 1950s had shocked the country, newspapers published stories of successful integration in the early 1960s, declaring that schools were of particular importance.22 The mixing that took place more or less naturally among young people gave rise to the vision that British youth was making a major contribution to racial harmony.23

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The renegotiation of race within the concept of Britishness left physical traces in the public realm. Leyton was littered with racially charged graffiti by the late 1960s.24 In Camden and Kentish Town, as well as at Leicester Square underground station, passengers were confronted with slogans such as “God created all races to be separate”.25 London Transport staff tried in vain to remove such material, as there was simply too much of it. Often, the slogans concerned the perceived immorality of racial integration, although, by the end of the decade, Black Power activists were adding their own graffiti. Further, London’s architecture took the dialogue between modernity on one hand and notions of civilisation versus uncivilised backwardness on the other.26 At the Kingsway-Aldwych north-south axis,27 the Empire was brought to life as Londoners passed by buildings such as India House or Australia House, which glorified the imperial past and carried overtones of British greatness and superiority. London’s shopping malls, too, fostered “imperial consciousness” by historically practising entertainment through exoticisation as well as by representing the richness and superiority of Britain by exhibiting the country’s global access to material culture.28 The capital’s new enthusiasm for global city architecture failed to extinguish the power of the city’s imperialist legacy.29 London’s urban landscape had historically encouraged its residents to adopt the ideals of the colonial and imperial world order, whereas decolonisation, according to architectural historian Mark Crinson, had no impact on the city’s built environment.30 Nevertheless, urban youth identities were implicitly and explicitly rooted in the aftermath of the Empire and often arise in response to the social and cultural effects of imperial decline.31 The historians Jamie Bronstein and Andrew Harris argue that the racist attacks by Teddy Boys in the mid-1950s and the subcultural interest in black music and fashion in the 1960s were both reactions to “ethnic diversity within Britain’s youth culture”.32 CCCS scholars such as Hebdige strongly emphasise youth culture’s potential to transcend racial boundaries, attributing the Mods’ interest in black music to growing up with Britain’s first generation of black children.33 In the late 1960s, said Hebdige but also Simon Jones, Skinhead culture ultimately amalgamated West Indian (immigrant) culture with white working-class culture34 and hybridised British identity via direct cultural exchange (Image 5.1).35 This becomes even more obvious when considering the work of Colin MacInnes, who, in the early 1960s, had his finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist as he explored the varied cultural worlds of the metropolis. For Marcus Collins, MacInnes became one of the first

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Image 5.1  Children playing dominoes in Brixton in 1966. (Copyright: Phillip Harrington/Alamy Stock Photo)

proto-­multiculturalists36 and ultimately helped to establish a new notion of race and nation within Britishness.37 The pioneers of cultural studies borrowed their approach from semiotic theories developed by authors such as Ferdinand de Saussure und used them to study the representation of blackness and its integration into British working-class youth culture. In recent years, however, such an approach has come under fire. Les Back criticises Hebdige for not “paying any attention to the interactional components of racial dialogue at the level of everyday experience”38 and thus interprets “the interaction […] in urban contexts as ‘ghostly’ or encoded”.39 Surveys carried out at the time support Back’s assumption that, from the perspective of a spatial history of race relations, the relationship between black and white working-class youth in London was ambivalent. Often, teens frequented venues which played black pop music and claimed solidarity with black Americans in their fight for equality, but at the same time had no qualms about getting involved in racist street fights.40

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While black culture indeed commodified British working-class youth culture with the help of daily contact, a closer look reveals that race relations varied according to locality and migrant communities and depended on individuals, institutions, and local policies.41 Race relations were a matter of local concern, even though the idea of race was also constituted by the national climate and international notions and constructions of race.42 Race relations also fluctuated during the period due to changing migration laws.43 Politicians knew that the majority of Britons were against migration, and used slogans such as “If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Liberal or Labour” to mobilise voters in the 1964 general election.44 Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech in 1968 generated a bleakly recurrent soundbite of the racist climate of the time and influenced young people’s attitudes towards multiculturalism.45 Youth workers observed that children’s development was seldom unaffected by such political circumstances. In the weeks following Powell’s speech, the Guardian wrote that conflicts between young gangs in Brixton became racialist, returning to a territorial system of racial segregation.46 Some Skinhead gangs made headlines by shouting, “Enoch! Enoch! Enoch!” on the streets of London.47 Racism was so widespread that some local branches of the Labour Party and trade unions subscribed to racist politics, even though, at the same time, the party campaigned for anti-­ discrimination laws and installed the first black MP in the House of Commons in the 1960s.48 In the view of many politicians and government institutions, Powell was problematic because of his language, rather than the substance of what he was saying.49 Working-class youngsters were thought to be particularly vulnerable to racist ideologies, as it was suggested that low standards of education combined with disputes over the allocation of resources could engender a racist world-view. On this basis, the public discourse conflated working-­ class culture and everyday politics with racism. The dockers’ march for Powell in London was cited by journalists as evidence that this view was not held without reason.50 Intellectuals agreed, despite the fact that in cities, working-class people frequently lived side by side with black and Asian migrants, in contrast to the upper classes; and further, that working-­ class Britons were increasingly marrying immigrants in the 1960s.51 Political reaction to migration and integration was widely variable. While Britain began to restrict migration, changes in the perception of integration and interracial marriage by the mid and late 1960s took place against a backdrop of new anti-discrimination laws.52 Though inefficient,53

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the Race Relations Act (1965) attempted to outlaw racially motivated discrimination in an effort to promote social peace and justice.54 Alongside the official line against discrimination, young Londoners might have been aware of Roy Jenkins’ famous speech of 23 May 1966. Setting out his vision for Britain, the Home Secretary saw the future of his country in multiculturalism rather than an expectation that migrants should conform to a vaguely defined British “way of life”.55 The new political support for cultural pluralism reflected the attitude of those kids whose lifestyles already paid tribute to multiculturalism. In line with the new fervour for individualism, which was no longer regarded as a threat to social and cultural cohesion, local migrant communities found themselves in some cases celebrated for the interest and variety they brought to Britain’s and London’s cultural identity. In respect of the visibility of cultural diversity London was spatially and demographically fragmented. The composition of neighbourhoods in the early 1960s did not always allow for working-class teenagers in London to experience daily life alongside their black counterparts.56 In general, though, race relations among young people benefited from the fact that by 1961, four out of five immigrants were from younger age groups as well as that the number of British-born blacks steadily increased.57 Fashion designer John Simon remembers that the British offspring of Commonwealth migrants had a huge impact on young people’s attitudes to race.58 This, however, did not mean that Britain would cite migration and the birth of black Britons as evidence of a culturally diverse society when presenting its image to the world. The British presentation at the Expo exhibition in 1967, for example, underlines Paul Gilroy’s view that the country’s official narrative did not address black culture at all. This exclusion was so marked that contemporary sociologists and social scientists did not include black or Asian teenagers under the term “youth”, instead addressing them as separate categories in surveys.59

“Black Skin Blue Eyed Boys”: The Urban Origins of Multiracial Britain While minorities were officially excluded from the cultural self-narrative of 1960s Britain, urban space had become a platform for personal relationships, which soon challenged the official version of Britishness. Neighbourhoods differed very much,60 and such exchange was particularly

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frequent in areas with thriving migrant communities.61 In August 1954, the New York Times observed that “London, like New  York, has its colonies, its clusters of nationalities”.62 Segregation often became a self-­ perpetuating habit.63 While in some areas of London integration was almost totally absent, teachers in Kilburn taught classes which included pupils born on, or with cultural links to, nearly every continent.64 According to contemporary social scientists, a shared experience of daily life helped to counter the development of racial prejudice.65 In Brixton, white working-class youths lived in a borough in which the number of migrants had increased from 414 West Indians in 1951 to 5000 in 1955.66 Journalists illustrated the importance of sharing day-to-day experiences when they reported that in Brixton in 1964, white and black teenagers coexisted more or less peacefully (Image 5.2).67 The spatial concentration of migrants and settled minority groups was for some so intense that it was possible to describe these areas as ghettos and to ask whether new towns might benefit from the effect of a spatial reorganisation that avoided ethnic clustering.68 Racially motivated violence, housing shortages, and the racism of landlords meant that finding accommodation often took place through family or friendship networks, helping to foster spatial concentration.69 While mainstream society feared spatial concentration, as it was perceived to have the effect of hampering integration, black teenagers tended to feel safer in multi-­ ethnic neighbourhoods.70 Here, local black communities had already created a cultural infrastructure, and to the surprise of many Britons, and the advantage of local youth, the cultural and recreational activities of migrants and later on post-migrant communities were often not much different from British working-class leisure preferences, thus helping to foster good race relations.71 The housing market was permeated by racial prejudice and dictated whether or not working-class children grew up side by side with their black counterparts. Newspaper advertisements for flats included qualifications such as “Europeans only”.72 Only a small number of landlords were willing to accommodate immigrants. In 1955, in Notting Hill, “slumlord” Peter Rachman bought property in and around St Stephen’s Gardens and the Colville area, exploiting the dire situation of Caribbean immigrants to charge them inordinate rents for run-down flats, and housing them alongside pimps and prostitutes, who were forced to live in such accommodation for different reasons.73 Such an environment naturally left its mark on migrant communities, with contemporary

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Image 5.2  The gym at the famous Thomas A Beckett public house on the Old Kent Road, Bermondsey, South London, 1964. (Copyright: Allan Cash Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo)

research suggesting that factors such as urban decay and poor housing were responsible for criminality.74 In multiracial areas, the level of integration differed between minorities and generations. Communities that had been established in London for a long time were often better integrated than those who had recently arrived. On its seventieth anniversary in 1969, the Association of Jewish Youth (AJY) declared that young Jews in London were now so well integrated that Jewish youth organisations must now put the emphasis back

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on Jewish cultural identity.75 Physical differences such as skin colour still had a significant impact on community relations and thereby also on the city’s offspring. Contemporary witnesses recall that young people from minority groups set the tone in certain subcultural networks and, for example, named the first bowling alley in the Jewish district of Stamford Hill as the first Mod hangout in town.76 At the same time, however, staff from London’s youth service reported in the early 1960s that local race relations still suffered from segregation and racism. Members of a youth club in Willesden, for example, often “picked up unfavourable propaganda and had an exaggerated idea of the number of West Indians in this country”.77 As the situation in other multiracial areas appeared quite similar, the youth group of the London Council of Social Service (LCSS) held a meeting on race relations in July 1960 and decided to focus more energy on monitoring and improving race relations.78 Some open-minded working-class teenagers found cultural inspiration in districts such as Notting Hill Gate in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and enjoyed the feeling of being in almost a “foreign country, full of sounds of jazz and reggae coming from pubs and basement clubs, the smells of spicy food wafting from cafés around the fruit and vegetable market in Portobello Road, and the noise of parties and arguments floating from open windows at night”.79 In a local history workshop, older residents who spent their years of adolescence in 1960s Notting Hill remembered that much of the local clubs supplied the demand for drinking, gambling, music, prostitution, and drugs. In their online article called “Seedy Clubs and Dives of Notting Hill, 1956-1970”, they illustrate that venues such as the Cafe Continental at Portobello Road 15 attracted a mixed clientele.80 Others in contrast just catered a black or white audience. The Seventy Seven, a restaurant and club owned by a local West Indian, was known for serving blacks and white together of all age groups whereas the “El Portobello” was primarily of interest for a young mixed clientele. This group of open-minded kids who looked for excitement in multiracial neighbourhoods, according to journalists, had an obsessional hatred of racial prejudice and worshipped the “Spades”.81 The majority of young people, however, were still influenced by racism.82 Even Cypriot, Maltese, and Irish gang members were seen to compensate for their own experience of discrimination by taking part in verbal and physical attacks. Les Back’s metropolitan paradox—the contradiction between the daily experience of, and rejection of, a multiracial Britain—is also applicable to

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race relations in the 1960s, a decade defined by both new contact zones and the power and persistence of racism.83 The latter often had its roots in parental education. Parents’ attitudes towards racial integration, especially when children started to become sexually active, impeded discussion of such matters. While statistics suggest that Britain—including the Church of England—had become more and more “progressive”84 towards mixed-­ race marriages, and the world’s scientific community had refuted the idea that mixed-race couples having children would cause genetic problems, 71 per cent of Britons were still against multi-ethnic marriages in 1961.85 West Indian families, on the other hand, discouraged their offspring from playing with white children in the street, in an effort to protect them from racism.86 Youth workers and teachers intended to meet parents from both sides to discuss their reservations.87 School life sometimes overrode the concerns of parents, particularly in schools with a large catchment area. Here, black and white teenagers went to the same classes but often sat next to those with the same skin colour.88 Thus, according to race relations expert Dilip Hiro, “school familiarizes black children with whites [but] also makes them aware of their racial difference”.89 In the mid-1960s, with the children of migrant families beginning to reach school and youth-club age, the topic of race relations was high on the agenda. For many, the first British offspring of West Indian migrants symbolised both hope and danger. Being born in Britain meant that these children must establish their own identity, balanced between the nationality of their parents and their own British background.90 This search for identity, of course, provoked tensions. Conflicts arose when schoolteachers forbade black Britons from learning about their parents’ countries and did not attempt to acknowledge the complex nature of their cultural identity. Many children born to migrant families felt British but noticed that mainstream society did not accept them as such.91 Black parents, government institutions, and teachers believed that education had the power to stimulate integration. It was assumed that education would enable a child to “climb higher up the social ladder than his parents” and “to assimilate a great deal of British culture”.92 Qualifications would accord school-leavers’ access to the labour market, and as a consequence, the chance to overcome the status of second-class citizen. Schools also provided alternative social networks for migrant communities. Many black parents saw race as a social construction, and thus hoped that their primary-school children wouldn’t “face any ‘colour’ difficulties”.93

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Together with anti-racist parents and policy-makers, they believed that integrating children at an early age could help eliminate racism in the longer term.94 Black children, however, reported that mixing heavily with their white counterparts declined at the onset of their teens.95 Shared interests were essential to these interactions, but race-relations officers noted that “a substantial minority of immigrants from the Commonwealth [are] living outside the mainstream of communal life”.96 The Institute of Race Relations also found that children were not free from racism and that those they interviewed between the ages of five and eight were aware of skin colour.97 In contrast to race-relations experts, who saw structural issues such as living conditions and racism as responsible for friction between different cultures, some policy-makers and youth and education experts blamed migrant communities themselves for the failure of integration. Reactions to the formation of sub-communities were highly ambivalent. On one hand, somehow the “natural” dynamics of segregation and special cultural needs were to blame for the formation of sub-communities, while on the other, segregation lowered the prospects for good race relations. Further, some gave to paper that individual backgrounds had a negative effect on integration. Within youth work circles, the rural origins of migrant families were mentioned in regard to the problems of integration and trouble explained with over-stressed by big-city life.98 Stigmatisation even went so far as to suggest that migrants suffered from emotional difficulties caused by their “traditional education”.99 According to the Bow Group in 1969, the “schizophrenic character” produced among “young immigrants [who] were integrated by/through school and on the other hand still embedded in a close national community” precluded any real chance of integration.100 These positions appear to reject the idea that racism was ultimately responsible for good or bad race relations. At a conference on race relations in October 1958, however, hundreds of grammar-school pupils from London spoke of their awareness of racial prejudice.101 Attendees blamed their parents for racist attitudes, but at the same time did not believe that integration was possible. Teachers with an immigration background complained in the late 1950s about “the use of out-of-date geography books and the misleading information still given in schools”.102 In 1962, the Centre for Urban Studies revealed that 7 per cent of people in Britain were against the integration of black children and teenagers in schools. Teachers themselves reproduced prejudices, which were then adopted by teenagers.

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“Othering” overshadowed school life.103 In 1969, north London’s black community protested in response to a racist school politics in Haringey.104 The vice chairman of the local education committee wrote that black children were by nature less intelligent than their white counterparts.105 In the autumn of 1970, parents went on strike for the right to choose their child’s school and called for the abolition of banding tests.106 Their protest was backed by the Sunday Telegraph, explaining that IQ tests were subject to cultural bias.107 To encourage integration, working groups and associations were founded on both sides.108 Many of these had their roots in government institutions, were founded by local residents, and collaborated with one another in order to deal with specific local concerns.109 Self-help groups were set up to enable migrants and minority groups to find solutions to everyday problems.110 Some celebrated the culture of home countries, helping to strengthen the links between black teenagers born in Britain and their cultural origins.111 Racism paved the way for the romanticism and glorification of West Indian culture, but also its isolation from Britishness, a process which was aided by the subsumation of Caribbean culture within the concept of a global black identity. This arose in part as a consequence of widespread solidarity with the struggles of black Americans in the 1960s.112 In the late 1960s, Rastafarianism manifested in some West Indians’ desire to return to their cultural roots in Africa.113 Its effect on music meant that white working-class teenagers could no longer relate to the “Rastafarianised” form of reggae, a genre they had previously embraced as a homage to shared experiences of urban life.114 The notion of a transnational black identity, however, was fragile, as many black communities still believed in integration. West Indians had expected to be given the chance to assimilate into British society because of their status as British subjects and Commonwealth members.115 Further, cautionary tales from abroad strengthened the resolve among migrants in Britain to integrate successfully. Black Londoners observed events in the US, for example, with horror.116 These fears led to the introduction of multiracial playgroups, in an effort to encourage integration.117 In July 1968, groups and committees funded the Association of Multi-racial Playgroups.118 These playgroups were based on the idea that “playing together is a good preparation for living together”.119 First established in “educational priority areas” identified by the Plowden Report,120 playgroups became a major community strategy for improving race

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relations.121 Many of them initially were attended only by children from minority groups, only over time becoming multiracial facilities.122 Multiracial playgroups emerged partly in response to race-related violence in London. Despite proud claim of British commentators that Britain’s own race riots were never of the same severity as those in the US,123 racially motivated violence had been part of black people’s lives in Britain from the mid-1950s onwards.124 A Guyanese student who returned to London in 1957 noticed: “England […] had changed completely, because the tolerance had gone and there was the beginning of anger.”125 Sporadic fights broke out in Camden Town in 1954.126 Hostility was soon a legitimate response to migration.127 Growing racist sentiment led to an outbreak of serious violence in Kensington on Sunday 24 August 1958.128 Nine young people described as Teddy Boys drove around Notting Hill, beating up black residents. Days of violence followed,129 in what came to be regarded as a defining episode for racial tensions in post-war Britain.130 The majority held “young thugs” responsible for the attacks, but also for terrorising the city as a whole.131 Newspapers published articles with photographs of young offenders.132 As a consequence, racism began to be seen as a phenomenon of the young, a symptom of restless youth culture which had nothing to do with British citizenship.133 The “vast majority” of those present were described as bystanders, watching as Teddy Boys attacked black residents. An American writer interested in youth culture recorded that members of a youth club he studied in London took part in the riots, not out of racism but for the excitement.134 Witnesses exposed such statements as inaccurate, reporting that people shouted “go on, boys, get yourselves some blacks” (Image 5.3).135 Along with working-class teenagers and dangerous youth cultures, immigrants themselves were blamed for this violent event. Overcrowding forced black teenagers out onto the streets, and the resulting noise would have been causing local conflicts.136 A housewife from Lancaster Road warned that white residents would “take matters into [their] own hands if something isn’t done”.137 She, however, cited not race-related incidents but “juke boxes going on till three or four in the morning”.138 Every night, black people would loiter, drink, and smoke weed in the streets and would shout “Come on out you white so-and-sos and we’ll show you whose country it is”.139 It was an unspoken truth that “slumlords” organised loud parties to encourage white residents to leave their flats, so that they could rent them to black immigrants for more

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Image 5.3  A demonstrator is marched off during the Notting Hill Riots on 1 September 1958. (Copyright: Keystone Press/Alamy Stock Photo)

money.140 Even the chief minister of Jamaica travelled to Notting Hill in order to discuss with residents and politicians the reasons for racial tensions.141 One resident told him that “the trouble was caused by a nearby coloured club” on Colville Road, where “the juke box blares all

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afternoon and evening”.142 The woman had signed a petition which listed abuses.143 Illicit sexual behaviour was also named as a provocative factor in the Notting Hill riots. A local newspaper communicated that “five registered coloured clubs opened […] in the months before the violence” and that “it was known that prostitutes often stayed in them”.144 Local children would have even begun to ask their parents, on seeing a black woman in the street, “why has that lady got so many husbands?”145 Residents panicked that local teenagers might be influenced by and mimic such promiscuity. The “slumlords” had helped bring the area into disrepute by using prostitution as a means of clearing properties of unwanted tenants.146 Sources, however, list the names of only twenty-two black men sentenced for living off “immoral earnings” in the two years before the riots.147 Urban escapism, leisure culture, and the forbidden fruits of metropolitan life all played a significant role in the tensions which culminated in the Notting Hill riots. Hence, the Kensington Post called for prevention strategies, complaining that the House of Lords had made no reference to the youth service when discussing the riots.148 Celebrities founded the Stars Campaign for Interracial Friendship in order to promote racial harmony, performing shows in youth clubs in west London.149 They hoped that white and black youngsters spending their leisure time together would prove to be an effective strategy for easing racial tensions.150 In respect of all those involved in the riots, (modern) popular culture was blamed for encouraging the disturbance of public order, by virtue of the attitudes and behaviours it promoted—sexuality, restlessness, self-­ assurance, immorality, partying, and noise. The offenders, described as young working-class thugs with connections to subcultures, and the victims had something in common, in that both groups were associated with the idea of a broken Britain. James Wickenden, of the Institute of Race Relations, pointed out, albeit with different intent, that the offenders were just another manifestation of the (semi) criminal lumpenproletariat that had existed in Shepherd’s Bush for decades.151 The cultural roots of both offenders and victims would lay in the criminal underworld of the metropolis and the immoral pleasures of modern popular culture, which together constituted a threat to the imagined construct of traditional Britishness. Racially motivated violence continued to exist up until the end of the 1960s.152 In the late 1950s and the first half of the 1960s, black people were still the focus of attacks, which frequently involved youth gangs and representatives of youth cultures.153 In reference to Notting Hill, the West

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London Observer wrote six years after the riots that “race relations […] have NOT undergone any fundamental change”.154 As if to illustrate this, in north London in June 1965, five youths leaving a party threw a bottle at a black man in Stamford Hill.155 Racist attitudes of Skinheads in the late 1960s also did not differ very much from the rest of society.156 Many still saw no contradiction between attacking blacks and standing shoulder to shoulder with black teenagers in their gangs.157 Antisemitism was a problem, too. In March 1960, two men from Lithuania appeared in court charged with stabbing a Jewish youth. One of them said to the magistrate: “If I had a gun, I [would] shoot the Jewish,” and “All the Jewish want to be shot.”158 Just two months earlier, youths had painted swastikas on a wall at Lytham Town Hall, while another group of teenagers wrote “Death to the Jews” on a hoarding at Enfield in Middlesex.159 There were numerous attacks on Jewish teenagers by youth gangs, particularly in areas with an active Jewish community.160 Minority groups soon began to defend their neighbourhoods. When in 1962 Oswald Mosley and his antisemitic “blackshirts” marched in the East End rally, the demonstrators were attacked at Ridley Road in Dalston by a crowd of several thousand people.161 Among their defenders were local Mods.162 Asian communities defended themselves against “Paki-­ bashing” in the late 1960s and early 1970s.163 The complexity and ambivalence within racism were expressed in graffiti on a wall in Stoke Newington, on which Skinheads wrote: “Up the blacks, down with Paks.”164 In some cases, Skinheads and their black associates “hunted” Pakistanis together.165 Hebdige explains this as a way of compensating for the discrimination these youths had encountered themselves.166 Such attacks were also an expression of heterosexual, working-class masculinity, as both groups considered Asians to be effeminate.167 In order to defend Asian communities, local police forces intensified their cooperation with local migrant networks.168 Hackney’s Labour MP declared that “[i]t is the right, the basic right of every citizen in Britain to walk the streets freely”.169 Migrants, however, did not believe his words and felt that they were unable to count on the support of the police. The experience of the Notting Hill riots had shown that calling the police could easily result in new conflicts with police forces.170 Officers arrested Pakistanis along with their attackers.171 In response to a government special committee on juvenile delinquency in August 1964, a survey of black boys and girls asked whether they had ever encountered problems with the police, and 60 per cent answered that they had.172 Local community

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relations officers reported in the late 1960s that people of colour felt that the police were watching them, and that they were in constant danger of unjustified arrest.173 Despite fight against right-wing movements in London in the 1960s,174 racism could still be found at the highest levels during this period. Racial profiling and racially motivated police violence came to a head at the end of the decade.175 Around this time, the police began to criminalise the country’s Black Power movement, raiding some of their premises, including the Mangrove Restaurant.176 Black youngsters were often more radical than their older counterparts, whom they criticised for simply wanting to demonstrate against the Mangrove raids. In Hackney, relations were so bad that the local Community Relations Council organised a meeting to discuss the tensions.177 A memorandum on relations between the police and black teenagers identified problem areas, naming districts such as Paddington North and North Kensington.178 In Paddington, the situation had deteriorated in August 1969 when police arrested attendees of a meeting on police brutality at North Paddington School.179 In the same month, fourteen black youths campaigned against police brutality outside the North London Magistrates’ Court. The demonstration was organised after three men were arrested for allegedly insulting and assaulting a police officer on Ridley Road.180 London’s police often patrolled in the vicinity of premises visited by black teenagers.181 One such spot was a Wimpy bar on Harrow Road, which opened late in order to allow local teenagers to purchase food on their way home. Harrow Road Police Station was just two hundred yards away from the Wimpy bar, meaning that the premises were subject to “maximum police surveillance […] which often led to numerous arrests”.182 In some cases, local residents called the police simply because they had seen a group of black people on the street.183 In response to poor relations between local police forces and migrant communities, the Met tried to change its image from a police force that did not welcome black people to one that would respect and treat citizens equally.184

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Teenagers in “Jack the Ripper Land”: Working-Class Youth Culture and the End of the “Traditional” Working-Class Neighbourhood Racially motivated attacks took place because Londoners also felt immigration was to blame for the destruction of the “traditional working-­class neighbourhood”.185 Scholars suggested that Skinhead gangs attacked immigrants and black people because gang members saw migration as a threat to traditional urban working-class neighbourhood life, which in post-war times was also under pressure from urban renewal and suburbanisation.186 According to the CCCS, they attacked “scapegoated outsiders” rather than channel their aggression “against the authorities responsible for their grievance”.187 Fighting was often the result of territorial conflicts, and as such reaffirmed local identities which were, according to contemporary witnesses, historically rooted in the territorial thinking of workingclass communities.188 Local class identities, however, also allowed communities to transcend racial boundaries to an extent, as Skinheads realised that many migrants had assimilated into Britain’s working class.189 This was possible, in the view of the CCCS, because class was not something that occurred naturally but more of a “happening”—constituted, reproduced, and transmitted in the sphere of culture.190 This new notion emerged at a time when British Marxist academics saw Britain’s working class confronted with socioeconomic changes which perpetuated an inherent traditional class culture. Some feared that embourgeoisement would destroy any sense of revolutionary power, as affluence, more than ever before, homogenised the parameters of people’s lives. Thus, scholars such as Richard Hoggart romanticised the working class and its history.191 He divided working-class values into “older attitudes” and “newer attitudes”, blaming the latter for the creation of somehow “unnatural” identities. For Hoggart, mass culture and working-class culture were distinct, as the first tended to disregard class identities in its vision of a mythical classless society.192 In the eyes of influential post-war sociologists, working-class culture had begun to be supplanted by the anonymity characterising modern urban life.193 Peter Willmott and Michael Young studied urban redevelopment to see how dispersal and modern mass housing had destabilised working-class community life in London in the early 1960s.194 Today, we know that some of these assumptions did not describe the truth as such; instead they largely represented academic imaginations of a “traditional working-class neighbourhood”.195 While there are good reasons

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for demystifying the notion of this type of neighbourhood, urban renewal, and particularly gentrification, did in fact change the social composition of inner-city residential areas. Ruth Glass invented the term “gentrification” in the mid-1960s to describe social cleansing in former working-class neighbourhoods in North Kensington in the late 1950s.196 Rehousing, as an adjuvant to modern principles of global city-building, facilitated the replacement of former working-class living areas with office blocks, retail outlets, and other business and trade premises.197 Working-­class Londoners faced a combination of high land prices and repair costs, and at the same time had access to the “biggest seller’s market of all time”, which, according to scholars like Hoggart, changed the notion of class identity.198 The value of property companies exploded in the 1960s.199 Additionally, the Conservative-led Greater London Council (GLC) wanted to sell council houses to tenants. From the council’s point of view, this was the solution to getting rid of run-down prewar estates, but it ignored the fact that they were one of London’s last remaining resources for those in need of cheap accommodation.200 Not every new estate built was intended for occupation by urban working-class residents. The Barbican Centre, for example, was built to house the privileged, even though employment in the City of London in the late 1950s was dominated by lower income groups.201 The massive increase in commuting exemplifies the way in which gentrification and suburbanisation perpetuated one another in the 1960s.202 In 1969, the Guardian wrote that living in London was “a fraud to most of the people who call themselves Londoners”.203 Housing was a particular problem for young couples,204 and some young people sent a political message by squatting in houses for “kids in London with nowhere to stay”.205 Social polarisation increased as the working class began to desert the inner-city areas. Peter Hall noticed that wealthier citizens “seek new and trendy areas in London’s twilight zone of Victorian housing where they can join the world of the Stringalongs”.206 Further, according to Joe Moran, such middle-class pioneers had their own way of living, which during the 1960s quickly began to replace the everyday patterns of workingclass life in many districts.207 From the point of view of local authorities, urban planners, and local businessmen, these middle-class incomers were financially better off and thus considered better tenants and customers, while institutions and local services began to cater for their needs instead of those of the working class.208

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Housing experts claimed that London was failing to build adequate and affordable housing for the city’s working class.209 Tenants organised rent strikes against rapidly increasing rents for council-owned flats. Such actions exacerbated the sense that London had become a city that no longer provided for the needs of its many working-class residents.210 The 1968 Rent Act paved the way for rent controls, but ultimately could not slow down the growth of class divisions in relation to housing.211 Even critical scholars were not able to develop political instruments and policies to adequately address this, meaning that social displacement, as well as the pressure on London’s housing market, continued into the late 1960s.212 Such developments within the housing market supported the assumption that working-class identity and inner-city working-class life were under fire from various angles. Scholars turned their focus onto the offspring of working-class families, who were growing up in a fast-changing urban environment. In British post-war sociology, urban working-class neighbourhood life and modern youth culture were seen as mutually dependent, not just in the effort to conserve working-class identities but also in providing new interpretations of inner-city working-class life. This was important because, so the assumption, features of urban working-class life, such as kinship networks, disappeared as a result of the effects of mass housing and suburbanisation on large families.213 Hoggart explained the decline of working-class solidarity as a side-effect of modern youth culture, noting that working-class pursuits, traditionally passed down from one generation to the next, were no longer compatible with young people’s leisure preferences.214 Others held the view that working-class youth cultures both reproduced notions of working-class culture and formed their own, introducing elements of urban change into working-class identities.215 Contemporary witnesses also describe a reciprocal exchange between working-class neighbourhood life and modern forms of working-class youth culture, suggesting that even though the working-class neighbourhood was by and large a cultural invention, it gave context to, and popularised, certain values, norms, and lifestyles. As a result, these became associated with an imagined class identity.216 In the light of this powerful narrative, organisations providing services for young people approached modern youth culture through the lens of urban working-­class neighbourhood life and thus helped to solidify such associations.217 According to urban scholars and youth workers, working-class teenagers had grown up with, and hence become part of, the “mosaic of social worlds”,218 shaped by the social and cultural fragmentation which produced new iterations of

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community based on ethnicity or locality.219 Working-class youth still identified themselves with working-class values, norms, and daily life, while challenging the idea of how a working-class lifestyle might look in the light of urban change and new affluence.220 While for most Britons who did not live in London, impressions of the city might have centred around Westminster or other historic landmarks, northern visitors also noticed that the capital was still full of “slums and [dirty] streets”.221 On the basis of the poor living conditions in which many working-class teenagers grew up in the early 1960s, Mods from working-class districts considered themselves representative of local working-class culture.222 Youth scenes, and the way the public perceived them, frequently referred to a set of imagined cultural codes associated with an inner-city working-class lifestyle. In photographs, newspaper articles, and youth-work reports, modern youth culture aestheticised the same street corners that had historically been associated with working-­ class life. They repurposed them as an important hangout for local youths, allowing them to control their territory and protect “their women” from rivals in other areas.223 Fashion, too, re-ignited regional rivalries and fostered local competition.224 Further, urban renewal was a long-term project, meaning that in the late 1950s and early 1960s, working-class children were still experiencing poor living conditions.225 Modern leisure facilities such as coffee bars could be found stretching along the main thoroughfares of working-class neighbourhoods, as businessmen saw an opportunity to make money from the many working-class people seeking a distraction from work. Some helped ethnic and cultural sub-communities to become economically successful, creating a cultural setting for youngsters which was far more appealing than schoolbooks. Working-class neighbourhoods, in the words of actor Steven Berkoff, still had their own “university of life”, which was attended by the majority of Londoners during their teenage years.226 Young people’s reflections on life outside the centre illustrate the ways in which suburban areas differed from cosmopolitan and dense inner-city neighbourhoods.227 Residents of inner cities were seen as part of a “community of destiny”, bound together through rationing and the post-­war spirit of “make-do and mend”.228 The idea was that friendship circles and poverty constituted alternative identity models and triggered young people’s interest in pop-culture trivia and fashion. Humour and self-­presentation were named as features of a sort of working-class dandyism which defined

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working-class youth culture in the 1960s.229 East, the first play written by Berkoff, portrays the masculine world from which East End working-class youth culture originated. Here, life centred around blood and sperm, and a drive to break out of the banality and poverty of working-class existence. A vast amount of literature cites London’s pervasive masculine street ethic as a source of inspiration for working-class youth culture.230 This was not the only manifestation of the intersection between inner-­ city working-class neighbourhood life and modern working-class youth culture. The “delinquent teenager” construct had its origins in the image of deprived working-class neighbourhoods and soon reappeared in relation to young people living in newly built council estates.231 Thereby, it stood in line with the long tradition of working-class stigmatisation.232 Youth workers reported that deprived working-class neighbourhoods had their own different moral standards. Here, criminal activities would have been not condemned but helped to inform local identity-building.233 Youth workers, magistrates, politicians, and the media all feared that delinquent gangs of youths would turn Britain upside down.234 For them, it was necessary not just to meet the needs of youngsters but to study the lifestyles of working-class youth in order to prevent the breakdown of society.235 Thus, experimental youth work boomed in the 1960s, producing rich insights into the inner lives of urban working-class youth. Cultural production, according to youth reports, was still rooted in  locality, informed by daily rhythms and repetitive practices such as visits to local coffee bars, in which loose-knit networks of young people would meet each other.236 Working-class institutions such as street markets and high streets continued to exist and to stimulate social and cultural activity.237 In contrast to youth workers who label repetitive cultural practices as boring and meaningless,238 such practices represented reliability in a fast-changing world. Progressive youth workers noticed that neighbourhood life was a complex system of social relationships.239 Time spent “waiting to see what happens”240 was not wasted, but used for self-representation. On street corners, heroic tales found an audience when teenage gangs returned from “foreign territory” to recount their experiences.241 The new affluence, urban renewal, the arrival of mass media, and the fragmentation of social relations were accompanied not by de- but by re-territorialisation. “Gangdom” survived in post-war times with the help of teenage gangs.242 Small gangs defined by loose friendship circles and certain leisure venues were part of a larger mob which brought local gangs

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together under the umbrella of a district, neighbourhood, or “manor”. Leisure institutions and commercial leisure facilities delineated the geography and boundaries of a mob.243 Such facilities made a significant contribution to creative networking, with members who knew and influenced one another during their teenage years.244 Youth clubs such as the Victoria Club offered teenagers a break from working-class struggles and made an effort to accommodate their fascination for modern popular culture.245 Weekends were often spent in the entertainment districts of west London,246 whereas on weekdays kids attended local leisure venues.247 Self-identification with working-class culture was inspired by a huge variety of newspaper reports which stressed both the continuity and the “otherness” of urban working-class districts.248 In media, slums and social deprivation had survived the slum clearances, and council houses produced their own form of inner-city poverty.249 The poor, it was suggested, had caused some estates to resemble the apartment buildings of the poorer districts of Naples, with “washing hanging on iron balconies, and children playing in the courtyards”.250 Redevelopment might have given the East End a makeover, but its image had not changed at all.251 Still referred to as “Jack the Ripper Land”, poverty shaped the psycho-geography of inner-­ city working-class areas, and thus infiltrated local youth identities. Colour features in the new glossy post-war lifestyle magazines such as About Town sensationalised the idea of “rotten boroughs” by illustrating moral decay also with teen culture.252 In contrast to the photographers of 1950s London, who emphasised the warm-heartedness of inner-city working-class life, such articles focused on the fragmentation of community life, in part caused by migration. According to the press, in these so-called rotten boroughs, social spaces that historically had stimulated community life would have survived, although modern urban planning would have done its best to destroy the last aspects of community feeling. Finsbury Park, for example, in this narrative automatically attracted people who could not afford to live anywhere else. Another prominent indicator of the “rotten borough” in such articles was the presence of marauding youth gangs. It was expected that limited economic opportunities fostered street crime in these areas, giving the authorities the sense that the “rotten borough” had fallen victim to “anarchy”, where “power is in the hands of those who fight successfully for it, not those with a right to it”.253 Areas such as Aldgate East appeared as consisting of “bombed sites, car dumps and crumbling remains of houses”,254 with street drinkers a stone’s throw away from the Whitechapel Gallery, where stars of the international

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art world exhibited their latest work. Such overlapping social geographies were highly important for the self-narrative of London in post-war times as they became a central inspiration for the cultural revolution London underwent in post-war times. This revolution, however, took place against the backdrop of migration. The children of Aldgate East, who lived with their families in cramped houses until the LCC was able to build alternative accommodation, became a symbol of decay. Bored and frustrated, newspapers wrote, these young people spent night after night in the local Formica youth club. In order to make money, they sold pigeons in a poignant example of the dividedness of Macmillan’s England in the early 1960s.255 While some contemporaries believed that council housing and redevelopment schemes were an efficient way to fight poverty and social inequality, others feared that modern urban living could produce new manifestations of poverty, particularly in the form of social isolation. In 1975, J. G. Ballard published High Rise, in which he tells the story of a war between wealthy tenants living in a modern tower block.256 The disruption of communities explored in the novel reflected the fears of contemporary social scientists.257 Joan Maizel’s Rowntree Trust pointed out that a lack of social spaces on council estates meant that children suffered from not “mixing with their peers”,258 as “bourgeoisification” in urban planning idealised the core family, although architects were conscious that “people want privacy but not isolation”.259 The dominance of the core family in planning policy had an impact on family life for nearly every social class. On council estates, however, tenants often came from a similar class background and age group.260 For young families, freshly built estates gave their offspring the opportunity to grow up in a better environment. Higher rents for properties on the new estates not only contributed to the spatial concentration of classes, but revitalised old class conflicts, sometimes creating new ones. In some cases, waiting lists housed those with particular needs more quickly than others, prompting disputes over allocation.261 The majority of council estates soon became one-class estates. Some tenants supported the idea of working-class people living together, stating that it felt more “relaxed” to live among others from their own class, because “they’re human”.262 Sometimes, the social characteristics of a newly built estate were felt to be incompatible with the established social composition of an area or neighbourhood, which provoked tensions between new and existing residents.263

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Urban planners and architects were frequently aware that community life was important for wellbeing in modern cities, as isolation, individualisation, and fragmentation had become more of a challenge than ever before. Hence, housing schemes were built to incorporate a variety of social spaces. Youth advisers who worked on housing estates warned that scapegoating, together with housing law, facilitated generational conflict and that “gossip and the popular press tend to exaggerate the misdeeds of youngsters and to make people afraid of them”.264 While teenage life on council estates had become a major research topic in youth work by the late 1960s, it received little attention from scholars working on the history of youth culture.265 Sociologists had an interest in the expression of teenage culture on council estates, especially since the movement of young families had turned large estates into centres of modern youth culture.266 Skinhead gangs named themselves after their estates, giving rise to the perception not only that large estates had fallen under the control of teenage gangs, but also that spaces attached to estates had become major gathering points for working-class youth.267 Gangs created their own system of belonging and territorialism.268 By the late 1950s, T. R. Fyvel noticed that youth identities had begun to interact with the new suburban environment and its newly built estates.269 Newspapers sensationalised the problems council estates had with delinquent youth gangs, and some went so far as to write that gang crime was now at a level comparable to that seen in America.270 To the frustration of tenants, loitering on or around estates became a popular activity for youths.271 To avoid conflicts, parents set up strict rules for their offspring in order “to guarantee peace at night”.272 Although the provision of recreational space as such was far from adequate, council estates gave youngsters access to “great space among the blocks”.273 The use of intermediate spaces, however, was not welcomed by older residents, who complained that teenagers would gather in corners on the landings between floors to “do their encountering”. An older local resident pointed out in Westminster & Pimlico News that his generation had behaved far more respectfully as youngsters,274 and criticised the “filthy” language used by young tenants.275 Playing also caused a nuisance, and signs proclaiming “No Ball Games” were erected by councils on housing estates. At the Millbank Estate, a resident told a local newspaper that “intolerable nuisance and noise” had become a major issue.276 She had even contacted her local MP, asking him to support her fight against boys using the floodlighting to play football at night outside the residential buildings.

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Vandalism on council estates was also traditionally attributed to marauding teen gangs. On newly built estates, people immediately feared that children would begin “chalking all over the walls” if no recreational facilities were provided for them.277 In September 1960, a Westminster newspaper reported “shocking vandalism” on the Churchill Gardens Estate.278 When the windows of two greenhouses were smashed at St. Mark’s College in Chelsea in 1966, police officers blamed a teenage gang from the nearby Wandon Road council estate. This gang was considered so dangerous that people knew who the offenders were, but were “afraid to tell the police”.279 Tenants also asked the GLC what it intended to do to counteract hooliganism.280 Representatives replied that there was no evidence that hooliganism was more prevalent on council estates than elsewhere, but that the council would pay more attention to vandalism. In some neighbourhoods, police forces patrolled the poorer housing estates.281 In Hackney, the police appointed “village policemen”282 and planned the installation of local police posts. The scheme was rejected because of existing property rights; however, it was hoped that close cooperation between police, communities, and local organisations would help to reduce problems. Recreational space was suggested as a way of tackling the problem of hooliganism.283 Parents, teachers, and youth workers advocated the building of adventure playgrounds, claiming that lack of space was the main reason for destructive behaviour.284 The chairman of the Children’s Playgrounds Committee of the National Playing Fields Association told the Guardian in October 1961 that architects and local authorities must prioritise playgrounds over garages.285 Playgrounds, however, were so few that the catchment area of each would contain up to 350 children. The building of new estates made it necessary to extend existing provision. Money and political willingness had been key problems in providing playgrounds, so tenants’ associations often took this matter into their own hands, some noting later on that local authorities tried to take credit for the positive effect of these interventions without supporting such efforts financially. Often, community organisations coordinated the provision of leisure facilities and youth programmes, so that despite the fears of scholars such as Willmott and Young, housing estates had their own sense of community. Community-building was often inspired by traditions of community formation and was ultimately stimulated by national and municipal policies.286 Many community organisations began to place their emphasis

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on providing for the needs of young people, because young tenants complained that, on housing estates, “there was nothing to look at”.287 In response, locals organised “coach trips to take council estate children to the beach”.288 Youth work was often in the hands of tenants’ associations, whose task was to organise social provision for residents.289 For these purposes, estate “club rooms” were used. In some cases, authorities initiated the establishment of a local tenants’ association. Often, local tenants’ associations had to rent these rooms from the LCC or GLC, requiring members to pay the rents, but had ultimate control of their own programmes.290 Tenants debated which group of residents had the right to use the club room, and for what purposes. Some tenants’ associations decided to exclude outsiders, using club rooms exclusively for residents, in order to strengthen the sense of community.291 Sometimes an association had no club room, while others suffered from uninterested tenants. In the view of local newspapers, it was unacceptable that housing schemes did not all include club rooms as a matter of course, as social isolation was seen as a major problem in modern cities.292 Often, planners and local authorities speculated that nearby churches already catered for social needs, and did not foresee that redevelopment might affect social infrastructure.293 When a fourteen-storey tower block was built in Westminster in 1966, a local Labour politician called for “an amenity area associated with it”, because of the high density of accommodation involved.294 To enable people to gather socially, it was suggested that the proposed car park should be used as open space, and parking provision relocated to the basement. In some cases, there was not enough manpower to run a tenants’ association.295 Local tenants’ associations easily ran short of money, as residents generally appreciated the club room programmes, but did not always pay towards them.296 As a result, club rooms became run-down community centres which sometimes had to be knocked down and rebuilt.297 A self-inflicted problem of tenants’ associations was the lack of provision in their programmes for families with children. Further, many associations suffered from the popularity of the television.298 While the character of tenants’ associations varied, they faced common challenges. An umbrella organisation was proposed, that could work on larger problems, present interests at a higher political level, and coordinate community work. In 1957, the Standing Conference of Housing Estate Community Groups was founded. The organisation should also compensate for the social effects of rehousing and urban development.299 The task

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of providing youth programmes, in particular, brought tenants’ associations together.300 The need for voluntary youth work on council estates was a result of the number of young people living on such estates. It was estimated that between 1956 and 1958 there had been a 37 per cent increase in the number of estate dwellers in England and Wales. There was an additional increase of 127 per cent in 1963, in comparison to 1958.301 This provoked a crisis around the behaviour of youths on council estates in 1961–62.302 Many tenants’ associations saw themselves as responsible for introducing young residents into the social realm and teaching them social responsibility. This was perhaps because, in the mid-1960s, people still considered neighbourhoods to be the centre of social life. Consequently, youth work became an integral part of club programmes. The Burdett Tenants’ Association ran a regular night for local teenagers and allowed modern youth culture to become part of it.303 On another evening, a crêche was provided for youngsters so that residents could enjoy the popular rock ‘n’ roll dance night. On Thursdays, a girls’ club met at the club room. Not every resident, however, welcomed the idea of teenagers being allowed to use club rooms. Some complained that providing a local coffee bar was a waste of money, which instead ought to be used to help finance local schools.304 Others signed petitions calling for the closure of their local youth club because of fighting and rowdiness after dance-nights.305 Teenagers did their best to convince disgruntled tenants that such measures were not necessary. The Hackney Gazette supported these young residents.306 Some teenagers did not just wait for older tenants to act on their behalf. On the Hallfield Estate in Bayswater, a group of young people decided to organise a programme of youth activities.307 Therefore, they collected empty beer bottles and asked residents for financial support. Afterwards, they got in touch with the chairman of the tenants’ association, who allowed them to run their own club nights and participate in inter-estate activities. The fact that initiatives such as this were self-run and self-­ governed did not mean that there was no supervision. Social control was hidden within the structure and function of the tenants’ association, whereby parents retained indirect control over their children, and made older youths responsible for the behaviour of the whole group. The Albemarle Report also highlighted the need for more financial support among youth clubs and community centres attached to large housing estates.308 Thus, statutory youth organisations began to put their efforts into youth work on housing estates.309 Despite being an essential

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component of community work, youth services suffered from lack of space. In some areas of London, youth groups founded by tenants and young residents were fortunate to have access to tenants’ halls or club rooms, while others had to rent premises in nearby schools or church halls. In Westminster in 1961, the Home Office suggested that derelict air-raid shelters should be used for youth work in respect of the Ebury Bridge Estate.310 The chairman of the tenants’ association, however, argued that the Home Office just wanted to get rid of an unwanted building, and complained that the facilities did not meet the requirements. The Youth Service Building Programme was set up to also build adequate facilities on estates.311 As newly built youth centres, they were modern buildings catering for modern youth work in modern times. The Alton Youth Club, for example, had three levels. The ground floor consisted of a large open-­ plan entrance area with a coffee bar, designed to integrate coffee-bar culture into youth club life. In order to try to grapple with the need for adequate youth work and premises on housing estates, the National Council of Social Service held a special meeting in January 1956.312 Experts addressed the particular needs of young people growing up on large housing estates.313 Factors such as noise, as well as the limited availability of social space in dense environments, hampered social and cultural activities more than in other areas.314 Further, local problems were being exacerbated by the non-existence of youth clubs. Thus, those attending the meeting decided to search for sites suitable for the building of youth premises. The main challenges were that existing premises were often overbooked and potential building sites and nearby facilities were not always suitable for youth work. In order to manage the youth-work crisis facing estates in the 1960s, the Association of London Housing Estates founded the Youth Advisory Service in 1962. This initiative was intended to guarantee high standards in youth work on housing estates and provide help for voluntary youth workers. The project trained volunteers, published information relating to youth work on council estates, and established connections between professional youth workers, local youth clubs, tenants’ associations, and the youth departments of local authorities. London was no exception in this approach, as other cities and their youth services too turned their eyes towards the needs of young residents.315 In order to investigate local youth work, the staff of the Youth Advisory Service visited tenants’ associations to see the programmes they had installed according to their financial and spatial resources. Some

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associations had organised “Pick of the Pops” sessions, where the club chairman played records that residents had brought along,316 which were then evaluated by a chosen jury, while a crowd of teenagers between fifteen and seventeen years old stood around chatting and giggling at these comments. As many of those attending dressed up, these events were seen as quite important by local teenagers. Often, girls began to dance at around nine or ten o’clock, whereas the boys stood by the wall, carefully observing the scene while smoking and tapping their feet. Frequently, they interrupted the dance to ask a girl to have a soft drink with them. Early youth provision on housing estates was normally based around this sort of casual evening out. As flats often did not provide enough space for activities, such events became an essential part of young residents’ lives. Informal youth nights helped consolidate young people’s affiliation with the local community, and this was particularly the case when young tenants did not have to leave their estates. Fluidity and instability left their mark on the number of attendees. In the eyes of older people and professional youth workers, these events also provided an alternative to the riskier commercial entertainment available in nearby pubs, nightclubs, and coffee bars.317 Music was critical to the success of a youth night, and the easiest way to provide it was to install a record player. The beat explosion meant that local bands could be booked for a small outlay. Music culture soon replaced traditional activities such as table tennis, leading youth services to re-evaluate their standards and working practices. The importance of music and popular sporting activities suggested that life outside the club had an effect on the nature of club activities. Gradually, gangs began to take over youth nights.318 Criminal networks were easily able to permeate youth club life, as territorial conflicts still presided over teenagers’ lives. Some clubs reacted to the fascination for gang culture by awarding the status of “club manager” to petty criminals, in order to bring their involvement under control. Teenage residents benefited significantly from voluntarily organised youth work, as in contrast to Church-run clubs, volunteers were more willing to modernise programmes. For these workers, self-governance and the use of popular culture became part of a grassroots-oriented approach to youth work that was no longer strictly governed by the Victorian mission to educate. Volunteers knew that young people in the first half of the 1960s had more money and time to spend on commercial leisure activities, and thus felt that the integration of popular culture was the only solution to

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ensuring the participation of less well-off teenagers. For them, there was little doubt that earlier maturity, greater spending power, and increased mobility made teenagers “capable of, and eager to assume, responsibility, if it [was] offered to them at the right time and in the right way”.319 Here, it becomes clear that voluntary youth work on housing estates fostered the shift “from a culture for to a culture of youth”.320 Contrary to the view of researchers such as Michael Young and Peter Willmott, youth workers could rely on a cultural and social community within housing estates and young residents were active in both community life and the creation of an estate’s identity.321 While older iterations of working-class community disappeared, the power of popular culture helped to bring young local residents together. Because of the social composition of council estates, young people re-established class identities with the demarcation of estates from the social identities of the areas in which they were built, and in the process engendered new rivalries between local teenage gangs.

Notes 1. Stanley, Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!, 158. 2. See White, Decolonisation, 33–60. For Suez Crisis and national identity see Shaw, Eden, Suez and the Mass Media; McCourt, Britain and World Power Since 1945, 58–85; Parmentier, “The British Press in the Suez”. 3. Thompson, The Empire Strikes Back, 205. For more information on Britain’s identity struggle in a post-imperial world, see Sanders, Losing An Empire Finding A Role, 292 f. 4. Banton, “The Influence of Colonial Status,” 546. 5. For imperial consciousness in metropolitan culture, see MacKenzie, “The persistence of Empire”. 6. Utley and Udal, Wind of change, 38. 7. Dubow, Macmillan, Verwoerd and the 1960 ‘Wind of Change’ speech, 22. 8. Phillips and Phillips, Windrush. 9. Stratton, When Music Migrates, 131. 10. Masters, The Swinging Sixties, 30. 11. Waters, “Dark Strangers in Our Midst,” 208. 12. Bailkin, The Afterlife of Empire. 13. Nigel Fountain, “The Telephone Mob,” New Society, 18 January 1968. 14. Cohen, “The Perversions of Inheritance,” 80 f. 15. See Grindel, “The End of Empire,” 33 f. 16. MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire.

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17. See Cowans, Empire Films and the Crisis of Colonialism; Jaikumar, Cinema at the End of Empire. 18. See Baron, “Doctor No,” 153. 19. See “What do children learn from war comics?” New Society, 7 July 1966. 20. Hamblett and Deverson, Generation X, 175 f. 21. See Schaffer, The Vision of a Nation. 22. “West Indian want to belong,” The Guardian, 6 July 1961. 23. Hiro, Black British, White British, 79. For the Stars Campaign for Interracial Friendship, founded after the Notting Hill Riots in 1958, see Blackman, Forty Miles of Bad Road. 24. Jeremy Bugler, “The writing on the wall,” New Society, 18 April 1968. 25. Ibid. 26. See Driver and Gilbert, “Imperial cities”. 27. See Bremner, “The Metropolis”. 28. Crinson, Modern Architecture and the End of Empire, 8–10. 29. Crinson, “Imperial Modernism”. 30. Crinson, Modern Architecture, 109. 31. See Ritscherle, Opting Out of Utopia, 96, 111; Ingram, The young Edwardians. 32. Bronstein and Harris, Empire, State, and Society, 270. 33. Hebdige, Subculture. 34. Ibid., 56. See also Jones, Black culture, white youth, 134 f. 35. See Bushell, ‘54–46 That’s My Number’; Bushell, Hoolies. 36. See Collins, “Pride and Prejudice,” 392. See also MacInnes, City of Spades; MacInnes, Absolute Beginners. 37. Bentley, “Translating English”. 38. Back, New ethnicities and urban culture, 12. 39. Ibid. 40. Fountain, “The Telephone Mob”. 41. For differences between migrant communities see Dilip Hiro, “The Young Asians of Britain,” New Society, 1 June 1967. 42. Janet Stewart, “Race and local government,” New Society, 19 March 1964. 43. See Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration, 100–126. 44. Griffiths, A Question of Colour?; Prem, The Parliamentary Leper; Mould, White attitudes to coloured immigrants in Spon Lane; Buettner, “This is Staffordshire not Alabama”. 45. See Hewitt, White Backlash, 25 f.; Schofield, Enoch Powell and the Making of Postcolonial Britain. 46. Colin Smith, “Teenage racialism grows in Brixton,” The Guardian, 12 January 1969. 47. Peter Jenkins, “Enoch goes Pop,” The Guardian, 5 June 1970.

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48. For anti-racism and Labour Party, see Solomos, Race and Racism in Britain, 7. For racism in the Labour Party and in trade unions, see Thorpe, A History of the British Labour Party, 174  f.; Campbell et  al. British Trade Unions and Industrial Politics, 79, 82. 49. J.C.W.I.’s comments on Mr Heath’s statement, 7 October 1968, LMA ACC1888/210. 50. “Is the working class really racialist?,” New Society, 2 May 1968. Others criticised the idea that the country’s middle class was more tolerant. See Christopher Bailey, “Coloured neighbours,” New Society, 7 August 1969. 51. See Caballero and Aspinall, Mixed Race Britain, 362. 52. See Saggar, “Re-examining the 1964–70 labour government’s race relations strategy”. 53. Peplow, “The ‘Linchpin for Success’?” 54. See Labour Party Home Policy Committee, Race Relations. Interim Report on Bill to Outlaw Racial Discrimination in Public Places and Incitement to Racial Hatred or Contempt, August 1964, RD.809; “TalkIt-­Over Race Peace Move,” Daily Mirror, 4 August 1965. 55. See Banton, Promoting Racial Harmony, 71; Goulbourne, Race Relations in Britain since 1945, 124. 56. Paul Bark, “Rockers and Roast-Beef Values,” in: The Guardian, 2 December 1964. 57. The London Council of Social Service, Immigrants in London, 8. 58. John Simon, in: Hewitt, Soul Stylists, 89. 59. See Hewitt, “Youth, Race and Language in Contemporary Britain,” 185. 60. For contemporary research on spatial concentration and local community relations see John Barr, “Napoli, Bedfordshire,” New Society, 2 April 1964; John Barr, “Pakistanis in Bradford,” New Society, 19 November 1964; Maddox, “The Assimilation of Negroes in a Dockland Area in Britain”; Moore, “Race Relations and the Rediscovery of Sociology”; Rex and Moore, Race, Community and Conflict; Banton, White and Coloured. Observations were often contrasted by articles dealing with ghettoisation in the US. See Colin MacInnes, “A peculiar neighbourhood,” New Society, 12 November 1964. For settlement patterns see Ward, “Race Relations in Britain,” 473  f. For problems of concentration see Patterson, Immigration and Race Relations in Britain, 194 f. 61. Senior and Manley, A Report on Jamaican Migration to Great Britain, Patterson, Dark Strangers; Labour Party Study Group on Immigration, Dispersal and Integration; Huxley, Back Street, New Worlds; Collins, Coloured Minorities in Britain; Richmond, Migration and Race Relations in an English City; Banton, “The Social Groupings of Some West African Workers in Britain”; Banton, “The Changing Position of the Negro”. 62. “The Cypriots in London,” The New York Times, 14 August 1954.

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63. See “A 5-Year Race Hate in Britain,” Daily Mirror, 27 September 1963. 64. Pippa Phemister, “The Multi-Racial Puppets,” New Society, 18 March 1965. 65. Christopher Bailey, “Coloured neighbours,” New Society, 7 August 1969. 66. The London Council of Social Service, Immigrants in London, 7. 67. Paul Bark, “Rockers and Roast-Beef Values,” The Guardian, 2 December 1964. 68. John Barr, “New towns as anti-ghettos?,” New Society, 1 April 1965. 69. Glass, London’s Newcomers. 70. Statement in The Observer, 10 September 1967, quoted in Hiro, Black British, White British, 81. 71. The London Council of Social Service, Immigrants in London, 11. See also “Won’t be back for many a day,” New Society, 9 May 1963. 72. “FLA 4785,” The Kensington News, 5 February 1958. 73. See Davies, “Rents and Race in 1960s London”; Western, “Ambivalent attachments to place in London,” 153. 74. John Lambert, “Low crime rate among immigrants,” The Sunday Times, 30 July 1967; “No wives, bad housing at root of East End Pakistani troubles,” The Sunday Times, 19 April 1970. 75. Sidney Bunt, “The AJY-70 years on,” Challenge, October 1969. 76. Penny Reel, in: Anderson, Mods, 19–22. 77. Report of a Meeting of the Youth Group of the London Council of Social Service, 1 July 1960, LMA ACC1888/035. 78. Ibid. 79. Street-Porter, Baggage, 167. 80. John Henwood, “Seedy Clubs and Dives of Notting Hill 1956–1970,” 2018, on: https://northkensingtonhistories.wordpress.com/2018/09/20/ seedy-­clubs-­and-­dives-­of-­notting-­hill-­1956-­1970/ (accessed on 9 September 2020). 81. Hamblett and Deverson, Generation X, 33 f. 82. John Leo Waters, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 102. 83. See Back, New Ethnicities and Urban Culture, 7–26. For contact zones see Pratt, “Arts of the Contact Zone”. 84. Webb, “Special Relationships,” 110. 85. “The changing attitude to Mixed Marriages,” Flamingo, October 1961. 86. See Kyriacou, The Motherland Calls, 33. 87. “The Guider. An Association For Good,” Edited Article sent back to P. M. Dines by the Girls Guides Association, 19 November 1965, LMA ACC1888/210. 88. Coming McGlashan, “Growing Up with Pinky,” The Guardian, 10 September 1967.

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89. Hiro, Black British, White British, 79. 90. McGlashan, “Growing Up with Pinky”. 91. Hiro, Black British, White British, 79. 92. Ibid., 118. 93. “School in Britain,” Flamingo, July 1962. 94. Michael Banton, “Integration into what society?,” New Society, 9 November 1967. 95. McGlashan, “Growing Up with Pinky”. See also “School in Britain,” Flamingo, July 1962. 96. “The Guider. An Association for Good”. 97. See Institute of Race Relations, Bringing Up All of Our Children, March 1973. 98. The London Council of Social Service, Immigrants in London, 36. 99. Oakley ed. New Backgrounds, 120–134; “Ghetto schools clash,” The Observer, 25 June 1967. 100. “Split lives danger to children,” The Times, 20 October 1969. See also Oakley, New Backgrounds, 134. 101. “A Sixth Form View of Race Prejudice,” The Times, 10 October 1958. 102. Citizens’ Advice Bureau, Survey on Integration of the Coloured Population of Willesden, 1959, LMA ACC2417/K/50. 103. Kyriacou, Ethnic Communities Oral History Project, 33. 104. For further information see Gerrard, Radical Childhoods. 105. A. J. F Doulton, Confidential—Haringey Comprehensive Schools, 1969, GPI BEM 1/2/5 1–53. 106. See Growth Against Banding in Haringey. Parents Strike Threatened for Autumn, GPI BEM 1/2/5 1–53. 107. “Race, Class and I.Q. Fallacies,” Sunday Telegraph, 4 May 1969. 108. See Garbaye, Getting Into Local Power, 38 f.; Bauer, The Creolisation of London Kinship, 192 f. 109. The London Council of Social Service, Immigrants in London, 15. For race relations politics, see Rich, Race and Empire in British Politics. 110. See Katrin Fitz Herbert, “Immigrants Self-Help: The West Indians,” New Society, 13 March 1969; Dilip Hiro, “Immigrants Self-Help: Indians and Pakistanis,” New Society, 13 March 1969. 111. The British Caribbean Association, Newsletter No. 8, 1963. 112. See James, “Migration, Racism and Identity Formation”. 113. For the reception of the American civil rights movement, see articles like “The New Mood of the American Negro,” Flamingo, August 1963. In 1962, Martin Luther King visited Britain and gave an interview in John Freeman’s BBC show Face to Face. See “Dr. Martin Luther King in London,” Flamingo, June 1962.

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114. For black pride and Rastafarianism, see Orlando Patterson, “Ras Tafari: The Cult of Outcasts,” New Society, 12 November 1964. 115. Foner, “West Indians in New York City and London”. 116. See “American Negro a Stereotype?,” Flamingo, July 1962; “Harlem Revisited,” Flamingo, October 1961. 117. See also Hackney Community Relations Council, Annual Report 1970–71 (London, 1971), 8, Hackney Archives 301P; “Multi-Racial Playgroup flourishes in Hackney,” Hackney Gazette, 1 July 1969; Jackson and Rae, Priority. 118. “Multiracial playgroups planned,” The Guardian, 3 July 1968. 119. “Playing together in the cities,” The Guardian, 5 July 1968. 120. See Central Advisory Council for Education, Children and their Primary Schools (London, 1967). 121. Letter sent from the Association of Multiracial Playgroups to M. P. Dines, 23 May 1968, LMA ACC1888/210. 122. Meeting of the Associations of Multi-Racial Playgroups, 20 April 1969, LMA ACC1888/210. Wording of immigrant children and English children is coming from the source. 123. Nathan Glazer, “The Detroit Riots,” New Society, 3 August 1967. See also Daniel R.  Mandelker, “Panic Peddling in the Changing Neighbourhood,” New Society, 14 April 1966. 124. For the history of race riots see Panayi, Racial violence in Britain. 125. Pilkington, Beyond the mother country, 72. 126. Ibid. 127. John Davies argues that liberal race politics clashed with the racist climate in London. See Davies, “Containing Racism?” 128. For the Labour Party, racial conflicts spread from the Midlands to London. See “Notting Hill: Danger Signal for Labour,” Socialist Fight 1:8 (1958). 129. See Flame in the Streets, directed by Roy Ward Baker, 1961. 130. “Nine Coloured Men for Trial,” The Guardian, 18 September 1958; “Race Riots Meeting at Chequers,” The Guardian, 7 September 1958; Drew Middleton, “Mobs Again Fight London Negroes,” New York Times, 2 September 1958. 131. See “Racial Tension in Britain,” Pakistan Horizon 11:3 (1958), 200; “Witness to Violence,” The Kensington News and West London Times, 5 September 1958. 132. See documentary Notting Hill. Shameful Episode, British Pathé, 1958. 133. “The background of Notting Hill,” The Guardian, 2 September 1958. 134. Clancy Sigal, “Just Something to Do,” The Guardian, 21 December 1958. 135. Ibid.

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136. “Superficial Quiet of North Kensington. Fears of West Indian Officials,” The Times, 20 May 1959. 137. “Quotes from the Streets,” The Kensington News and West London Times, 19 September 1958. 138. Ibid. 139. Ibid. 140. “A Turn for the Better,” New Statesman, 8 June 1960. 141. “Mr. Manley Goes to Notting Hill,” The Guardian, 7 September 1958. 142. “What He Heard,” The Kensington News and West London Times, 19 September 1958. 143. Ibid. 144. “Gov.-General in Notting Hill,” The Kensington News and West London Times, 31 October 1958. 145. “Quotes from the Streets,” The Kensington News and West London Times, 19 September 1958. 146. “A Turn for the Better”. 147. “Gov.-General in Notting Hill,” The Kensington News and West London Times, 31 October 1958. See also Derrick Sington, “Immigration and Crime,” New Society, 31 October 1963; Bottoms, “Delinquency among Immigrants”. 148. The House of Commons identified free immigration as the main reason for the riots. See Hansard’s Commons, 29 October 1958, London: HMSO, 194–205. 149. “Show Biz Stars to Fight Race Bias,” The Kensington Post, 3 October 1958. 150. “Stars Sponsor Teens Clubs. Bold Move to End Race Tension in Notting Hill,” The Kensington News and West London Times, 25 December 1958. 151. “West Indies Gov.-General in Notting Hill,” The Kensington News and West London Times, 31 October 1958. 152. See Kyriacou, Ethnic Communities Oral History Project, 33. 153. See Barry ed. “Sorry no vacancies”, 10  f.; Bockie’s story, in: Grover, Windrush. 154. “Race Relations. No Deep Changes,” West London Observer, 4 February 1965. 155. “3 a.m. incidents after party,” Hackney Gazette, 18 June 1965. 156. See Elms, The Way We Wore, 57. 157. Anonymous quote in Everett, you’ll never be 16 again, 107. 158. “Jewish Youth Stabbed,” Hackney Gazette, 18 March 1960. 159. “Youth ‘never heard of Dachau’”, The Guardian, 19 January 1960. 160. See, for example, “Jews Stabbed: 13 boys accused,” Hackney Gazette, 21 January 1966; “Screams at Old Bailey Sentence,” Hackney Gazette, 5 April 1966. 161. “Mosley Beaten Up,” Daily Mirror, 1 August 1962; Mosley, My Life, 24.

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162. Robert H. Orbach, “1959/1966…A Jewish perspective of Mod…Part 2 of 4,” Facebook Thread THE OTHER HALF OF THE MOD EQUATION, 2014. 163. National Association of Youth Clubs, The Annual Report for 1969/70 of the Community Development Officer (Young Immigrants), September 1970, 2, Cadbury Research Library MS227/5/11/6/2. 164. David White, “Black v. Pak?,” New Society, 10 December 1970. See also Colin Smith, “Teenage racialism grows in Brixton,” The Guardian, 12 January 1969. 165. David White, “Black v. Pak?,” New Society, 10 December 1970. 166. Hebdige, Subculture, 58. 167. See Pearson, “‘Paki-Bashing’,” 49–51. 168. “Paki-Bashing. Peter Shore’s statement,” Hackney Gazette, 17 April 1970. 169. “The Government and Paki-Bashers,” Hackney Gazette, 24 April 1970. 170. Kyriacou, Ethnic Communities Oral History Project, 7. 171. “Skinhead Violence in Stepney,” The Daily Telegraph, 27 April 1970. 172. “Juvenile Delinquency. A Flamingo Investigation,” Flamingo, August 1964. 173. Alan Smith, “Young migrants need careers advice,” The Guardian, 13 March 1969. See also the case “An Innocent Prison Boy is Freed,” Daily Mirror, 24 January 1970. 174. See “Mosely’s Big March Banned,” Daily Mirror, 31 August 1962. 175. National Association of Youth Clubs, The Annual Report for 1969/70 of the Community Development Officer (Young Immigrants), September 1970, 1, Cadbury Research Library MS227/5/11/6/2 176. For further information, see Bunce and Field, Renegade. 177. “Immigrants and the Police,” Hackney Gazette, 22 October 1968. See also “Police Critics at Hackney Meeting,” Hackney Gazette, 1 November 1968. 178. London Council of Social Service, Committee for Inter-Racial Co-Operation: Police/Immigrant Relations in Paddington North and North Kensington, 3 February 1972, LMA ACC1888/191. See also Anne Power, “Black and Blue,” New Society, 3 September 1970. 179. London Council of Social Service, Committee for Inter-Racial Co-Operation: Police/Immigrant Relations in Paddington North and North Kensington, 3 February 1972, LMA ACC1888/191. 180. “Banner Waving Youths Alleged ‘Police Brutality’”, Hackney Gazette, 19 August 1969. 181. Anne Power, “Black and Blue”. 182. London Council of Social Service, Police/Immigrant Relations in Paddington North and North Kensington.

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183. For racial policing see Moore, Policing Notting Hill; Roach Family Support Committee, Policing in Hackney. 184. See Eric Clark, “Police brush up their race relations,” The Guardian, 1 September 1968. For more on Metropolitan Police and London’s black communities, see Whitfield, “The Metropolitan Police”. 185. The white flight into London’s suburbs and outskirts and the influx of West Indians happened at the same time. See Talbot, Regulating the Night, 39. 186. See Simi and Brents, “An Extreme Response to Globalization,” 189. 187. Dekel et  al., “Youth subcultural theory,” 294. See also Huq, Beyond subculture. 188. Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 107. 189. Brown, Booted and suited, 55. 190. See Young and Willmott, Family and Kinship; Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy; Williams, Culture and Society; Williams, Communications; Williams, The Long Revolution; Thompson, Making of the English Working Class. 191. See Munt, Cultural Studies and the Working Class, 22 f.; Bourke, Working Class Cultures in Britain, 112 f.; Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy, 24. 192. See Hoggart and Williams, “Working Class Attitudes”; Swingewood, The Myth of Mass Culture, 40. For Hoggart’s suspicion of mass culture, see Moran, “Milk Bars, Starbucks and the Uses of Literacy”. 193. See Norman Dennis, “Who needs neighbours?,” New Society, 25 July 1963. 194. See Ramsden, Working-Class Community, 5  f.; Morris, Urban Sociology, 67 f. 195. See Lawrence, “Inventing the ‘traditional working class’”; Topalov, “Traditional Working-Class Neighborhoods”. For the role of academia and the cultural turn in the public notion of class, see also Devine/Savage “The Cultural Turn, Sociology and Class Analysis”. 196. See Glass, London, xxxi. For Glass and the invention of gentrification, see Lees et al., The gentrification reader, 4. See also Legg and Allen, “The Origins of Gentrification in London”. 197. See, for example, “Brave New London,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 25 March 1960; “The new Victoria Street look,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 22 April 1960; “More homes must go for 5-year rehousing plan,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 29 December 1961. 198. Moorhouse, Britain in the Sixties: The Other England, 20. 199. Booker, Neophiliacs, 131.

5  WORKING-CLASS YOUTH AND THE SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION… 

191

200. Jane Morton, “Selling off council housing,” New Society, 15 December 1966. 201. “Redevelopment of the Barbican: Housing the ‘privileged’,” The Guardian, 26 May 1959. 202. Anne Lapping, “Living around London,” New Society, 18 August 1966. 203. N. R. Humphreys, “Get away people,” The Guardian, 31 January 1969. 204. Paul Barker, “Young Marriage,” New Society, 17 September 1964. 205. Colin Smith, “Swinging squatters,” The Guardian, 9 March 1969. 206. Peter Hall, “Lesser London,” The Guardian, 24 January 1971. See also Hamnett, “Social change and social segregation”. 207. Moran, “Early Cultures of Gentrification in London,” 101. See also Warde, “Gentrification as Consumption,” 224. 208. R. E. Pahl, “Whose City?,” New Society, 23 January 1969. See also John Barr, “Divided city,” New Society, 8 May 1969. 209. “Housing the ‘working class’,” Westminster and Pimlico News, 15 May 1959; “Housing Situation is ‘out of hand’,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 14 August 1964. Further, the Rent Act of 1957 allowed landlords to make uncontrolled profit with their rents. See German and Lees, A People’s History of London, 258. See also the Milner Holland Report on London Housing, London 1964. 210. See protests against the new rent scheme in St Pancras in 1959–60. See Mathieson, The St. Pancras Rent Strike 1960. 211. David Donnison, “How to help the poorest tenants?,” New Society, 16 January 1969. See also Francis, Report of the Committee on the Rents Acts. 212. J. B. Cullingworth, “London’s housing: towards an agreed policy,” New Society, 18 March 1965; “How Other Nations Cope,” New Society, 18 March 1965. 213. See Norman Dennis, “Who needs neighbours?,” New Society, 25 July 1963. See also the case study by Morris and Mogey, The Sociology of Housing. 214. Özüm, “The Representation of the Working Class”. For youth and the preservation of daily working-class life, see Mungham and Pearson, Working-­Class Youth Culture; Clarke and Jefferson, Working Class Youth Cultures; Cohen, Subcultural Conflict and Working Class Community; Robins and Cohen, Knuckle Sandwich. 215. See Willmott and Young, Adolescent Boys in East London. 216. See Webb, A 1960s East End Childhood. For South London, particularly Elephant and Castle, see Collins, The Like of Us. 217. For the idea that class was invented by academics, see Savage, “The fall and rise of class analysis in British sociology”; Savage, Social Class in the Twenty-First Century.

192 

F. FUHG

218. Park, Human Communities, 178–209. 219. Fischer, The Urban Experience, 34. 220. Fyvel, Insecure Offenders, 95. 221. Miss G. Hall, in: “So THIS is London!,” Jackie, 31 October 1964. 222. Rob Nicholls, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 20. 223. Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 19. 224. Hamblett and Deverson, Generation X, 12, 38, 60 f. 225. John Leo Waters, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 22. 226. Berkoff, Free Association, 9. 227. Street-Porter, Baggage, 143. 228. Ibid., p. 32. 229. Berkoff, Free Association, 15. 230. Scala, Diary of a Teddy Boy, 1. 231. Clapson, The Routledge Companion to Britain in the Twentieth Century, 398. 232. Cohen, Delinquent Boys; Franzese, The Sociology of Deviance, 50. 233. Holden, Hoxton Cafe Project, 4. 234. See Keith Williams, “The Educational Priority Area Project forty years on. ‘If at first you don’t succeed, you [still] don’t succeed’,” Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Heriot-­Watt University, Edinburgh, 3–6 September 2008. 235. Tebbutt, Making Youth, 102. 236. Fyvel, Insecure Offenders, 98–101. 237. Turner, Ship without Sails, 27. 238. Goetschius and Tash, The Report of the London Y.W.C.A.  Coffee Stall Project, 26. 239. Ibid., 25 f. 240. Ibid., 27. 241. Ibid., p. 26. 242. Christopher Brasher, “Taking the Lid Off Gangdom,” Challenge, Winter 1962/63. 243. Peter Barnsley, “The Young Take The Wheel,” Town Magazine, September 1962; Stamford Hill Mods: The Genesis of Marc Bolan, exhibition at Hackney Museum, 2012. 244. See Gilbert, Passion is a Fashion, 105. 245. Jones, Ride a White Swan, 21. 246. Turner, Ship without Sails, 28. 247. For neighbourhood leisure culture versus entertainment districts, see During, Modern Enchantment, 138; Rappaport, Shopping for Pleasure, 181; White, London In The Nineteenth Century, 279 f. Bailey, Leisure and Class in Victorian England. 248. See reports like “Slum Dwellers in Leeds,” New Society, 4 April 1963.

5  WORKING-CLASS YOUTH AND THE SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION… 

193

249. Kenneth Martin and Donald McCullin, “East of Aldgate,” About Town, February 1961. 250. Janet Stewart, “When is a slum not a slum?,” in: New Society, 9 July 1964. 251. Paul Barker, “Jack the Ripper land,” New Society, 8 July 1965. 252. “Bubble Spades + Paddies. New Life in a Rotten Borough. A summing up of Finsbury Park,” About Town, April 1962. 253. Ibid. 254. Ibid. 255. Martin Page, “The 2 Towns,” Man about Town, January 1961. 256. Ballard, High-Rise. 257. See Norman Dennis, “Who needs neighbours?,” New Society, 25 July 1963. 258. It was estimated that up to 75 per cent of small children living in high blocks would never get out to play with other children. See John Barr, “What kind of homes do people want?,” New Society, 11 November 1965. 259. Ibid. 260. For differences in the social composition, see Robins and Cohen, Knuckle Sandwich. 261. John Barron Mays, “The Hope in Newtown,” New Society, 22 August 1963. 262. Norman Dennis, “Who needs neighbours?,” New Society, 25 July 1963. 263. See Elms, The Way We Wore, 31. For current discussions see McKenzie, Getting By; Jones, Chavs. 264. The Association of London Housing Estates, Report on the Youth Advisory Service Project on the Association of the London Housing Estates 1962–67, LMA ACC1888/428, 10 f., 20. 265. See Boughton, Municipal Dreams; Hanley, Estates; Ravetz, Council housing and Culture. See also oral history projects on council estates like OCoileain, Voices of Ferrier or contemporary reports like Greater London Council, Pepys Estate: a GLC housing project (London, 1969). Special commissions, committees, and sociologists also began to research council housing policies and the culture of council housing. See Commission for Racial Equality, Race and Council Housing in Hackney (London, 1984). One of the few examples explaining the contemporary relationship between youth on council estates and music culture in London is a study on Grime. See Hancox, Inner City Pressure. 266. See Clapson, Britain in Twentieth Century, 85. 267. See also Tordoff, City Psychos, 7–35. 268. Bushell, Hoolies, 26. 269. Fyvel, Insecure Offenders, 23. 270. “The Housing Estate ‘Gangs’”, in: The Guardian, 10 April 1959.

194 

F. FUHG

271. “An Angry Neighbour Sprays Paint on Boy,” Daily Mirror, 16 September 1964. 272. “Good Neighbours,” Daily Mirror, 22 June 1955. 273. See Granger, Up West, 109. 274. “Love on the Landing Riles Tenants. ‘Snogging’ Teenagers Embarrass,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 25 November 1960. 275. “‘Filthy’ language disgusts tenants,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 24 June 1960. 276. “Football Game on Estate is ‘Intolerable’,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 2 February 1962. 277. “Skyscraper Village,” Daily Mirror, 3 May 1955. 278. “Shocking vandalism estate,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 23 September 1960. 279. “Police Probe Vandalism Among the Greenhouses,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 22 April 1966. 280. “Some Tenants ‘Go in Fear for their Lives’ Through Hooliganism,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 15 July 1966. 281. See Clapson and Emsley, “Street, Beat, and Respectability,” 127. 282. “Estates High Crime Rate,” Hackney Gazette, 13 May 1969. 283. “Less Vandalism with Adventure Playground,” Hackney Gazette, 8 October 1968. 284. For the history of adventure playgrounds, see Frost, A History of Children’s Play and Play Environments; Kozlovsky, The Architectures of Childhood; Kozlovsky, Adventure Playgrounds and Postwar Recovery. 285. “Playgrounds before garages,” The Guardian, 13 October 1961. 286. See Cooper and Hawtin, Housing, Community, and Conflict. 287. Bourke, Working Class Cultures, 38. 288. Ramsden, Working-Class Community, 73. 289. For tenants’ associations see Bradley, The tenants’ movement. 290. London County Council, Alton Estate, Wandsworth Tenant’s Clubroom, 9 April 1956, LMA ACC1888/69. 291. Brandon Estate Report, March 1961, LMA ACC1888/182; London County Council, Alton Estate, Wandsworth Tenant’s Clubroom, 9 April 1956, LMA ACC1888/69. 292. “Church Looks After the Social Side on Huge New Estate,” Evening Standard London, 13 September 1960; “Where is our Social Centre?,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 12 January 1962; “New Community Centre. Local appeal by Oxford House,” Hackney Gazette, 13 November 1964; “Problems of life in flats,” The Guardian, 18 January 1964. For the latter one, see “Problems of life in flats,” The Guardian, 18 January 1964; Shirley Lewis, “Like being dumped in a field,” The Guardian, 24 May 1967.

5  WORKING-CLASS YOUTH AND THE SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION… 

195

293. See “Community Centre: ‘Pull it Down Now’,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 8 April 1966. 294. “S-bend flats criticised: No open space at new estate,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 1 April 1966. 295. Balham Estates Tenants Club Room. Mail Correspondence between the Officer for Community Centres and Associations and the London Council of Social Service, July 1956, LMA ACC1888/69. 296. Burdett Tenants Association Narrative Report, LMA ACC1888/182. 297. “Community Centre: ‘Pull It Down Now’”. 298. Burdett Tenants Association Narrative Report, LMA ACC1888/182. 299. See Standing Conference of Housing Estate Community Groups, 1960, TNA  HLG  37/180. For further information see Goetschius, Working with Community Groups. 300. B.E.T.A.  Newsletter. The Voice of Bancroft Estate Tenant’s Association, 1952. 301. Expected increase in the number of young people. England and Wales compared with a new estate and new town, 1958, LMA ACC1888/174. 302. The Association of London Housing Estates, Report on the Youth Advisory Service Project on the Association of the London Housing Estates 1962–67, LMA ACC1888/428. 303. Burdett Tenants Association Narrative Report, LMA ACC1888/182. 304. “Coffee bar ‘before classrooms’ angers mothers on estate,” The Guardian, 28 June 1961. 305. “Hackney tenants try to close Youth Club,” Hackney Gazette, 25 July 1969. 306. Ibid. 307. The Association of London Housing Estates, Report on the Youth Advisory Service Project, 85. 308. See “£22.000 Youth Wing,” The Guardian, 20 December 1960. 309. The National Association of Mixed Clubs and Girls’ Clubs, Annual Report for 1959/60; Proceedings of a meeting of the Bethnal Green Youth Committee held at the Town Hall on Tuesday, 27 October 1964, LMA EO/HFE/1/263. For youth work on housing estates, see also Rawdon, “Youth Clubs on Housing Estates”. 310. “Air Raid Shelters Offered as Boys’ Club,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 23 February 1962. 311. London County Council, Education Committee, Youth Service Building Programme, Report by the Education Officer, 30 September 1960, LMA HFE/1/350. 312. Meeting on Youth Work on Housing Estates. Report of a Discussion held on 20 January 1956 at the National Council of Social Service at 26 Bedford Square, London, LMA ACC1888/94.

196 

F. FUHG

313. Points of Discussion for a Meeting of the London Youth Committee held on Friday, 20 January 1956, LMA ACC1888/174. 314. On a meeting in October 1958 a group of youth workers discussed the publication of a children’s booklet on special difficulties “estates encounter in connection with damage by children”. See Minutes of Meeting of Children’s Booklet Sub-Committee held 7 p.m. on Friday, 24 October 1958, at 7 Bayley Street. 315. For Bristol see Spencer, Stress & Release in an Urban Estate. 316. Brandon Estate Report, March 1961, LMA ACC1888/182. 317. The Association of London Housing Estates, Report on the Youth Advisory Service Project, 86. 318. Ibid., 21. 319. Contact. A Newsletter from Youth Clubs on Housing Estates, Issue No. 4, February 1965. 320. Heilbronner, “From a Culture for Youth to a Culture of Youth”. 321. Contact. A Newsletter from Youth Clubs on Housing Estates, Issue No. 4, February 1965, 9.

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Morris, Raymond N., and John M.  Mogey. 1965. The Sociology of Housing. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Mosley, Oswald. 1968. My Life. London: Nelson. Mould, Norman. 1973. White Attitudes to Coloured Immigrants in Spon Lane, Smethwick, 1964. Aberdeen: University of Aberdeen Press. Munt, Sally R. 2000. Cultural Studies and the Working Class: Subject to Change. London: Cassell. Oakley, Robin. 1970. New Backgrounds: The Immigrant Child at Home and at School. London: Oxford University Press. OCoileain, Seamas. 1995. Voices of Ferrier: An Oral History of a Council Estate. London: Greenwich Community College Press. Özüm, Aytül. 1955. The Representation of the Working Class and Masculinity and Alan Sillitoe’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. JELL: Hacettepe University Journal of English Language and Literature 3: 39–50. Panayi, Panikos. 1996. Racial Violence in Britain in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. London/New York: Leicester University Press. Park, Robert E. 1952. Human Communities: The City and Human Ecology. Glencoe: Ill Free Press. Parmentier, Guillaume. 1980. The British Press in the Suez. The Historical Journal 23 (2): 435–448. Patterson, Sheila. 1965. Dark Strangers: A Study of West Indians in London. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. ———. 1969. Immigration and Race Relations in Britain, 1960–1967. London: Oxford University Press. Pearson, Geoff. 1978. ‘Paki-Bashing’ in a North East Lancashire Cotton Town. In Working Class Culture, ed. Geoff Mungham and Geoffrey Pearson, 48–81. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Peplow, Simon. 2017. The ‘Linchpin for Success’? The Problematic Establishment of the 1965 Race Relations Act and Its Conciliation Board. Contemporary British History 31 (3): 430–451. Phillips, Mike, and Trevor Phillips. 1998. Windrush. The Irresistible Rise of Multi-­ Racial Britain. London: Harper Collins. Pilkington, Edward. 1988. Beyond the Mother Country: West Indians and the Notting Hill White Riots. London: I. B. Tauris. Pim, Keiron. 2016. Jumpin’ Jack Flash: David Litvinoff and the Rock’n’Roll Underworld. London: Vintage. Pratt, Mary Louise. 1991. Arts of the Contact Zone. Profession: 33–40. Prem, Dhani R. 1966. The Parliamentary Leper: A History of Colour Prejudice in Britain. Delhi: Everest Press. Ramsden, Stefan. 2017. Working-Class Community in the Age of Affluence. London/New York: Routledge. Rappaport, Erika D. 2000. Shopping for Pleasure: Women in the Making of London’s West End. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Ravetz, Alison. 2001. Council Housing and Culture: The History of a Social Experiment. London/New York: Routledge. Rex, John, and Robert Moore. 1967. Race, Community and Conflict: A Study of Sparkbrook. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Richmond, Anthony. 1973. Migration and Race Relations in an English City: A Study in Bristol. London: Oxford University Press. Ritscherle, Alice Marie. 2005. Opting Out of Utopia: Race and Working-Class Political Culture in Britain During the Age of Decolonization, 1948–1968. Unpublished PhD Thesis at the University of Michigan, Detroit. Roach Family Support Committee. 1989. Policing in Hackney, 1945–1984. London: Karia Press. Robins, David, and Philip Cohen. 1978. Knuckle Sandwich: Growing Up in the Working Class City. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Saggar, Shamit. 1993. Re‐Examining the 1964–70 Labour Government’s Race Relations Strategy. Contemporary Record 7 (2): 253–281. Sanders, David. 1989. Losing An Empire Finding A Role: An Introduction To British Foreign Policy Since 1945. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Savage, Mike. 2015. Social Class in the 21st Century. London: Pelican. ———. 2016. The Fall and Rise of Class Analysis in British Sociology, 1950–2016. Tempo Social 28 (2): 57–72. Scala, Mim. 2001. Diary of a Teddy Boy. London: Review. Schaffer, Gavin. 2014. The Vision of a Nation: Making Multiculturalism on British Television, 1960–80. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Schneer, Jonathan. 1999. London 1900: The Imperial Metropolis. New Haven: Yale University Press. Schofield, Camilla. 2013. Enoch Powell and the Making of Postcolonial Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Senior, Clarence, and Douglas Manley. 1955. A Report on Jamaican Migration to Great Britain. Kingston: Government Printer. Shaw, Tony. 1994. Eden, Suez and the Mass Media: Propaganda and Persuasion During the Suez Crisis. London: I. B. Tauris. Simi, Pepe, and Barbara Brents. 2008. An Extreme Response to Globalization: The Case of Racist Skinhead Youth. In Globalizing the Streets: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Youth, Social Control, and Empowerment, ed. Michal Flynn and David C. Brotherton, 185–202. New York: Columbia University Press. Solomos, John. 1993. Race and Racism in Britain. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Spencer, John. 1964. Stress & Release in an Urban Estate: A Study in Action Research. London: Tavistock Publications. Stanley, Bob. 2014. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!: The Story of Pop Music from Bill Haley to Beyoncé. London: Faber & Faber. Stratton, John. 2014. When Music Migrates: Crossing British and European Racial Faultlines, 1945–2010. Abingdon/New York: Routledge.

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Swingewood, Alan. 1977. The Myth of Mass Culture. London: Macmillan. Talbot, Deborah. 2007. Regulating the Night: Race, Culture and Exclusion in the Making of the Night: Race, Culture and Exclusion in the Making of the Night-­ time Economy. Aldershot/Burlington: Ashgate. Tebbutt, Melanie. 2016. Making Youth: a history of youth in modern Britain. London/New York: Palgrave Macmillan. The London Council of Social Service. 1963. Immigrants in London. Report of a Study Group. London: LCC. Thompson, E.P. 1963. Making of the English Working Class. London: Gollancz. Thompson, Andrew Stuart. 2005. The Empire Strikes Back? The Impact of Imperialism on Britain from the Mid-nineteenth Century. Harlow: Pearson Longman. Thorpe, Andrew. 1997. A History of the British Labour Party. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Topalov, Christian. 2003. “Traditional Working-Class Neighborhoods”: An Inquiry into the Emergence of a Sociological Model in the 1950s and 1960s. Osiris 18: 212–233. Tordoff, Shaun. 2002. City Psychos: From the Monte Carlo Mob to the Silver Cod Squad—Four Decades of Terrace Terror. Ramsbottom: Milo. Utley, Thomas Edwin, and John Udal. 1960. Wind of Change: The Challenge of the Commonwealth. London: Conservative Political Centre. Ward, Robert H. 1978. Race Relations in Britain. The British Journal of Sociology 29 (4): 464–480. Warde, Alan. 1991. Gentrification as Consumption: Issues of Class and Gender. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 9 (2): 223–232. Waters, Chris. 1997. “Dark Strangers” in Our Midst: Discourses of Race and Nations in Britain, 1947–1963. Journal of British Studies 36 (2): 207–238. Webb, Simon. 2012. A 1960s East End Childhood. Stroud: The History Press. Western, J. 1993. Ambivalent Attachments to Place in London: Twelve Barbadian Families. Environment and Planning 11: 147–170. White, Jerry. 2007. London. In The Nineteenth Century: ‘A Human Awful Wonder of God. London: Bodley Head. White, Nicholas J. 2014. Decolonisation: The British Experience Since 1945. London: Taylor & Francis. Whitfield, James. 2003. The Metropolitan Police: Alienation, Culture and Relations with London’s Caribbean Community (1950–1970). Policing and Society 7 (2): 23–39. Williams, Raymond. 1958. Culture and Society. London: Chatto & Windus. ———. 1965. The Long Revolution. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. ———. 1966. Communications. London: Chatto & Windus. Young, Michael, and Peter Willmott. 1957. Family and Kinship in East London. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

PART III

Pop

CHAPTER 6

Making Britain Great Again: Popular Culture and the British Invasion

Against the backdrop of a fading empire, Britain was proud that its young swinging pop scene was leading the charts all over the world in the mid1960s. The success of British artists abroad distinguished the decade from previous times. Characterised by the fragmentation of genres and the rise of black music, the 1960s defined a new era within popular culture.1 For Sandbrook, October 1962 was the turning point, when the Beatles released their first single. Straight after this, the “Fab Four” released “Please Please Me”, which quickly reached number two in the charts, and just a few months later British newspapers were filled with reports of “Beatlemania” sweeping the country.2 The Beatles provided Britain with the new self-image it sought after the shock of the Suez Crisis in 1956.3 Even though the first British number-one hit in the US charts was released earlier,4 the Beatles outdid their predecessors in terms of global success.5 Rock ‘n’ roll was in crisis in 1958, and British artists and producers were conscious of the global appetite for pop music. By December 1959, ten of the fifteen most popular records in Britain were already British. Pop was not just a fast-growing market at a time when creative industries had started to become economically relevant. Popular music formulated a new post-Victorian and post-imperial image of Britain, and thanks to transnational markets,6 the country was able to export it on a global

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Fuhg, London’s Working-Class Youth and the Making of Post-­Victorian Britain, 1958–1971, Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68968-1_6

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scale. The recapture of the British charts by a British band led the music press to call for the rewriting of history books, with Britain’s eclipse of American pop artists considered as momentous as “the Battle of Hastings”.7 Tom Jones and the Beatles facilitated Britain’s role in global popular culture in competition with French and Italian pop-cultural products, which promoted their own distinct national identities on the world stage. Place, space, and locality continued to be important anchors for cultural identity-­ building in a global setting.8

“The British Are Coming”: British Pop Music at Home and Abroad Musicians were proud to have a fan base in the US.9 British success in the US seemed to demonstrate, for Britons, that their country “was becoming the entertainment capital of the world”.10 The reputation of West End culture, along with the fondness among high-profile American radio DJs for British jazz artists, opened the way in 1963 for British pop singers to enter the Billboard charts.11 When shooting a film in the US, Adam Faith said he felt that British artists had begun to attract attention, while the American teenage magazine Sixteen asked whether Cliff Richard could become the next Elvis.12 The massive success of the first Beatles gig in the US in 1964 consolidated this development.13 Beatles wigs were sold in New  York,14 members of the group were manhandled by guests at an official welcome party at the British Embassy,15 and the British music press left its readers in no doubt that American crowds were going berserk.16 Manager Brian Epstein compared the crowd in front of the balcony of their hotel in Melbourne with that which had assembled for the Queen’s coronation in 1953.17 While benefiting from the new, glamorous image of Britain, the Beatles in turn opened doors for many other British artists. On Broadway, critics asked whether British plays might do better than their American counterparts.18 Commentators speculated that a “second colonisation of the United States”19 was on its way, and spoke of Britain’s pride at the prospect of overtaking America, if not in terms of politics then at least in the field of pop culture. Singer Dusty Springfield said that the success of the British music scene made her once again proud “of being British”.20 In May 1966, a billboard at Rockefeller Plaza announced that “The British are coming” in an advertisement for the first permanent British Trade

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Centre overseas.21 Paul Atkinson, lead singer of the Zombies, remarked that “British groups have certainly started something in America” and that kids from all over were talking in English pop-talk slang and copying British youth culture.22 At home, the music press celebrated British groups for their success abroad.23 British pop stars began to make annual visits to Commonwealth states, at a time when “week by week the pop business gets more and more international”.24 Cliff Richard, the Beatles, Pat Clark, and Cilla Black had fans in places as far apart as Germany, Japan, Malaysia, and Italy.25 The world, according to the British music press, was now looking at Britain, and bands such as the Small Faces were so much in demand that they found it difficult to manage their schedule.26 The music press was turned upside down too. Rising standards of education had enabled people from all over the world to read English, paving the way for the internationalisation of music culture. Rave provided copy to foreign music magazines in March 1965 and invited their editors to reciprocate for British readers.27 Cooperation around the import and export of British culture, however, was not without its problems. The popularity of foreign artists hampered the prospects of those from home. America was not happy about the success of British popular culture in the US. “Americans [were] moaning” and “crying ‘Unfair!’”, according to the NME in 1960,28 and commentators suggested that “for the first time for nearly 50 years [Americans’] confidence in themselves has been shaken”.29 “In America,” it was reported, “the word British is becoming a dirty word,”30 with Billboard even comparing the conflict between musicians to the War of Independence in 1776.31 American music managers complained that British musicians had reconquered the British market by using cover versions of American originals and that institutions such as the BBC Gramophone Department were not playing fair in their support for British artists. The American Federation of Musicians asked for new regulations, and soon, for every British artist performing in the US, an American musician crossed the Atlantic in return.32 Market protection in previous decades had already tightened policies around visas, and the popularity of British musicians in the US in the mid-1960s meant that such documents had to be renewed. British artists were normally granted H-1 visas. In 1965, however, the Department of Labor decided only to provide ordinary work visas, instead of those for artists with a so-called original and exclusive contribution to American show business.33 In the view of British music magazines, the new policy was a mockery, as applicants had often held top chart positions

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in America. Some writers even went so far as to compare America’s new tactics in the global pop business with the use of chemical weapons in the Vietnam War, accusing the US of provoking the next “international incident”.34 These restrictions fostered in Britain a degree of indignation, with some seeing the new global success of the country’s pop stars as signifying an intrinsic British superiority. Cliff Richard let off steam about the quality and provinciality of show equipment when touring abroad and commented on the backwardness of Scandinavian teenagers.35 In April 1966, Ready Steady Go! made a broadcast from Paris and the show was regarded as a British takeover of a French music scene.36 Here, too, staff were described as unprofessional, and according to the press, this was compatible with a general attitude of disorganisation that was typical of the French. British popular music culture in the 1960s promulgated such national stereotypes.37 Further, holidays taken by pop stars in non-Western countries were used to emphasise differences between Britain and the rest of the world.38 Such trips were even regularly paid by teen magazines which, of course, were hungry for the new colourful stories they expected to were able to write in foreign faraway and for British kids untouched lands. Fabulous, for example, paid Adam Faith a holiday in Morocco in 1964 and exoticised the country with a feature in which Faith was photographed on a camel, wearing traditional clothes.39 Holiday reports gave pop stars the opportunity to present themselves as adventurous, eclectic artists, searching for inspiration in a foreign land.40 To an extent they provided young people with a broader knowledge of faraway places than their parents would have had, but at the same time portrayed these countries as having no real relevance to British teenage life. The notion of cultural superiority was also supported by the absence of western European bands in the British charts. The Spanish group Los Bravos was almost the only group from Europe, thanks to the many British holidaymakers who had heard their music while on holiday in Spain.41 In order to increase the popularity of French singer Johnny Hallyday in Britain, Jackie disassociated him from France by writing that he was mainly inspired by American rock ‘n’ roll.42 When Chuck Berry played at the Olympia Stadium in Paris in 1965, Rave wrote that the crowd left the dance-floor when French artists Sylvie Vartan and Johnny Hallyday appeared on stage.43 Often, European artists were acknowledged only in terms of their admiration for British artists.44

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Trivialising pop scenes in other European countries should help British artists to attract foreign fans.45 Generally, though, the British music press saw no conflict in paying tribute to foreign culture while at the same time emphasising the exceptional nature of British pop music. Gerry and the Pacemakers compared the French capital to Liverpool, remarking on how similar the cities were to one another, but ultimately concluding that nowhere could top their beloved hometown.46 Often, objects of national pride were mocked; the band also compared the Eiffel Tower to the Mersey Tunnel. The German city of Hamburg was portrayed as having many similarities to the birthplace of the Beatles.47 As a fellow port city, a well-functioning entertainment industry had developed in Hamburg too, with British soldiers stationed there since the defeat of Nazi Germany.48 Hamburg, in the words of the Searchers, was a “British colony” and shared with Britain a love of American rock ‘n’ roll.49 But even in Hamburg, Fabulous wrote, “Mersey boys get homesick”.50 Live gigs abroad also had the potential to provoke serious international affairs, particularly in countries, where popular culture had been identified as a soft weapon within the Cold War.51 The popularity of Western pop music in the 1960s was such that the baby-boomers who ruled the Czech Republic after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 moved to install Frank Zappa as a “special ambassador” for the country.52 In April 1967, the Stones played at the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw and characterised themselves as freedom-fighters by throwing free records into the crowd of teenagers who were rioting outside the palace in protest at the ticket policy.53 Stars such as Tommy Steele made inadvertent political statements when describing fans in Russia as broken subjects without any psychological reactions, in a reproduction of the stereotypical image Britain had of Soviet state oppression.54 In non-European countries, British ignorance of national sentiment elicited negative responses. In 1966, the Beatles were to give a show in the Nippon Budokan Hall (a spiritual hall reserved for martial arts) in Tokyo, but drew criticism from parties who considered it disrespectful for a Western pop group to perform in a building that was of such significance to Japanese national culture.55 Pop concerts were even used for official diplomacy. In Japan, the British ambassador established new connections with officials who “had seen in [him] the only hope of obtaining tickets for themselves or their offspring”.56 Tommy Steele met with the Russian minister of culture, Nikolai Mikhailov.57 Roger Miller was described as “Britain’s musical ambassador in the United States”,58  and while musicians more than ever represented Britain

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abroad, the Queen and state officials registered concern in regard to the hairstyles of stars like Ringo Starr.59 In America, the secularism of British pop stars clashed with the religious mindset of the Southern states. When John Lennon told the Evening Standard in 1966 that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus now”,60 the band faced a media frenzy.61 The Ku Klux Klan called on fans to burn their Beatles records, and Brian Epstein was forced to apologise in an effort to cool down anti-Beatles protests.62 In Britain, popular opinion supported Lennon, asserting that he was right in saying that for young people all over the world, the Beatles were indeed more important than Jesus. For the Vatican, Lennon’s statement was such an insult that it took more than forty years to officially pardon him.63

All British in British Pop Music? In considering the popularity of British musicians abroad, however, one must bear in mind that American music persisted as an integral part of Britain’s cultural landscape. American musical genres established a solid fan-base in the country.64 Genres coexisted in the 1960s,65 influencing one another and gradually merging motifs that were specifically British, such as lyrics about class structure and working-class identity, with musical structures that often had their origins elsewhere in the world. American rock, and the British answer to American blues and jug-band music, known as “skiffle”, left their imprint on groups like the Beatles, illustrating the extent to which the Mersey sound was influenced by America.66 Early on in his career, Paul McCartney, did his best to sing with the American “r” and sometimes use it in words which even in the US do not have. New Society disagreed with Oscar Wilde, who had once written that the British “really have everything in common with America except of course the language”, remarking that people wrote “yeah” now instead of [the East Anglian] “yeh”.67 Surveys reveal that Britain saw its economic future in Europe, but culturally felt a stronger bond with America.68 McCartney’s pronunciation exemplifies how the success of British music abroad changed national and regional consciousness.69 In the late 1960s, he and the other Beatles spoke publicly in a Liverpudlian accent. The sound that made British music a global phenomenon was broadly based on American rhythm and blues, and this was appropriate given that for every post-war British musician, the “United States was the promised land”.70 America represented the opposite of 1950s Britain in terms of

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material culture and cosmopolitanism and thus inspired in-kids in their quest for modernisation in the late 1950s and early 1960s.71 Songs sung by British artists were often written and composed by Americans.72 It is still unclear how black American rhythm and blues arrived, but there is no doubt that it was a major source of inspiration for bands.73 British bands’ fondness for this style of music made them attractive to European club owners in cities such as Hamburg, who were looking for cheap bookings and could hire Merseyside groups for less money than the American originals.74 American folk and blues had already dominated British entertainment culture in the 1950s, while in previous decades, American jazz had arrived in Britain and Europe thanks to the musical tastes of American servicemen.75 “Yanks in uniform” were ubiquitous and forged connections with local communities both during and after the war, with Air Force troops in particular often being housed outside the base.76 US Army facilities were open to the public on the annual Armed Forces Day, allowing Britons to participate in American culture and buy products in the Post Exchange (PX).77 Some bases even organised special programmes for local kids in their youth centres.78 In Britain, the music press understood that there would have been no Cliff Richard without Elvis.79 Even at a time when British bands were storming the US charts, American music shaped British music culture.80 By 1965, British music magazines feared that the “fluttering”81 of the Union Jack in the charts would soon come to an end. The market saturation with beat groups from Liverpool demanded that bands reinvent themselves. In order to survive, many of them looked to other genres for inspiration and naturally ended up looking towards America.82 Often, they benefited from the tours of American pop artists, who used Britain as a door-opener for European markets. Such tours also revealed the various political, social, and cultural similarities and differences between countries. In Britain, fans welcomed black American artists, prompting newspapers to proudly announce that race relations in Britain were different from those in the US, where black musicians had to deal with the hatred of organisations like the White Citizens’ Council, and the disrespect of officials, such as FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.83 Not every US star automatically became successful in Britain, too,84 partly because the economic expectations of American artists were incompatible with the British music business. Influential music managers in Britain complained that “big American music attractions are overpaid”,85 fearing that youngsters preferred American over British pop music. In

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Britain, American stars had to sign deals that paid them on the basis of audience numbers. Further, poor exchange rates held American musicians back from touring in the UK. The devaluation of sterling in 1967 badly affected existing contracts.86 In addition to live shows, teenage magazines had special sections, sometimes explicitly titled “U.S.  Cable”.87 Articles featured prominent artists even more  after the “British Invasion” came to an end around 1966–67.88 By 1966, the Monkees had become more popular than the Beatles in the US. This, however, was all the same to Britain, as the band was at least half British.89 More significant was that pop in general “ran out of steam” and popular culture turned more explicitly towards politics.90 The Hippie-inspired sound of American West Coast bands began to set the trend.91 However, this was not an entirely American development. The British music scene, too, turned its focus towards a new psychedelic look in both music and fashion, standing at the forefront of the evolution of op art. Nevertheless, Britain’s youth was ultimately not politicised by home-­ grown bands, but by artists such as Buffy Sainte-Marie, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez. Some gave concerts in Britain’s university cities.92 Such competing and intersecting genres functioned independently of one another, and each had its own fan base. Besides differences in the structure and character of their sound, musicians and their music were associated with various social classes and ethnicities. In spite of its origins in black culture, jazz in the 1960s became more and more an exclusive musical genre favoured by the British Bohemian class.93 Some jazz musicians criticised this new, snobbish image of jazz, and reassured their fans by declaring that it was only a small group of students who wanted to intellectualise jazz and distinguish it from pop.94 Kenny Ball’s trad jazz hit “Someday” (1961) and Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” demonstrated that jazz could be just as popular as pop or rock music, even though fans were divided along the lines of its traditional and modern variants.95 Music had the power to transcend class boundaries and bring young people from different classes together. The rough sound of American rhythm and blues, for example, appealed to those from every class.96

The Notion of Modern Britishness in Popular Music In crossing the boundaries of class, popular music both transmitted and recreated notions of Britishness and British identity. In what sense did artists reproduce the dominant narrative of the country, and in what ways did

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they offer alternative interpretations? The changing ethnic composition of urban life corresponds with a British popular culture that was, more than ever, looking to the East for musical inspiration.97 Globally, crossover genres such as Tropicália emerged in the late 1960s and the ethnomusicologist Robert E. Brown invented the term “world music”.98 While on one hand separating Western forms of music from non-Western styles, the term also illustrated that Western musicians had begun to explore sounds and music from faraway places. This had already happened in American rock ‘n’ roll, where artists mixed native sounds with influences from European immigrant culture as well as with Afro-American music.99 By the very early 1960s, however, only a few non-Western artists had been involved in the British music scene.100 Soon, however, as well as white immigrant culture, to which artists such as the Beatles paid tribute,101 the arrival of Caribbean artists had led to the incorporation of their music within the culture of a new, multiracial Britain. The vision of a cosmopolitan and ethnically diverse society was communicated particularly well by mixed bands in the mid-1960s. Some openly discussed racial harmony. Music periodicals, too, asked whether bands with ambiguous names, like “The Equals”, were a sign of the success of the new multicultural policies introduced in the mid-1960s (Image 6.1).102 Artists such as Millie Small navigated between black and white aspects of British identity, becoming one of the first home-grown black media stars in Britain.103 Small spoke about West Indian culture and Jamaica’s rich musical history.104 While embodying a break with Britain’s—and the music industry’s—tradition of ignorance regarding black musicians, Small was still not treated as British. Record labels and the music press exoticised her, designing album covers that showed her in childish poses, or introducing her as an exotic black “sex bomb”. Small herself used her otherness as a unique selling point, sometimes criticised by the black community. A letter in Flamingo complained that Small was helping to legitimise prejudice by telling the media exactly what people wanted to hear about Jamaica.105 Newspapers were “hungry not for cold facts but hot sensation” and published stories about Caribbean artists climbing coconut trees or having a witch-doctor in their family.106 Instead Small should use her prominence to help make Britain a country that would no longer exoticise the lives of its black population. The popularity of black pop stars in Britain was accompanied by a new interest in non-Western artists. In 1966, Jackie visited Morocco to report on the success of local pop musicians.107 In doing so, however, the teen

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Image 6.1  The Foundations pop group surrounded by children at the Notting Hill playground in 1969. (Copyright: Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy Stock Photo)

magazine managed to reiterate every British stereotype of North Africa, being ultimately only interested in the idea that Moroccan pop music was similar to that of the Western world. In addition, British pop stars attempted to stand out in a competitive market by integrating non-­ Western music into their songs. In 1961, Scottish singer Karl Denver felt that Britain was tolerant enough to embrace songs containing Zulu chants, Chinese folk music, or traditional Arabian sounds.108 His record label Decca, however, was less convinced and suggested that Denver should familiarise his British audience gradually with these new musical elements.109 Ray Charles fell in love with Latin-American rhythms in the late 1950s.110 The Beatles, too, incorporated non-Western influences in their later music. The Kenny Ball Band covered “Midnight in Moscow” in late 1962.111 In 1966, the Hollies used Chinese rhythms in their song “Oriental Sadness”.112 The Equals played their own “distinct styles of music—out-and-out Soul, happy-to-be-on-de-sunshine Calypso, and straight commercial pop”.113

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British artists such as Georgie Fame played in bands with black musicians, switching between the different styles favoured by band members, and became famous for playing the blues in alternately West Indian and American style.114 Even the music press recognised the impact Speedy Acquaye had on the Blue Flames. It was ultimately Fame’s popularity among black American servicemen and West Indians that led to his reputation for playing authentic black music, which in turn made him popular with Mods in London.115 Hybridisation in music, and the exchange of ideas, was grounded in everyday experiences. Living in the same neighbourhood as immigrants encouraged musicians to incorporate aspects of non-Western music. Locomotive, an all-white ska band, encountered Jamaican music when the frontman worked in a record shop specialised in West Indian music.116 In London, Mickey Finn and the Blue Men were a white Mod ska band.117 The group had such a reputation that they were signed by the Blue Beat label and played backing for Prince Buster when he performed in Britain. As well as gaining inspiration at home, British pop stars visited non-­ Western countries to learn from local artists in the latter years of the decade. Brian Jones was so fascinated by Ravi Shankar’s sitar that he incorporated the instrument into several Rolling Stones songs.118 Later, Jones went to Morocco, releasing the Berber-inspired album he had recorded with musicians in Joujouka in 1968.119 The Beatles also incorporated Indian music into their songs, and similarly paved the way for a new cultural relationship with what was once Britain’s most important colony.120 For a birthday party in 1967, the Beatles visited the Maharishi’s meditation centre121 and later travelled to India where they met Ravi Shankar.122 They had already used classical Indian music in some of their songs.123 Indian culture allowed the Beatles to find a new direction after their original Liverpudlian style had been copied by hundreds of Merseyside groups. In order to avoid unsettling, upsetting, or even putting off fans entirely, it was important to make sure that the Beatles’ new approach, including meditation, their new look, as well as the new style of stage performance, did not detract too much from the reasons for their original appeal.124 The Beatles were happy that the secular interpretation of yoga taught by the Maharishi allowed them to combine their new spirituality with the hedonistic pleasures of modern society. “Life goes on as normal except for brief periods of meditation during the day,” wrote Rave in 1967, and came to the conclusion that the new spiritual lifestyle offered “an answer tailor-made for the world of today”, where life was filled “with

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sacrifice”.125 Teenagers found that they were not obliged to discard the trappings of their materialistic lifestyles at all, and as the goal of meditation was happiness, it fitted perfectly into the culture of hedonism.126 Donovan also arrived at the Maharishi’s meditation centre and began to use non-­ Western instruments like tom-toms and bongos.127 In America, the new approach to music went even further. Here, black American musicians broke more than anyone else with the structure of Western popular music in the late 1960s. Such sound experiments went too far for a lot of listeners, and thus mainly appealed to a fairly niche audience. Jazz, having already in the late 1950s and early 1960s looked to its African roots,128 distanced itself still further from Western pop with the amelodic and dysfunctional music of artists like Archie Shepp and Sun Ra, who were inspired by musicians such as Charles Mingus.129 Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra now wore ceremonial robes on stage and talked of “show[ing] the West the way”, with “the East to reckon with”, reminding the jazz community of the spiritual roots of jazz.130 Internationalisation, transnationalisation, and the marriage of musical genres did not mean that place, space, and local identity were no longer relevant. The case of Sun Ra suggests that by the late 1960s, the spatial history of America’s black population had become stronger in music culture. In Britain, too, popular culture was deeply intertwined with the geography of the country. The British Invasion represented the rise of musical influences from the northwest of England. The Guardian wrote that this region had become “the Nashville of Britain”.131 Liverpool, according to contemporary writing, benefited from the non-success of London. For the first time since 1945, the capital had failed to produce the next British pop star.132 Hence, music managers and record companies looked for talent outside of London. Scholars have already investigated the reasons for the success of Liverpool’s music scene in post-war times.133 Similar important was that the identity that musicians created for Merseyside soon also reformulated the image of Britishness at home and abroad. Liverpool offered musicians a great deal of material to work with, given the history of the city and in particular its ethnic and social composition. Musicians popularised the heterotopian idea of “popscapes”, and in doing so began to explore and redefine the identity of urban spaces,134 by mythologising and negotiating with the past and the present of such environments.135 As a sort of collage, they explored the connections between visual, sound, and emotional experiences, and thus were rooted in the complexity of urban life and its

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contrast with the countryside.136 Musicians turned themselves into “object[s] of street art” and became “public icon[s]” who illustrated “changing urban signs”.137 Popular music was a major factor in evaluating the economic and cultural status of a city. Years before Halasz published her ground-breaking article, the NME had commented that the geographical picture in relation to pop groups had “changed radically”.138 The success of the Beatles meant that 1963 would “go down in pop history as the era in which the provinces came into their own”.139 Musicians no longer had to travel to London in order to pursue their careers.140 As early as 1960, Melody Maker had remarked on Liverpool’s success in “catering for the non-conformist tastes of the young”141 and becoming the birthplace of the British pop scene. Liverpool was described as Britain’s “busiest scene for group music”142 and had produced artists such as Billy Fury and Frankie Vaughan long before the boom in Merseybeat music.143 Artists, journalists, and local entertainment industries promoted an image of Liverpool as an internationally relevant city. In interviews, potential collaborations were proposed, because, according to the popular narrative, Liverpool was a village, in which “everybody [knew] everybody”.144 Paul McCartney would agree.145 Musicians, fashion designers, fans, and those involved in the entertainment business met in clubs such as the Cavern, the Iron Door, the Blue Angel, the Downbeat, and the Mardi Gras. The public perceived Liverpool as representing the kind of intimacy and interconnectedness which cities like London had lost as a consequence of the urban transformation. Stars such as Cilla Black referred to the manageable size and cosy feel of the local scene. She often began an interview by saying that her career had started when she was working at the Zodiac coffee bar, a popular hangout for beat musicians.146 Local musicians benefited from a well-established entertainment industry. Its vitality was rooted in the city’s economy. As a port town and industrial centre, entertainment venues catered for workers and short-­ term visitors who were seeking an enjoyable distraction from hard work. Celebrities drew attention to their association with the city’s well-known working-class culture and found that it enhanced their working-class credentials to say that they came from the “red-brick jungle of Liverpool”147 and had been to an ordinary school. Such “ordinariness” forged an alliance with the local fan-base. Billy Fury, in contrast, would not answer questions regarding his upbringing in the “[tougher-than-tough] area of Dingle in Liverpool” but nevertheless stated that he was “proud of the

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Pool”.148 Liverpool epitomised coolness, because the Beatles had popculturalised the “mysterious well of English, and especially northern working-class, sentimentality”.149 They conferred a feeling of dignity to Liverpudlians and other northerners at a time when many felt as though they were considered second-class citizens. In contrast to other parts of Britain, urban planners and policy-makers had ignored Liverpool, meaning that in the 1960s the city still displayed the physical remnants of its nineteenth-­ century industrial past and war damages.150 The Beatles embraced this identity rather than rejecting it. Similar to the city’s working class, the Beatles were patient, and like the city’s dockers, “they never stopped believing”.151 The music industry began to ask whether connections between “Liverpoolness” and local music culture had any impact on the sound of local groups.152 Some addressed that Merseyside bands had withstood “Londonisation” and used a somehow “northern flavour”.153 This sound was inspired by ordinary teenage life, and made reference to ideas of unprofessionalism, improvisation, and the unpolished style of working-­ class music-making. According to Rave, the cellar-club sound from Liverpool filled the space left by a “lack of dirtiness” and of “music with fire”.154 For music journalists, The Beatles conquered the charts by playing the guitar so hard that they broke the strings and then continued to play regardless, so that no one really knew what would come next.155 The distinctive sound was based on black American rhythm and blues, for which many local bands shared a passion, but their skills, according to contemporary journalists, were not of a standard that they were able to truly emulate the style.156 This, however, meant local music stars often looked and sounded similar to one another.157 Not everyone described the sound from Liverpool as unique.158 Local artists such as Billy and the Dakotas feared that their music could become less popular if they were seen as just another band.159 Bands accused their counterparts of copying them. Further, musicians began to be rejected by labels as the proliferation of bands reached crisis point. People had already begun to write about the decline of Liverpool while the city was at the centre of British pop music in 1964. The pop business being traditionally built around the “next big thing”, the press examined the factors that could have a negative effect on the local music scene and concluded that the sheer number of bands had the potential to cause the death of the Mersey sound. No one could top the Beatles, and groups gradually moved away from beat, concentrating instead on folk music or rhythm and

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blues.160 In 1965, music writers noted that the more professional blues sound associated with Bo Diddley-inspired bands from London had overtaken Liverpool’s cellar sound.161 Less pessimistic writers countered that Liverpool was simply losing its edge, but would soon make a comeback.162 The oversaturation of the Liverpool scene had a spillover effect and started to hit other entertainment industries. Bands left the city and moved to London, which by 1965–66 had replaced its priggish attitude towards northerners with a new broadmindedness.163 The crisis in Liverpool paved the way for other regions and their pop scenes to emerge. Some commentators identified the Midlands as the next “place to be”, thanks to the TV series For Teenagers Only, which had featured bands from Birmingham.164 In London, the Rolling Stones were described as “the South’s most successful challenge against the domination of the Merseybeat”.165 While the majority of British Invasion bands, lyrically as well as in terms of their image, were concerned with modern urban life, they were also conscious of their fan base in the countryside. The Small Faces tried to establish a connection by means of a photoshoot at a farm.166 The motif of the countryside was still perceived as integral to Britishness, and consequently to the notion of British identity in pop music. Tommy Steele enabled teenagers in provincial areas to see his new film before its official release.167 The folk music revival went even further in addressing the relationship between popular music and rural life, though historians today see the folk revival as more of a reaction to the negative aspects of urban living.168 Music had become part of a network of entertainment industries which shaped the identity and role of British post-war cities.169 Youth identities, such as that of the Mods, radiated from London out towards other parts of Britain, where before long local businesses, teenagers and journalists claimed to be at the centre of British Mod culture.170 This was perhaps due to the fact that these urban centres were distinct from the countryside around them. In rural areas, according to contemporaries, “provincial teenagers [were] usually months behind”.171 Teenagers who grew up in counties such as Lancashire complained that here, “fashions never change”.172 Kids travelled to London as they were bored from their hometowns.173 Terence Conran remembered how the old north-south divide continued to exist even after “the media (and especially television) apparently brought us together”.174 Readers of teenage magazines compared entertainment provision in their hometowns.175 Pop bands were featured as cultural ambassadors,

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while local in-places defined city identities. Writers would frequently criticise their competitors, and try to make their hometown sound bigger and better than it really was.176 Musicians used similar strategies, telling journalists that fans were more grumpy in London than in Liverpool, that the north was “warmhearted” in contrast to London’s coolness, or simply that they had become disillusioned with London when performing in the capital.177 Cities such as Newcastle, the hometown of the Animals, began to distinguish themselves from other pop scenes.178 London was a particular enemy in this game. Being the major cultural magnet, it absorbed the creative capital of the country. Cities in nearly every region had an interest in the decline of London’s omnipotence and tried their best locally to compete with the entertainment in the capital. Some artists criticised metropolitan life itself and claimed to prefer a quieter way of life.179 While non-Londoners rejected the anonymity, heterogeneity, and density for which metropolitan culture stood, Londoners joked about the provincial character of cities like Liverpool.180 London, surprisingly, in contrast to the recognised decline of its traditional communities and way of life, was presented as a city still defined by Cockney working-class culture. In this sense, according to Dave Clark, London was not much different from northern towns.181 For foreigners, it made no difference in any case where exactly British musicians were originally from, because the “Liverpool Sound” phenomenon had largely become synonymous with Britishness abroad.182 The national press, however, did distinguish Clark’s Tottenham sound from that of the Beatles.183 Often, the origin of these rivalries harked back to the industrialisation of the previous century,184 with such divisions being sustained in the sphere of popular culture.185 Despite presenting themselves as unique, many cities were not, and thus competed with one another in cultural terms.186 Pirate radio stations were able to broadcast to a limited radius and were therefore aimed at a local audience. While these stations could change their location, the infrastructure of the music business was less versatile and of economic relevance. Disputes over the allocation of resources resulted in competition between cities. While Liverpool defined the sound of Britain abroad, “London [still] determined how that sound was understood and marketed”.187 London monopolised cultural and financial resources, defined “success”, and introduced bands to the larger US market. The capital was the door to the world as it hosted the country’s booking agencies. Britain’s “Tin Pan Alley” was Denmark Street in Soho, where the major British and American record companies and recording

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studios were spatially concentrated.188 Thus it was no surprise that groups like the Beatles moved to London, with their manager explaining that they were relocating due to the centralisation of the pop business.189 Many others did so too, while others were fortunate that they had lived in London since their childhood.190 In London, the entertainment industry could count on the critical mass required to open flagship stores like HMV on Oxford Street, or others that specialised in certain genres.191 Liverpool had to accept its status as the “second city of the British musical industry”,192 largely because “the availability of choice for Mods in the north was very limited”.193 London was so vast that magazines could run features focusing on individual boroughs.194 For Epstein, too, the real competition was not between artists but between cities, as in his view, Britain’s national DNA was defined by local identity, and financial success depended on a local fan-base. The media also used the framework of regionality to write about pop.195 When the Rolling Stones became one of the first bands from the south to be successful in the north, people noticed that musicians had the power to transcend regional rivalries.196 Publicist Royston Ellis said that there was “absolutely no link between kids in the south and the north” but the “Mersey breakthrough [had] presumably altered this” and created one of the first national generations.197 Although regional animosities had never really been fixed, collaboration between musicians from different regions did take place. Connections between pop stars and their hometowns were strengthened and encouraged by press features on the geographical origins of artists.198 Popular culture in the first half of the 1960s was, in spite of the rapid growth of mass media, still a spatial and also regional experience. Image-­making internalised this. As early as the 1950s, skiffle and rock ‘n’ roll artists had talked about life in their hometowns. Music was made by ordinary people for ordinary people, so that popular music in the 1950s had been described as a genre that emerged from the cellars and coffee bars of neighbourhoods, rooted in local music scenes and in the sphere of daily culture.199 Consequently, local scenes were given special attention by local newspapers, which speculated about the talent of local groups, and their potential to become well known.200 Newspapers created local networks that were responsible for finding and promoting the next pop stars in hotspot areas like Chelsea.201 Business owners organised band contests in nearly every borough, and music managers searched for the next superstar in local pubs and cellars. Churches ran pop events and funfairs too and instigated pop and fashion

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festivals.202 Local talent-shows, under the old but reliable trial-and-error principle, offered great business opportunities.203 Stars such as Billy Fury were discovered through local music contests.204 Youth services and youth clubs provided access to instruments and supported music-making. Teenagers started groups of their own, once they realised that beat music was played by ordinary people like themselves. Now, according to the press, everyone had the “chance to become a PYE recording star” (Image 6.2).205 Teenage magazines provided information on where to hang out in order to be spotted by representatives of the music industry and offered readers the chance to prepare themselves for stardom, printing quizzes which asked them the sort of questions asked of pop stars by sensation-seeking journalists.206 Music managers welcomed such training exercises, feeling that groups needed less help with music-making than with public relations.207 As pop stars in the 1960s were in the same age group as their listeners, often having attended the same schools and even having grown up on the same street,208 young people dreamed that they too could become stars. Local newspapers gave teenagers a space to express their dreams.209 Cathy McGowan told the papers that she had one day noticed in passing a job advertisement for an interviewer for a TV pop show, applied for it, and was offered the job, despite coming from an ordinary family. Helen Shapiro from Hackney was labelled “the Cockney Kid” who had successfully exported British working-class culture abroad (Image 6.3).210 When It’s Trad, Dad! was released, teenagers from Hackney painted a series of portraits of Shapiro, which were exhibited at the local Essoldo Cinema.211 A few years later, London Life sent an employee to a recording studio whose song sold so well that he had gigs in Australia in Italy. The success of McGowan and Shapiro was used to illustrate the idea that class boundaries were fading. Popular culture provided an opportunity to climb the social ladder. This narrative took hold on both sides of the Atlantic. In the US, singer Renaldo Benson, a member of the Four Tops, became known for having grown up in a ghetto, which he escaped from by becoming musically successful.212 In Britain, the success of artists such as Twiggy, the Beatles, and Cilla Black was cited as a vindication of the promise of capitalism: that someone working in a menial job could become a millionaire.213 Their image as having been ordinary, workingclass kids, however, did not always match the reality and in some cases even bands without a working-class background flirted with working-class

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Image 6.2  “Make your own record in 3 minutes”, London, c. 1966/67. (Copyright: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd./Alamy Stock Photo)

culture. Lennon conceded that “Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis […] were working-class entertainment” but “the Beatles were slightly less working-class”.214 Shapiro regularly sang about working-class life in Hackney and Stoke Newington. Mike Sarne released “Come Outside” in June 1962.215 Sarne’s song, according to George Melly, conserved a zeitgeist, characterised by the “feel of the new working-class with its non-forelocking-tugging approach to the bourgeois and determination not to be kicked around”.216 Dave Clark deified working-class neighbourhood life and declared that he

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Image 6.3  Helen Shapiro, promotion picture with the Covent Garden Boys at the Covent Garden Market in November 1962. (Copyright: Trinity Mirror/ Mirrorpix/Alamy Stock Photo)

would never leave Tottenham.217 He praised Cockney attitudes, preferring the idea of poverty over wealth, as the latter would mean leaving behind the communality and the beauty of ordinary life.218 Clark explained the Cockney talent for entertainment as a side-effect of the east London fondness for smiling, joking, and street life. The Kinks were another band to pay tribute to the landscape of their childhood.219 The village green they wrote about in their songs as an incarnation of Englishness could have been anywhere in Britain, while inevitably, the suburban world of Muswell Hill that the Kinks described was reflected in the surroundings of hundreds of thousands of teenagers living on the outskirts of big cities. Working-class life in popular music centred around specific attributes such as resilience. Being tough was important, because the music business, artists, and even their young fans had connections with the semi-criminal world of urban gang culture. Beat groups, according to historian David Fowler, “had [often] begun as juvenile gangs”.220 In Liverpool, bands

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travelled with their local fan-base for concerts and formed loyal connections with local gangs.221 In London, also, Mod gangs were affiliated with local pop groups.222 Such arrangements were not exclusive to the British music scene. Frank Sinatra, for example, had friends from his hometown who were members of the Italian mafia.223 Toughness and poverty also became a central motif for black American musicians.224 In 1968, the allwhite ska combo Locomotive explored the meaning of organised crime syndicates within West Indian culture with the release of “Rudi’s in Love”.225 The use of working-class identities for market placement was clever because British films had re-centred working-class culture in the entertainment industry, and contextualised post-war working-class life alongside teenage lifestyles,226 social conflict,227 and Americanisation. While the Angry Young Men movement chose to portray the north of England in their writing, their re-examination of class paved the way for a Cockney cinema revival. In March 1963, Sparrows Can’t Sing was released. The film was shot in the East End and claimed to feature “real East End characters”. Critics, however, complained that the film adhered to an old stereotype of the East End instead of illustrating how the area had modernised. In contrast to the image of the East End as a Victorian working-class slum, Place to Go focused on the changing nature of working-class life.228 Pop films such as What a Crazy World were shot in London’s East End too, and offered insights into the world of local entertainment by exploring its premises.229 The most popular film in this genre was Alfie, whose protagonist was a proper working-class gigolo with a penchant for girls—a character who, in stereotypical Cockney fashion, had chosen the slogan “I don’t depend on nobody and nobody don’t depend on me” as his motto.230 The majority of pop stars who jumped on the working-class bandwagon chose to do so because in the entertainment industry in the 1960s, an image was more than “just another [gimmick]” and could mean the difference between succeeding and not.231 Until the Beatles arrived, wrote Fabulous in May 1966, “an ‘image’ was the sacred cow of show business”.232 The four boys from Liverpool made it clear that the right image could be powerful enough to inspire almost religious fervour—a point that became even more pertinent in the late 1960s, when the attention given to political statements easily overtook that which was paid to sound and lyrics. The magazine Boyfriend saw the phenomenon of Beatlemania not as a result of their music but instead as a reaction to the Beatles’ appearance.233 In the pursuit of image-making, groups strengthened their

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associations with subcultural identities, and these ideas and fashions were frequently exported along with the music when a band became globally successful.234 Music periodicals gave artists the space to promote their inner selves. In these statements, artists did not just reproduce an idea of Britishness and British life, but posed the question of what British identity meant in modern times.235 In doing so, pop stars helped to negotiate social change and were constructive in shifting the notion of Britishness from a Victorian to a post-Victorian identity. Steve Marriott, frontman of the Small Faces, exemplified the new era of individuality when he rejected requests from record labels.236 Emotional stories accompanied the release of pop hits, informing the readers of teenage magazines of how a particular song had changed an artist’s life.237 Other features offered insights into what a star was doing in their spare time, their relationship with their family, and how they reinvented themselves to keep up with the zeitgeist of a fast-moving society.238 Background stories and portraits strengthened the bond between the pop star and the reader. Fans, so a music journalist, must have “the chance to identify themselves with the music and a certain form of scene that created itself around the music”.239 This identification was based on the representation of musicians as ordinary people.240 Pop stars’ lives broadly reflected those of the most lucrative consumer group in society—the teenager 241—and music papers and teen magazines operated as mediators between the stars and their fans. This relative intimacy had replaced the remote, glamorous, and untouchable image of earlier pop stars, in response to the desire of fans to belong to the cult of admirers that tended to form around an artist.242 Fabulous described the beat era to its young readership as “your” age, declaring, “[You’re] living it; part of it; MAKING it.”243 The modern image of musicians, in which they kept pace with sociocultural change, provoked generational tensions. Housewives stated that they were fans of the Stones, but were disgusted by their look.244 The “untidiness” of the band’s appearance was blamed for the flop of a new Beatles release in 1967,245 and the year before that, the BBC had already banned a singer from appearing on a TV show because of his long hair.246 Parents complained that pop stars were poor role models for their children, and were supported by experts such as Francis Camps, professor at the London Hospital Medical College, who warned that the lifestyle and image of musicians was at odds with social norms, particularly in terms of drugtaking.247 Pop stars also shifted the boundaries around sexual taboos. Pete

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Townshend sang openly about his first sexual experience in “Pictures of Lily”.248 The Move criticised Britain’s approach to violence, asserting that “people love violence” in the hope of attracting attention with such a shocking statement.249 Stunts such as guitar-smashing, the destruction of televisions and cars with axes, or the hiring of strippers were planned to provoke journalists into writing about bands, in spite of Keith Moon’s assurances that such outbreaks were spontaneous and not part of a promotional strategy.250 In 1967, dancer Dave Dee had difficulty booking a hotel room because of “the bad reputation the pop business [was] getting”.251 The Stones might even have been happy that fans rioted at a show in Scotland, destroying 120 seats, as incidents such as this guaranteed the attention of the media.252 Some artists used this strategy to create a counter-image to eccentric pop culture. Folk singers also catered to an older clientele and sought to distance themselves from the troublemakers, thereby consolidating their image as decent and upright citizens. The Hollies moved towards a moderate, well-behaved representation of themselves in a series of photos taken in the countryside, which placed the band in quiet surroundings, in contrast to urban rock-star life. This image aligned with traditional motifs of Englishness.253 In the late 1960s, the market was saturated with thrill-­ seeking, trouble-making rock stars. Others, such as the Beatles, changed their image after being overtaken by the Monkees, and turned away from publicity and live shows.254 Such behaviour helped to create a new mystique around groups. In the early 1970s artists began to free themselves from the clutches of the music press with which they had previously been so entrenched, and which they had used to help them build a unique image. Aggressive image-making was replaced by the anti-image. Now, the Beatles hid behind Latin-American combos on stage, in an effort to reduce their own visibility. The different forms and concepts British pop music embodied in the early, the mid, and late 1960s broke with as well as revitalised passed notions of Victorian Britishness in their own way. Whereas the success of black music in Britain matched the multiculturalisation of metropolitan life in the urban centres of the country, regional rivalries which shaped the national psyche since provinces had become rivals in the age of industrialisation, continued to exist. Popular music did not disassociate itself from space, place, and local identities but reproduced historical concepts of community-hood in times of the arrival of new mass media.

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Class identities which gave Britons orientation since the manifestation of the class society in the previous century had become a cultural expression. Artists and pop groups who associated themselves with the working classes gave class identities a popular face and helped to keep them alive. In lyrics and images, many of them asked what it meant to be socialised as young working-class Brits in times of social and cultural change. Popular culture offered young people the opportunity to negotiate British and urban identities and could do so because artists dealt with both, the past and the future. This allowed to build a relationship with their audience social and cultural reality as well as with young people’s passed and still-influential family histories.

Notes 1. “Great New Musical Express’ Pool Winners’ Supplement. Rock’n’roll still rules the roost!,” New Musical Express, 9 October 1959. 2. “Beatlemania sweeps across Britain!,” New Musical Express, 27 December 1963. 3. See Sandbrook, Never Had it so Good; Sandbrook, White Heat; King, Men, Masculinity and the Beatles, 19. 4. See “Keith Goodwin Surveys. The Fabulous Fifties 1952–53. Slower speeds, but faster sales!,” New Musical Express, 11 December 1959. 5. Thompson, Please Please Me, Whiticker, British Pop Invasion. 6. John Russell Taylor, “Ten years of the New Wave,” New Society, 14 July 1966. 7. “The First 3 months of 1963. Beatles arrive, but Cliff on top,” New Musical Express, 6 December 1963. 8. See Bennett, “Sitting in an English Garden”. 9. “Frankie Vaughan reveals that America offers,” New Musical Express, 17 July 1959. 10. Booker, Neophiliacs, 223. 11. Lewisohn, The Beatles Tune In. 12. “What American teenagers read about Cliff,” New Musical Express, 16 August 1963. 13. Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 45, 49. 14. “Cathy McGowan’s Mod Miscellany,” Mod’s Monthly, May 1964. 15. “Embassy, Washington (The Beatles),” Daily Express, 21 February 1964; David English, “Beatles get apology from envoy’s wife,” Daily Express, 23 February 1964. 16. “Beatles U.S. show made into film,” New Musical Express, 14 February 1964.

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17. “Beatles will never forget this scene,” New Musical Express, 26 June 1964. 18. Booker, Neophiliacs, 224. 19. “London Life in New  York. Britons (And Their Birds) Take Over,” London Life, 28 May 1966. 20. “a British maid talks … Dusty—One The Scene,” Rave, November 1965. 21. Sessional Papers of the House of Commons, No. 13 (1966), 13; Board of Trade Journal and Commercial Gazette, 1 October 1965. 22. “Warning to our groups,” New Musical Express, 15 January 1965. 23. See “British stars report on their global trips,” New Musical Express, 19 January 1962. 24. “Rave Around The World,” Rave, March 1965. 25. “They’d like to emigrate to Liverpool!,” Jackie, 12 November 1966. 26. “Travel is nightmare for Small Faces,” New Musical Express, On sale Friday, week ending October 14, 1967. 27. “Pop International,” Rave, March 1965. 28. “Cheek! Because you prefer some British discs to their American counterparts; U.S. executives are shouting—Unfair,” New Musical Express, 26 February 1960. 29. “London Life in New  York. Britons (And Their Birds) Take Over,” London Life, 28 May 1966. 30. “More Difficult For British Groups,” Pop Weekly, Week Ending 31 October 1964. 31. “Cheek! Because you prefer some British discs to their American counterparts; U.S. executives are shouting—Unfair,” New Musical Express, 26 February 1960. 32. “More Difficult For British Groups,” Pop Weekly, Week Ending 31 October 1964. 33. Cloonan and Williamson, Players’ work time, 176 f. 34. “Should smaller fry American popsters be banned from Britain?,” New Musical Express, 30 April 1965. 35. “Cliff and the Shadows rock in Blackpool!—and the fans scream for more,” New Musical Express, 1 September 1961. 36. “With Who and Bird at Paris Allez-Oop!” New Musical Express, 8 April 1966. 37. See “Bikini Buying Bombshell (Look Out It’s Millie in Cannes),” Fabulous, 19 September 1964. 38. See Neil Clark, “The decline of Britain’s cosmopolitan culture,” The Guardian, 28 June 2008. 39. “Adam Gets The Hump,” Fabulous, 30 May 1964. See also Stafford, Big Time. 40. “Tourist Billy J,” Fabulous, 8 August 1964. 41. “Olé Its Los Bravos,” Jackie, 15 October 1966.

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42. “Johnny—France’s Guv’nor Rocker Fella on Leave,” Jackie, 17 October 1964. 43. “Fans Around The World. It’s Fan Male Mania At The Olympia, Paris!,” Rave, March 1965. 44. “Raving Reports. A rave look at the general scene!,” Rave, February 1967. 45. “Dave Clark gets the lowdown on Paris from Helen Shapiro,” Fabulous, 28 March 1964. 46. “Makes the Pace for Gerry,” Fabulous, 28 March 1964. 47. See Inglis, The Beatles in Hamburg. 48. Sneeringer, A Social History of early Rock ‘n’ Roll in Germany. 49. “Is Liverpool’s talent drying up,” New Musical Express, 9 August 1963. 50. “Kingsize,” Fabulous, 9 May 1964. 51. Letter from the British Embassy in Prague to the Northern Department of the Foreign Office in London, May 1964, TNA/FO 371/177493. 52. Gair, The Beat Generation, 142 f. 53. “Polish youth accuse ministries of ‘fixing’ audience,” New Musical Express, On sale Friday, week ending April 22, 1967. 54. “The Tommy Steele in Moscow Story,” The Guardian, 9 August 1959. 55. Report on the Beatles’ Visit to Japan, 1966, TNA FO 371/187127. 56. D. J. Cheke, The Beatles in Tokyo, 19 July 1966, Japan, in: Report on the Beatles’ Visit to Japan, 1966, TNA FO 371/187127. 57. “The Tommy Steele in Moscow Story,” The Guardian, 9 August 1959. 58. “England Swings says Roger Miller,” Pop Weekly, Week Ending 1 January 1966. 59. Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 50. 60. “How does a Beatle live? John Lennon lives like this,” Evening Standard, 4 March 1966. 61. See “Comment on Jesus Spurs a Radio Ban,” New York Times, 5 August 1966, Gogerly, John Lennon, 47. 62. For Epstein, see “Phew! A Close Shave For The Beatles,” London Life, 20 August 1966. 63. See Sean Michaels, “The Vatican comes round to the Beatles,” The Guardian, 24 November 2008. 64. Humphrey Lyttleton, “A Plain Man’s Guide to Jazz,” Men Only, October 1960. 65. “J stands for … all that Jazz,” Jackie, 29 February 1964. 66. Morra, Britishness, Popular Music, and National Identity, 91. 67. See George Ewart Evans, “Let your yeah be yeah,” New Society, 25 July 1963. 68. Humphrey Taylor and Timothy Raison, “Britain into Europe?—General Attitudes,” New Society, 16 June 1966. 69. Trudgill, “Acts of Conflicting Identity”; Laing, “Cockney Rock,” 207.

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70. Millard, Beatlemania, 58. 71. See “Their Mojo is Really Working,” Pop Weekly, Week Ending 9 May 1964. 72. “Is The American Pop Influence Really Dead?,” Pop Weekly, Week Ending 27 June 1964; “The Stateside Artistes Are Fighting Back,” Pop Weekly, Week Ending 18 July 1964. 73. “Is Liverpool’s talent supply drying up,” New Musical Express, 9 August 1963. 74. “Bern Elliott declares it’s not Liverpool but—The Hamburg Sound,” New Musical Express, 13 December 1963. 75. Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 12. 76. See Reynolds, Rich Relations; Gardiner, Over Here. For exchange between locals and American soldiers see John Barr, “America, England,” New Society, 22 April 1965. 77. “Londoners With An American Accent,” London Life, 21 May 1966. For PX stores, see Hill, It Ain’t Rock & Roll, 54; Patrick Uden, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 47 f. 78. Military Service Division, Air Force Bases, 286 f. 79. “Cliff Richard tells you about his big American thrills and join in the ‘No Elvis, No Cliff’ controversy along with two readers in …,” New Musical Express, 26 February 1960. 80. “Ready: A Look behind the Scenes of T.V.s Top Mod show with Vicki Wickham,” Mod’s Monthly, June 1964. 81. “NME chart-points for January-June, 1964, reveal—77 per cent of top sellers are British,” New Musical Express, 3 July 1964. 82. “Scene Sixty Five,” Rave, February 1965. 83. For this hostility, see “Segregationist Wants Ban on ‘Rock and Roll’,” New York Times, 30 March 1956; “Rock-and-Roll Called ‘Communicable Disease’,” New York Times, 28 March 1956; Wallenfeldt, The Birth of Rock & Roll, xii. 84. “Keith Goodwin admits the pop music jigsaw has me beaten,” New Musical Express, 21 August 1959. 85. “British theatre chief’s new policy—shock for U.S. stars: percentage deals only,” New Musical Express, 3 July 1959. 86. “After £ shock—fewer U.S. stars?,” New Musical Express, 25 November 1967. 87. See “The Raver’s U.S.  Cable,” Rave, February 1965; “The Raver’s U.S. Cable,” Rave, March 1965. 88. See Fitzgerald, “The Early British Invasion”. 89. “A little England in the heart of America,” New Musical Express, On sale Friday, week ending August 17, 1968. 90. “What’s Wrong With Pop?,” Rave, July 1968.

234 

F. FUHG

91. “The Big Pop Movement,” Rave, September 1967; Paul Williams, “The Golden Road: A Report on San Francisco,” Crawdaddy!, June 1967. 92. “Redskin Girl Who Fights in Song,” London Life, 21 May 1966. 93. Humphrey Lyttleton, “A Plain Man’s Guide to Jazz,” Men Only, October 1960. See also Stratton, “Melting Pot,” 32 f. 94. Humphrey Lyttleton, “A Plain Man’s Guide to Jazz”. 95. “Kenny Ball forecasts Jazz will become as popular as Rock,” New Musical Express, 8 September 1961. 96. “It’s Rhythm-And-Blues That’s Booming Now,” New Musical Express, 27 December 1963. 97. Plasketes, B-Side, 85. 98. See Shaw, “Tropicália,” 32 f. For the term world music see Slobin, Music at Wesleyan, 39 f.; Frith, Popular Music Vol. 2, 64. 99. Wicke, Rock und Pop, 15. 100. “Britain’s king of Latin-American dance music comes of age! Edmundo Ros has been on radio 21 years,” New Musical Express, 4 August 1961. See also Blake, Living Through Pop, 101. 101. See Lynch and Smyth, The Beatles and Ireland; Gould, Can’t Buy Me Love; Cohen, “Cavern journeys,” 237. Paul McCartney promoted with his new band the Wings in February 1972 the unification of Ireland when releasing “Give Ireland Back to the Irish” after the Bloody Sunday massacre. 102. “Memo to Home Secretary Jenkins—Foundations models of multi-racial living,” New Musical Express, On sale Friday, week ending November 11, 1967. 103. Stratton, When Music Migrates, 37; Malik, Representing Black Britain, 115. 104. See “Man! Millie’s Jamaican Christmas is the mos,” Fabulous, 26 December 1964. 105. “Does Millie Talk Too Much?,” Flamingo, October 1964. 106. Ibid. 107. “Enter Ali, the smoothie with a red fez,” Jackie, 18 June 1966. 108. “Karl’s songs come from four corners of the world,” New Musical Express, 11 August 1961. 109. Denver was inspired by Solomon Linda’s song “Wimoweh”, which was part of the show of the radical U.S. folk group the Weavers in 1957. See Moore, Song Means, 154. 110. For Ray Charles’ mixing of Western and non-Western music, see Campbell, Popular Music in America, 188. 111. “Britain likes Russia’s top tune,” New Musical Express, 24 November 1962. 112. “Hollies Go Chinese!,” New Musical Express, 1 April 1966,

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113. “Thwarted fans threaten Equals with Bomb!,” New Musical Express, On sale, Friday, week ending July 27, 1969. 114. “Fame at Last,” Fabulous, 27 June 1964. 115. See documentary Red, White and Blues, directed by Mike Figgism, 2003. 116. “Crime yes—but Locomotive said no to pornography,” New Musical Express, On sale, Friday, week ending, November 16, 1968. 117. “New to You. Mickey Finn and The Blue Men,” Pop Weekly, Week Ending May 2, 1964. 118. “Stones have reached peak at home—But in America it’s all happening for us, says Brain Jones,” New Musical Express, 25 March 1966. 119. See Oakrim, Memoir of a Berber; Robert Palmer, “Jajouka: Up the Mountain,” Rolling Stone, 14 October 1971. 120. John Haines identified a “fascination with the East” in recorded sound in the second half of the 1960s. See Haines, Eight Centuries of Troubadours and Trouvères, 248. 121. “At a Beatle birthday party in Maharishi-Land,” New Musical Express, On sale Friday, week ending April 20, 1967. 122. Driver, “She’s So Heavy”. 123. Hyder, Brimful of Asia, 57–82. 124. “A Meditation Celebration,” Rave, December 1968. 125. “A Raver’s Guide to Transcendental Meditation,” Rave, November 1967. 126. “A Meditation Celebration”. 127. “India inspires Donovan to compose,” New Musical Express, On sale Friday, week ending 30 March 1968. 128. Monson, “Jazz improvisation,” 129. 129. “The New Music That’s Rising From The East,” London Life, 4 June 1966. 130. Ibid. 131. Stanley Reynolds, “Big Time,” The Guardian, 3 June 1963. 132. “Search for New Groups,” Pop Weekly, Week Ending 10 August 1963. 133. See Leonard and Strachan, The Beat Goes on; Brocken, Other Voices; Cohen, Rock Culture in Liverpool. 134. See Lashua et al., Sounds and the City; Cohen et al., Sites of Popular Music Heritage; Connell and Gibson, Sound Tracks; Kang and Fortkamp, Soundscape and the Built Environment; Milestone, “Urban Myths”. 135. Chambers, Popular Culture, 129. 136. Ibid., 69. 137. Ibid., 11. 138. Ibid. 139. Ibid. 140. Thompson, Please Please Me, 32. 141. Ibid.

236 

F. FUHG

142. “New To You,” Pop Weekly, Week Ending 3 March 1963. 143. “Mr. Consistency. Bill Fury began in showbiz at 17—with an unexpected debut,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 22 October 1965. 144. “The Beat City,” Fabulous, 16 May 1964. 145. “So you want to know our story!,” Jackie, 29 February 1964. For more, see “So you want to know our story!,” Jackie, 14 March 1964. 146. See “Billy Presents Cilla”, in: Fabulous, 22 August 1964. 147. Ibid. 148. “Mr. Consistency. Bill Fury began in showbiz at 17—with an unexpected debut”. 149. Reynolds, “Big Time”. 150. “News from the North,” Rave, November 1965. 151. “Pop A La Mod with the Beatles,” Boyfriend, 23 February 1963. 152. See also Astley, Why Don’t We Do It in the Road, 143. 153. Reynolds, “Big Time”. See also “Is Liverpool’s talent supply drying up”. 154. “News from the North”. 155. “Beatle talk by Cilla,” Fabulous, 15 February 1965. 156. “Is Liverpool’s talent supply drying up”. 157. “New to You. Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas,” Pop Weekly, Week Ending 27 April 1963. 158. “After all the talk about it, who is the man who says ‘there’s no Liverpool sound!’” New Musical Express, 7 June 1963. 159. “New to You. Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas,” Pop Weekly, Week Ending 27 April 1963. 160. “News from the North”. 161. “Scene Sixty Five,” Rave, February 1965; “Fame at Last,” Fabulous, 27 June 1964; “Rolling Stones Gather No Miss … They’re A Hit,” Boyfriend, 29 June 1963. 162. “News from the North”. 163. “What’s Happening in Liverpool ‘65,” Jackie, 15 May 1965. 164. “Black-Country Beat Coming Up?,” Pop Weekly, No 52, Week Ending 24th August 1963. 165. “Successful Stones,” Pop Weekly, Week Ending 9 November 1963. See also “London’s Answer—Rolling Stones,” Pop Weekly, Week Ending 23 November 1963; “Readers write … but are not always!,” Pop Weekly, Week Ending 25 April 1964. 166. “The Hollies at home!,” New Musical Express, 16 July 1965; “down on the farm with The Small Faces,” Fabulous, 16 April 1966. 167. “New Tommy Steele Movie. Early Showings in Provinces,” Pop Weekly, Week Ending 22 June 1963. 168. Chambers, Popular Culture, 146.

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169. “Listen to mother…,” Jackie, 29 February 1964; “My Home Town— Manchester,” Jackie, 16 April 1966. 170. Lentz, The Influential Factor, 38. 171. Hamblett and Deverson, Generation X, 15. 172. Carol A.  Middlefell from Radcliffe, Lancashire, in “How’s This For A Home Town?,” Jackie, 13 June 1966. 173. Hamblett and Deverson, Generation X, 42. 174. Terence Conran, in: Gardiner, From the bomb to the Beatles, 9 f. 175. See “My Home Town’ Series,” Jackie, 1966. 176. “Manchester City of Love Laughs & Light,” Jackie, 29 May 1965. 177. “Freddie steady-go!,” Fabulous, 29 February 1964, “THEM from Ireland don’t rate London highly,” New Musical Express, 5 February 1965. 178. “Newcastle’s Best Export—the Animals,” Jackie, 21 March 1966; John Ardill, “Geordie hippy,” The Guardian, 26 September 1967. 179. “Became a household name overnight,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 31 December 1965. 180. “From the boys’ point of view It’s all a giggle,” in: Jackie, 29 February 1964. 181. “You’re never alone with Dave Clark,” Jackie, 28 March 1964. For Dave Clark’s London see also “East, West, London’s Best!,” Jackie, 26 September 1964. 182. “Ultra-Mod Dave Clark,” Pop Weekly, Week Ending 14 March 1964. 183. See McMillan, Beatles Vs. Stones, 97; Davies, The Beatles, 294. 184. See Baker and Billinge, Geographies of England. 185. “Stone us! Liverpool nods to London!,” New Musical Express, 15 November 1963. 186. Philo, British Invasion, 25. 187. Street, “Youth Culture and the Emergence of Popular Music,” 310. 188. Chambers, Popular Culture, p. 133. See also Massey, The Great British Recording Studios, Inwood, Historic London, 198 f.; Suggs, Suggs and the City, 179 f. 189. “Beatles move to London,” Daily Mail, 11 October 1963. 190. “If you’re a perfumed Girl, you’ll be ok with the Koobas!,” Jackie, 16 April 1966; “It’s great to be FAMEous!,” Jackie, 13 March 1965. See also Perone, Mods, Rockers and the Music of the British Invasion, 124. 191. Patrick Doncaster, “There’s always ‘pop’ for lunch!,” Daily Mirror, 18 September 1956. For the special flair of record shops, see comic story “Disc Crazy”, Jackie, 18 April 1964. 192. Reynolds, “Big Time”. 193. Lentz, The Influential Factor, 38. 194. See “My Home Town—Putney,” Jackie, 26 March 1966.

238 

F. FUHG

195. “Lucky Stars’ TV repeat by Liverpool groups,” New Musical Express, 19 July 1963. 196. “Stone us! Liverpool nods to London!”. 197. Royston Ellis, in: Hamblett and Deverson, Generation X, 148. 198. “Ready, Steady, Win”. See also “Pop group—leading 1,000 others—is on brink of fame”, Westminster & Pimlico News, 29 August 1964. 199. Ian Lang, “Skiffle Sets Frustration to Music,” The Sunday Times, 2 March 1958. 200. “A Favourite with Everyone—Strawberry Jam,” Hackney Gazette, 31 January 1969. 201. “The Music-Makers,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 6 August 1965. 202. “To open Christian Aid Week. Pop service in church,” Westminster& Pimlico News, 7 May 1965; “Festival of Pop and Fashion,” Hackney Gazette, 12 September 1970. 203. “Hackney ‘pirate’ becomes pop-music sponsor,” Hackney Gazette, 26 August 1966. 204. See “Young Chelsea,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 22 October 1965. 205. “Puffed Wheat talent contest. Your chance to become a PYE recording star,” New Musical Express, 22 June 1962. 206. See “Are you fit to be the next star?,” regularly published in New Musical Express in 1966. 207. “Pop job going,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 24 January 1964; “Deplorable Stage Acts! British Artistes Can Learn From Top Americans,” Pop Weekly, No 19, Week Ending 2 January 1965. 208. “How To Become Top Of The Pops,” London Life, 6 August 1966. 209. “A Pop Singer of the Future?,” Hackney Gazette, 27 January 1970. 210. “La Shapiro!,” Daily Mirror, 10 November 1961. 211. “Helen Shapiro Contest” Hackney Gazette, 4 May 1962. 212. “How I got out of the ghetto,” New Musical Express, On sale Friday, week ending May 13, 1967. 213. See also “MAN ALIVE, Not in Our Class, Dear; MAN ALIVE, Top Class People,” http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/working (accessed on 18 February 2019). See also “Beatle talk by Cilla,” Fabulous, 15 February 1965. 214. For Lennon’s quote see Palmer, “John Lennon,” 2659 f. 215. “Student is ‘the Cockney’”, Hackney Gazette, 4 May 1962. 216. Quoted after Elborough, London Bridge in America, 150. 217. “Cockney and Proud of It, that’s Dave Clark,” Fabulous, 3 October 1964. 218. See also “The Loves and Hates,” Jackie, 14 March 1964; “The Loves and Hates of Dave Clark,” Jackie, 21 March 1964; “The Beat Age is An Honesty Kick,” Fabulous, 14 May 1966. 219. Hasted, You Really Got Me.

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220. Fowler, Youth Culture in Britain, 172. 221. See “Beat and Gangs on Merseyside,” New Society, 20 February 1964. 222. John Leo Waters, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, 21. 223. See Kaplan, Frank. 224. “Gang warfare surrounded his childhood, but his own high standards won fame for Bobby Darin instead of life of crime says Keith Goodwin,” New Musical Express, 5 June 1959. 225. “Crime yes—but Locomotives said no to pornography”. 226. See “Lovers Must Learn,” Hackney Gazette, 4 May 1962. 227. See “Teenage colour problems in Johnny Nash’s first film,” New Musical Express, 3 February 1961. 228. “Made in Bethnal Green,” Hackney Gazette, 24 April 1964. 229. “What a Crazy World is a teenage,” New Musical Express, 10 January 1964. 230. Ibid. 231. “You Gotta Have an Image!,” Pop Weekly, Week Ending 24 October 1964. 232. “The Beat Age is An Honesty Kick,” Fabulous, 14 May 1966. 233. “Pop A La Mod with the Beatles,” Boyfriend, 23 February 1963. 234. See “Great Sound—Mod Look!,” Pop Weekly, Week Ending 23 May 1964. For another example, see “Ultra-Mod Dave Clark,” Pop Weekly, Week Ending 14 March 1964. 235. Morra, Britishness, Popular Music and National Identity. 236. “I’m a raver, not a singer,” New Musical Express, 20 May 1966. 237. “That First Magic Moment,” Boyfriend, 25 May 1963. 238. See “Young Chelsea”; “To the Stork Club by bus,” The Guardian, 14 July 1960. 239. Lang, “Skiffle Sets Frustration to Music”. 240. See “Welcome To My World,” Rave, October 1964; “Jekyll and Hyde sides of Don Partridge,” New Musical Express, On sale Thursday, week ending April 13, 1968. 241. “We teenagers have every right to form our own ideas insists Bobby Vee,” New Musical Express, 17 February 1961. 242. Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 46. 243. “The Beat Age,” Fabulous, 14 May 1966. 244. “Should Stones tidy themselves up?,” New Musical Express, 1963. 245. Andy Gray, “Have the Beatles gone too far?,” New Musical Express, 1967. 246. “Should Stones tidy themselves up?”. 247. “Professor criticises pop group leader,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 7 April 1967. 248. “Lily isn’t pornographic, say Who,” New Musical Express, On sale Friday, week ending 20 May 1967. 249. “Move wants to start riot,” New Musical Express, On sale Friday, week ending January 21, 1967.

240 

F. FUHG

250. “They’re Smashing,” New Musical Express, 1967. See also Townshend, Who I Am, 72; Behle-Fralick, “Guitar Smashing”. 251. “Cut it out you idiots,” New Musical Express, On sale Friday, week ending October 1967. 252. See “Hits at false fans,” New Musical Express, 8 July 1965. 253. The changing image of the Hollies was also the result of their label change in the US from Imperial to Epic. See Southall, The road is long …. For youth movements, Englishness and the countryside see Edwards, Youth Movements, 46 f. 254. Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 71.

Bibliography Anderson, Paul. 2014. Mods: The New Religion. London: Music Sales. Baker, Alan R., and Mark Billinge. 2004. Geographies of England: The North-South Divide, Material and Imagined. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Behle-Fralick, Chelsea. 2013. Guitar Smashing: Gustav Metzger, the Idea of Auto-destructive Works of Art, and Its Influence on Rock Music. In The Global Sixties in Sound and Vision, ed. Timothy Scott Brown and Andrew Lison, 119–134. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bennett, Andy. 2000. ‘Sitting in an English Garden’: Comparing Representations in the Songs of the Beatles and 1990s Britpop Groups. In The Beatles, Popular Music and Society, ed. Ian Inglis, 189–206. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Blake, Andrew. 2001. Living Through Pop. London: Routledge. Booker, Christopher. 1969. Neophiliacs. London: Collins. Brocken, Michael. 2009. Other Voices: Hidden Histories of Liverpool’s Popular Music Scenes, 1930–1970s. Farnham: Ashgate. Chambers, Ian. 1986. Popular Culture: The Metropolitan Experience. London: Methuen. Cohen, Sara. 1991. Rock Culture in Liverpool: Popular Music in the Making. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2011. Cavern Journeys: Music, Migration and Urban Space. In Migrating Music, ed. Jason Toynbee and Byron Dueck, 235–250. London/New York: Routledge. Cohen, Sara, et  al. 2015. Sites of Popular Music Heritage: Memories, Histories, Place, ed. London. New York: Routledge. Connell, John, and Chris Gibson. 2002. Sound Tracks: Popular Music, Identity, and Place. London: Routledge. Davies, Hunter. 1968. The Beatles: The Authorised Biography. London: Cape. Driver, Richard D. 2017. She’s So Heavy: The Beatles, Revolution, and Vietnam. In The Vietnam War in Popular Culture: The Influence of America’s Most Controversial War on Everyday Life, ed. Ron Milam, 205–224. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.

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Edwards, Sian. 2018. Youth Movements, Citizenship and the English Countryside: Creating Good Citizens, 1930–1960. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Elborough, Travis. 2013. London Bridge in America: The Tall Story of a Transatlantic Crossing. London: Jonathan Cape. Everett, Peter. 1986. You’ll Never Be 16 Again: An Illustrated History of the British Teenager. London: BBC Publications. Fitzgerald, Jon. 2000. The Early British Invasion, 1964–6. In The Beatles, Popular Music and Society: A Thousand Voices, ed. Ian Inglis, 53–85. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Fowler, David. 2008. Youth Culture in Britain, c. 1920–c.1970: from ivory tower to a global movement—a new history. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Frith, Simon. 2004. Popular Music Vol 2: The Rock Era. London: Routledge. Gair, Christopher. 2008. The Beat Generation: A Beginner’s Guide. Oxford: Oneworld. Gardiner, Juliet. 1992. Over Here: The GIs in Wartime Britain. London: Collins & Brown. ———. 1999. From the bomb to the Beatles. London: Collins & Brown. Gogerly, Liz. 2002. John Lennon: Voice of a Generation. London: Hodder Children’s. Gould, Jonathan. 2014. Can’t Buy Me Love: the Beatles, Britain and America. London: Piatkus. Haines, John. 2004. Eight Centuries of Troubadours and Trouvères: The Changing Identity of Medieval Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hamblett, Charles, and Jane Deverson. 1966. Generation X. Greenwich: Fawcett. Hasted, Nick. 2011. You Really Got Me: The Story of The Kinks. London/New York: Omnibus Press. Hewitt, Paolo. 2003. The Soul Stylists: Fort Years of Modernism. Edinburgh: Mainstream. Hill, Robin E. 2016. It Ain’t Rock & Roll: The Biography of Drummer John Kerrison. London: PublishNation. Hyder, Rehan. 2004. Brimful of Asia: Negotiating Ethnicity on the UK Music Scene. Aldershot/Burlington: Ashgate. Inglis, Ian. 2012. The Beatles in Hamburg. London: Reaktion. Inwood, Stephen. 2008. Historic London: An Explorer’s Guide. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Kang, Jian, and Brigitte Schulte Fortkamp. 2016. Soundscape and the Built Environment. Boca Raton/London/New York: CRC Press. Kaplan, James. 2010. Frank: The Making of a Legend. London: Sphere. King, Martin. 2013. Men, Masculinity and the Beatles. Farnham/ Burlington: Ashgate. Laing, David. 2003. Cockney Rock. In Global Pop, Local Language, ed. Harris M. Berger and Michael Thomas Carroll, 20–232. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

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Lashua, Brett, Karl Spracklen, and Stephen Wagg. 2014. Sounds and the City: Popular Music, Place and Globalization. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Lavezzoli, Peter. 2007. The Dawn of Indian Music in the West. New  York: Continuum. Lentz, Graham. 2002. The Influential Factor. Horsham: GEL Publishing. Lewisohn, Mark. 2015. The Beatles: all these years, Vol.1: Tune in. London: Little, Brown and Company. Lynch, Michael, and Damian Smyth. 2008. The Beatles and Ireland. Cork: Collins. Malik, Sarita. 2002. Representing Black Britain: Black and Asian Images on Television. London/Thousand Oaks: SAGE. Marion, Leonard, and Rob Strachan. 2010. The Beat Goes on: Liverpool, Popular Music and the Changing City. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Massey, Howard. 2015. The Great British Recording Studios. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Books. McMillan, John. 2013. Beatles Vs. Stones. New York: Simon & Schuster. Milestone, Katie. 2008. Urban Myths: Popular Culture, the City and Identity. Sociology Compass 2 (4): 1165–1178. Military Service Division. 1961. Air Force Bases: A Directory of U.S.  Air Force Installations, Both Domestic and Foreign. Harrisburg: Military Service Division. Millard, André. 2012. Beatlemania: Technology, Business, and Teen Culture in Cold War America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Moore, Allan F. 2012. Song Means: Analysing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Song. Farnham: Ashgate. Morra, Irene. 2014. Britishness, Popular Music, and National Identity. New York: Routledge. Palmer, Robert. 2002. John Lennon: Must an Artist Self-Destruct? In The New York Times Guide to the Arts of the 20th Century Vol. 4, 1980–1999, ed. D.J.R. Bruckner, 2659–2661. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn. Perone, James E. 2009. Mods, Rockers and the Music of the British Invasion. Westport: Praeger Publishers. Philo, Simon. 2015. British Invasion: The Crosscurrents of Musical Influence. Lanham et al.: Rowman & Littlefield. Plasketes, George. 2009. B-Side, Undercurrents and Overtones: Peripheries to Popular in Music, 1960 to the Present. Farnham/Burlington: Ashgate. Reynolds, David. 1995. Rich Relations: The American Occupation of Britain, 1942–1945. London: HarperCollins. Sandbrook, Dominic. 2007. White Heat: Britain in the Sixties. London: Abacus. ———. 2011. Never Had it so Good: a history of Britain from Suez to the Beatles. London: Abacus. Shaw, Lisa. 2005. Tropicália. In Pop Culture Latin America!: Media, Arts, and Lifestyle, ed. Lisa Shaw and Stephanie Dennison, 32–34. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.

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Shuker, Roy. 2015. Wax Trash and Vinyl Treasures: Record Collecting as a Social Practice. Farnham: Ashgate. Slobin, Mark. 2010. Music at Wesleyan: From Glee Club to Gamelan. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press. Sneeringer, Julia. 2018. A Social History of early Rock ‘n’ Roll in Germany: Hamburg from burlesque to The Beatles, 1956–69. London/New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Southall, Brian. 2015. The road is long …: The Hollies Story. Kimbolton: Red Planet. Stafford, David. 2015. Big Time: The Life of Adam Faith. London: Omnibus Press. Stratton, John. 2016. Melting Pot: The Making of Black British Music in the 1950s and 1960s. In Black Popular Music in Britain Since 1945, ed. John Stratton and Nabeel Zuberi, 27–46. London/New York: Routledge. Street, John. 1994. Youth Culture and the Emergence of Popular Music. In Britain since 1945, ed. Alan O’Day and Terry Gourvish, 305–323. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Suggs, Brad. 2010. Suggs and the City: Journeys through Disappearing London. London: Headline. Thompson, Gordon. 2008. Please Please Me: Sixties British Pop, Inside Out. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Trudgill, Peter. 2010. Acts of Conflicting Identity: The Sociolinguistics of British Pop-song Pronunciation. In Sociolinguistics: A Reader, ed. Nikolaus Coupland and Adam Jaworski, 251–265. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Wallenfeldt, Jeffrey H. 2013. The Birth of Rock & Roll: Music in the 1950s Through the 1960s. New York: Britannica Educational Press. Whiticker, Alan. 2014. British Pop Invasion: How British Music Conquered the Sixties. London: New Holland Publishers. Wicke, Peter. 2017. Rock und Pop: Von Elvis Presley bis Lady Gaga. München: C.H. Beck.

CHAPTER 7

Cultural Renewal and the Transnational Fashion Industry

Fashion was particularly important for pop groups who wanted to change their image. While music was one factor responsible for creating and promoting a new, post-Victorian concept of Britishness, fashion was another. The 1950s’ Britain had witnessed a new youthful fashion-consciousness when Teddy Boys gathered on the streets of major cities.1 While such teenage fashions were somewhat shocking, the culture of dressing up was, of course, well established. Traditionally, Britain’s respectable working classes had upheld the idea of “Sunday best”, which distinguished those who conformed to it from the country’s lumpenproletariat.2 London’s Jews dressed up for high holidays, using the services of Jewish tailors who worked in the clothing industry due to the laws of kashrut.3 Other minority groups too began to have an influence on Britain’s fashion industry.4 The gradual end of rationing, along with rising incomes among teenagers, stimulated the fashion market, which more than ever catered to the taste of young working-class Britons,5 although society did its best to remind teenagers to spend their money wisely.6 Fashion became so important economically that even the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, endeavoured to understand the hype surrounding the mini skirt.7 It both uncovered and facilitated sociocultural change.8 It was also an indicator of modernity, and evaluated not just people’s living conditions but also their

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Fuhg, London’s Working-Class Youth and the Making of Post-Victorian Britain, 1958–1971, Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68968-1_7

245

246 

F. FUHG

lifestyles. It provided insight into generational conflicts and conflicting notions of Britishness. Like music, fashion in the 1960s represented cultural fragmentation and subcultural differentiation. On the other hand, actors “collaborated to [create] the cool, young look that became synonymous with [London] in the 1960s”.9 This look used colour to illustrate the shift from pessimism to optimism.10 Fashion was part of a wider “colourisation” of life, in a country that was enjoying the arrival of technological innovations such as colour television.11 Designers combined colours with new garments and fabrics, making use of new production methods. Mods and Rockers repopularised leather, and fashion manufacturers experimented with materials such as PVC or paper.12 In the early part of the decade, box-shaped dresses and the “bum-freezer” jacket symbolised the height of modernity. By the second half, novel prints and shapes were transforming the 1960s into a period remembered for its op-art patterns and psychedelic designs.13 Many trends of the decade, still associated with mid-1960s Britain, were neither genuinely nor exclusively British. Around the time of the Festival of Britain, the country’s industrial and interior designers had looked to Scandinavia for inspiration.14 Growing affluence put the notion of beauty on a level with that of usefulness.15 Britain’s intention was not only to build new homes, but to create buildings that would enhance people’s everyday life.16 During the “Britain Can Make It” design exhibition in 1946, people joked that the British “can’t have it”, but by the mid-­1950s life had already begun to look different.17 Modern tastes had become so widespread in 1953 that the majority of visitors to an installation at Charing Cross Tube station preferred the room furnished in a modern style to its traditional counterpart.18 Young people in particular favoured colourful designs and modern furniture and used interior design and fashion as opportunities to distinguish themselves from the older generation.19 Mass production enabled working-class citizens to participate in modern consumer culture, helping to equalise living standards.20 The whole nation was buying, according to Isaac Wolfson, chairman of Great Universal Stores in 1958, and the Daily Herald agreed that “skilled and unskilled manual workers have emerged as the biggest spenders […] on goods traditionally regarded as ‘middle-class’ products”.21 The world wars had fostered mass production. Important manufacturers such as Moss Brothers or Montague Burton had started to create clothes which “no longer [divided] the masses from the classes”.22 Tailors such as Henry

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Price democratised fashion by targeting the mass market and ultimately paved the way for ready-to-wear clothes, which overtook haute couture fashion in the 1960s.23 Among working-class youth, the demand for made-to-measure clothing never completely disappeared,24 but the ready-to-wear market precipitated a shift towards “casualisation”. Films such as An American in Paris (1951) and Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) revealed how French couture had been challenged by the American trend for informal clothes.25 The advent of ready-to-wear clothing brought with it the concept of seasonal fashion, as production was fast, and changing trends and new releases guaranteed high turnover.26 In their efforts to appear up to date, teenagers did not just try to anticipate new trends, but delved into fashion history in order to initiate their own. Teddy Boys had copied the Savile Row upper-­ class look for their revival of Edwardian style. In the second half of the 1960s, retro, vintage, and nostalgic attire inspired the look of the counterculture.27 The radicalisation of self-expression through clothes became quickly incorporated into the fashion industry.28 In this sense, fashion broke down the walls between arts and crafts, as popular culture, art, and design were all transformed by new techniques of (mass) production.29 In 1965, Yves Saint Laurent released his Mondrian collection.30 Andy Warhol’s art illustrates the extent to which daily life called the boundaries between highbrow and lowbrow culture, art and ordinariness, and mass media and upper-class art, into question.31 Warhol and others sought new ways to foster exchange and collaboration between these elements, while making controversial remarks about highbrow culture, commenting that it had become irrelevant to people’s lives. Businessmen, designers, artists, musicians, and furniture-makers started to directly influence one another in a convergence exemplified by the Chelsea Set. Terence Conran, for example, met fashion designers in venues such as the Fantasie coffee bar on King’s Road and dressed his staff in Quant outfits when he opened his first shop in 1964.32

London and the Retail Revolution By the mid-1960s, London was already uppermost in the mind of every fashion enthusiast. But when exactly did London became a world fashion centre? Picture Post journalist Alison Settle was uncertain in 1955 whether it could,33 but at the time, Settle still had the traditional sites of London’s tailoring and textile business in mind. In 1955, “Carnaby Street was just

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another shabby Soho back-street”.34 In West London, however, new fashion stores were gradually opening, and selling gear to a young and unpretentious crowd of Londoners who were looking for alternatives to Savile Row, London’s traditional centre for the production of gentlemen’s clothes.35 Chelsea was by no means an area lacking in artistic history.36 The Second World War, however, hit local entertainment businesses hard in economic terms, but as soon as the war was over, King’s Road began to flourish once more. Businessmen in particular began to look to the new spending power of young Londoners. Within a few years, pubs and coffee bars were playing skiffle music and catering to customers excited by a fast-­growing, transnational popular culture.37 Quant’s Bazaar at 138a King’s Road was a door-opener for those, who, as Quant and her partner, Alexander Plunket Greene, used pop art and the new trend for sensationalism to attract young customers.38 King’s Road, in the words of model and photographer Pattie Boyd, “was like an exclusive school playground” where “everyone went to the same parties”,39 and naturally, its inhabitants influenced one another. Quant and Plunket Greene created unusual window displays to attract the attention of passers-­by, using props such as empty milk bottles, or a tailor’s dummy holding a sign that read “Gone Fishing”.40 The business of selling clothes was now inspired by grand theories of communication. Marshall McLuhan had proclaimed that “the medium is the massage”, asserting that the stimulation of the human sensorium was an important marketing strategy now that the availability of products no longer presented a challenge.41 Two years after Quant, John Michael Ingram rented premises on King’s Road, thus broadening the area’s repertoire to include menswear.42 Young fashion-­seekers made shopping on King’s Road something of a spectacle. Chelsea’s high street had become, by the late 1950s, one of the “the great catwalks of the world”, and people flocked there “to see and be seen”.43 American news channels crossed the Atlantic to film in the street, and to broadcast the latest developments from the Chelsea scene. The establishment of creative industries, including the fashion business, initiated a variety of spillover effects and fostered the redevelopment of a whole area. Urban entertainment was spatially clustered. Maps in lifestyle magazines illustrated the locations of hip businesses and popularised the idea of so-called entertainment districts.44 Many catered for a similar clientele. Restaurants began to sell exotic foods in order to appeal to sensation-­ seekers. By 1966, King’s Road had become the main centre for dining out in London. In contrast to restaurants which sold, for example, Chinese

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food in a posh setting, Buzzy’s Bistro served low-priced food to the many ordinary people who came to see the Chelsea spectacle with their own eyes. In 1960, the Betting and Gaming Act legalised gambling. Gambling halls sprang up as a complement to the King’s Road entertainment scene. The provision of modern entertainment for young customers, of course, resurrected generational conflicts. Older residents commented that the high street no longer catered for their everyday needs, making them feel as though they were no longer considered relevant to local life.45 London had always been a polycentric town. Thus other high streets, which were already benefiting from the rise in incomes, profited from the booming popularity of King’s Road. Shops were able to survive in spite of proximity to their competitors, as the arrival of the consumer society fragmented the fashion requirements of shoppers. In addition, apart from a few fashionable areas in London, shopping was still largely a local experience.46 Many Mods considered it common sense to shop locally, and backstreet tailors were proud to serve their local fashion-conscious youth.47 Some stores established such a reputation that customers would visit from other areas.48 Certain areas became also associated with specific fashion trends.49 Soon, ordinary high-street shops disseminated Mod fashion, while word of mouth and the city’s nightlife allowed fashion trends to circulate and cross the Thames. Nevertheless, the fashion business constituted a “central nervous system”.50 In contrast to the older residents who feared the “hipsterisation” of Chelsea, people who lived in long-established entertainment districts were resigned to the idea of mass entertainment. In 1964, King’s Road, having survived the ascendancy of Carnaby Street, faced the threat of a new rival with the opening of Biba on Abingdon Road.51 This, however, did not mean that King’s Road would lose its appeal. By 1967, each area had become specialised in a particular market with its own style and customer base. Carnaby Street, according to contemporaries, appealed to working-class teenagers, while King’s Road attracted those who were better off.52 As the case of Quant and King’s Road illustrates, the popularity of a street could easily depend on just one or two businesses. Carnaby Street had already become a globally renowned mecca for fashion when John Stephen opened his shops there from 1960 onwards.53 Stephen chose Carnaby Street because Bill Green had put the area on the fashion industry map. Green, an active photographer, was fascinated by the French existentialists he had studied in Parisian cafés, and looked to queer culture

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for inspiration. His shop specialised in colourful continental clothes and could count on the custom of gay men who spent their free time in Soho.54 Young fashion enthusiasts purchased his colourful clothes, too, and in doing so allowed queer culture to enter “a small section of heterosexual society”.55 At Green’s shop, items were expensive but still affordable. Further, Green understood fashion as part of popular culture and hence played modern pop music in his shop. John Stephen, a young Scot who had briefly worked at Vince Man’s Shop, decided to emulate the style and business model.56 Finally, Stephen professionalised modern menswear retailing, being awarded the title “King of Carnaby Street” after relocating his main business from Beak Street to Carnaby Street in 1957.57 According to the British press, Stephen had transformed Carnaby Street into an internationally renowned fashion district.58 He had a different shop for each of the distinct customer groups he catered for. Teen magazines excitedly reported that young stars like Cilla Black or Cathy McGowan were customers of particular shop owners and promoted what had begun as subcultural Mod fashion so successfully that by the mid-1960s, it had become mainstream.59 Similar to those visiting King’s Road, London’s youth didn’t go to Carnaby Street just for shopping, but in order to seek out new trends to emulate (Image 7.1).60 Mods all over the country had to accept that the centre of fashion was located in London’s high streets and that the “thrill” of “walk[ing] down a street rapidly becoming famous for Mod fashions” could only be experienced there.61 Even for those living in southeast London, it took time for new fashions to arrive.62 Although Mod’s Monthly wrote in 1964 that “the new styles are only taking a few days to bloom in the north and Midlands”,63 a former Skinhead remembers that even in the late 1960s, “fashion emanated from London and the further afield you lived the longer it took to reach you”.64 Northern teenagers were fortunate that British Rail decided introduced new schedules to move “Manchester and Liverpool closer to London”, as projects such as the M40 was not yet complete.65 Teenagers from Bristol, both individually and in small groups, travelled to London for shopping.66 John Stephen also offered a bus service from the Midlands to London for a ticket price of £5.67 The journey itself cost £1; the remainder took the form of a voucher for Stephen’s shops. The arrival of young people from all over the world to visit Carnaby Street began to have a negative effect on its reputation.68 Some former customers complained that the fashions on offer had become too commercial in targeting the new clientele.69 By 1967, journalists declared that

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Image 7.1  People mingle outside a shop in Carnaby Street, 1967. (Copyright: Allan Cash Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo)

“Carnaby Street today still packs in the swingers and Mods up from the suburbs, but it is becoming somewhat over-self-consciously the land of American Express and Diners Club Cards”.70 The “bourgeoisification” of former street culture had detracted from the appeal of Carnaby Street. Rave also commented that the number of tourists had by now overtaken that of local youths, who had once made the street famous.71 In addition, the high turnover, combined with guaranteed sales, had lowered the quality of garments being sold, which was a disincentive to London’s in-crowd.72

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Similar developments took place on King’s Road. The American journalist John Crosby observed that by 1968 the street was “a cheap, down-­ rotten place”.73 Former fancy boutiques had become indistinguishable from one another and had destroyed the village character for which Chelsea was renowned. King’s Road businesses aspired to the elegance of New York’s Fifth Avenue, but instead recalled the cheap bargain culture of Fourteenth Street in their dissociation of the district from the city and its past. Flagship businesses such as Bazaar and Biba struggled as rents increased dramatically. In June 1969, Quant closed her shop on King’s Road.74 The trend towards bigger stores increased the pressure on small high-street retailers. Barbara Hulanicki put her faith in mail order, locating her business under one roof to avoid the high rents.75 Urban redevelopment and gentrification, which ironically was often precipitated by the arrival of creative industries, even had become a serious issue for Savile Row.76 Henry Poole, the first well-known bespoke tailor on Savile Row, had been forced out, although the company was later to return, albeit to different premises in the same street. The advent of made-­ to-­measure tailoring was putting bespoke tailors under pressure, but the real villains were urban planners, who had proposed the demolition of the old Georgian building Poole occupied and its replacement with a car park. The fight against displacement unified the Savile Row tailors. A publicity campaign was launched advertising their predicament, in an effort to attract support by demonstrating how important their work was for British culture, and for London in particular. Changes in London’s fashion landscape exacerbated the feeling of living and growing up at a time when fashion culture was quite different from that of previous decades. The crisis of Savile Row illustrates that in the 1960s, fashion was no longer dissociated from the lives of ordinary people. Shopping had become a daily experience and on top of that an urban spectacle, in which working-class teenagers played their own prominent role (Image 7.2). Ready-to-wear clothes hit the British market at a time when shopping no longer meant simply visiting a shop, but promised excitement. They quickly dominated the market because of their low retail prices, and because they corresponded with Britain’s modern zeitgeist. A new, modern, youthful retail environment was born: the boutique. Still a rarity in the early 1960s,77 boutiques epitomised, by the middle of the decade, the “re-emergent individualism” of the baby-boomer generation.78 Modern marketing and retail strategies meant that their appeal was extended to younger consumers. Designers released new outfits for the

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Image 7.2  Girls shopping at Biba in 1966. (Copyright: Trinity Mirror/ Mirrorpix/Alamy Stock Photo)

teenage market at a rate of almost one per week.79 Teenage fashion magazines promoted the idea that fashion and consumption were synonymous with being a teenager in the “Beat Age”.80 In their efforts to impart the exciting new shopping experience of the boutique to teenagers in rural areas, fashion retailers came up with some creative ideas. Some even set up mobile boutiques,81 in one instance consisting of a decorated horsebox

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called “Moutique” which travelled around Britain selling modern clothes to fashion-conscious kids in the countryside. Shops such as Lady Jane informalised the relationship between customers and shop owners, using merchandise, modern product displays, and an informal setting to transform shopping into a distinctive and personal experience.82 Intimacy and exclusivity, on one hand, along with the perception of fashion and shopping as inherent aspects of popular culture, distinguished the boutique from the old-fashioned retail experience of the 1950s.83 Motivated boutique owners invited pop stars to store openings, dressed them in the shops’ own designs, and turned their premises into social hangouts. Teenagers in Hoxton rioted when Jess Conrad attended the opening party for a new store in April 1964, to the extent that the police had to be called.84 Collaboration between the worlds of fashion and music proved so successful that boutiques asked pop stars to design, or give their names to, special collections.85 In Newcastle, boutiques did not just sell clothes but had their own coffee bars, and cooperated with nearby music clubs in efforts to attract a hip customer base. In the second half of the 1960s, such collaborations went even further. In 1966, a Dutch couple founded an establishment in Gosfield Street that encompassed a boutique, a theatre, a jazz cellar, and an art gallery, all under one roof.86 Such crossovers between different strands of popular teenage culture fostered a geographical concentration of its various elements. Lionel Morton, singer of the Four Pennies, explained the marriage of the music and fashion industries as a result of common business interests and because pop stars must dress in an up-to-date manner anyway.87 There was an intersection of roles, with fashion designers and models becoming pop stars, while pop stars became fashion designers. Stars such as Tom Jones promoted certain fashion items and used them as a form of trademark.88 The Beatles gave the “Beatle boot” its name.89 Journalists and celebrities kept teenagers up to date with the latest trends.90 Further, youngsters were now so self-aware and confident that they did not just blindly follow pop stars, but criticised their style.91 The boutique was “a small shop of flamboyant atmosphere”,92 often with background music and a focus on the display of clothes. The interior design of a retail establishment became just as important, or even more so, than the quality of the products.93 Owners painted their showrooms in black and white squares or decorated the floor with photographs by David Bailey. John Stephen had his own art director.94 They sought to objectify the concepts of provocation, shock, and sensation and looked to faraway

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places or subcultural worlds for inspiration. For customers, every boutique had its own style. However, this did not mean that owners and art directors were above copying one another’s ideas. In 1966, art director Anthony Little darkened the front windows of Biba, Granny Takes a Trip, and Hung On You, transforming their retailing areas into mystical places, detached from the ordinary world outside.95 Some shops commercialised their side-street location, which elicited in customers a sense that they were exploring foreign, unknown territories. Such strategies, however, were not entirely new. At Henry Poole, customers could wonder at such things as “bird-cages stuffed with parakeets”.96 While the majority enjoyed the new shopping experience, the omnipresence of ready-to-wear fashion and boutiques paved the way for criticism. By the late 1960s, boutiques were blamed for “fast fashion”. Aside from the poor quality of garments, owners bought from the same wholesalers, with the consequence that the same pieces were for sale in numerous stores.97 Furthermore, those who knew nothing about fashion were starting their own businesses and rising rents were having an impact on premises. Too many boutiques were “small airless room[s]”, with “bad stock in terms of sizes and overcrowded fitting rooms”.98 Newspapers also increasingly reported on the unfriendliness of shop staff. Westminster city councillors joined the debate, recognising the need to rescue the reputation of West End shopping. Older residents complained that the teenage market had taken over retail entirely.99 Even the fashion industry itself began to circumnavigate boutique orders, because many boutique owners were neither able nor willing to pay within a system that was run on credit.100 Poor quality fostered low retail prices, allowing retailers to cater for teenagers from every income group. According to Mary Quant, fashion in the 1960s was unique because the market directly targeted the masses, thereby stimulating social participation.101 This shift had originated during the Second World War.102 In this sense, Britain had indeed broken from the shackles of an out-of-date, rigid Victorian class system which had once distinguished people by, among other things, what they wore. Now, women with less money could afford modern clothes inspired by well-­ known, high-class designers.103 Dressmakers took a stand, for example Emmanuelle Khanh, the former Balenciaga model, who announced in 1964 that “Haute Couture [was] dead”104 and that she wanted “to design for the street […] a socialist kind of fashion for the grand mass”.105 In respect of menswear, too, chain stores sold Mod clothes in the mid-1960s,

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even though they sometimes failed to keep pace with fast-changing trends, and often stocked such items only in their London stores.106 Mod’s Monthly wrote in November 1964 that “the fashion industry had realised that if they [wanted] to make more money”, it was “the thing to go Mod”.107 The copying and reselling of styles by chain stores provoked a counter-­ reaction among shops that sold modern fashion for its distinctiveness. Whereas in the mid-1960s, “the kids […] don’t wear them for very long so it doesn’t matter if they fall to bits”,108 fashion designers felt by the end of the decade that there was a demand within the new industrialised society “for hand-produced […] clothes”.109 The owner of Liberty was convinced that hand-crafted clothing would become the next trend in Britain. Second-hand boutiques sprang up all over London. Some even specialised in selling used designer clothes. Hand-crafted and homemade clothes boomed alongside an emerging Hippie culture.110 The concept of recycling in the latter half of the 1960s put an end to the consumption pattern that had dominated retailing since the arrival of the new consumer society in the second half of the 1950s.

Exporting Fashion, Importing Ideas Often, British designers exported to every part of the globe and fashion, along with music, represented Britain’s cultural identity abroad.111 Once known for high-end tailoring, Britain was now host to new competitors in the emerging international ready-to-wear fashion market, whose exports overtook those of British bespoke manufacturers in the 1960s.112 Businesses involved in British youth fashion were happy that Britain was leading in regard to the Mod culture that was setting new trends in “Europe, America and even in some regions in Asia”, a position that soon provoked a battle between US fashion designers and British ones.113 As queen of the mini skirt, Quant’s name meant “something the world over”.114 Her reputation within the world of fashion had exploded in 1962. After seeing covers featuring Quant on Seventeen and Life magazines, the big US chain J. C. Penney had ordered 6235 pieces and turned the King’s Road fashion scene into “a truly international influence”.115 In 1963, Quant and her partner founded Ginger Group, an export company, with the aim of selling clothes around the globe. Exporting in this way had an effect on her dressmaking and designs, as running an international business meant that Quant had to cater to different markets and tastes.

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British designers had such success in the US that “New York’s Seventh Avenue”, the home of the American garment industry, was facing “something, it […] never had before, big competition from abroad”.116 The director of a leading US store chain announced in 1965 that British fashion was “the hottest thing [they had] run across in years”.117 Fabulous agreed, and wrote that not only British beat but “fashion is knocking [the States] sideways, too.”118 The success of groups such as the Beatles paved the way for an all-British craze abroad.119 In August 1965, John Stephen opened a shop in Minneapolis and sold every piece in the first week.120 Soon after, he founded shops in Canada and Sweden.121 Even in Paris, the capital of global haute couture, British designers proved to be competition for French dressmakers.122 Businessmen, confident that the concept of Swinging London would be a success in Paris, constructed a French version of Carnaby Street. Parisians could now buy items with the “Made in England” tag in shops in the heart of the Marais. In between shopping, they could visit an authentic British-style pub, decorated with the Union Jack.123 According to Mod’s Monthly in April 1964, French boys and girls loved to wear “Mod gear made in English stores”.124 Some local teens, however, felt that although the quality and fabrics were better, “English [didn’t] match the French in the matter of style”.125 Others declared that there was no difference between French and British Mod fashion, putting the preference among their peers for British clothes down to snobbery. The hype around British fashion abroad varied from country to country. In Italy, Christianity impeded mini-skirt sales, while in Moscow, even state-run companies copied the British look.126 The Soviet Union restricted fashion imports over concerns that the popularity of such cultural innovations might undermine the national ideology, as well as for economic reasons. Fashion had become a significant new economic sector at a time when industrial production was saturating the world’s markets. Aware of this, the British ambassador acted as special guest at the opening of a British fashion shop on Boulevard Malesherbes in Paris in October 1967. The store sold British classics such as Burberry and tweed, and thus promoted an old-fashioned image of Britain which some called “Merry England”.127 Modern business owners complained that officials were only interested in supporting traditional businesses, saying it was a pity that “younger members of the Royal Family should not be allowed to express their teenage individualities in some of the jollier products of swinging London”.128 Newspapers criticised Princess Anne for wearing the “dolly

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girl” look,129 declaring that Royals should have better things to think about than fashion. For those who were passionate about Swinging London, the Royals’ lack of interest was a “[withdrawal] from the actual social life of the nation”.130 One day, even the old elite would have to accept that Britain was no longer an imperial power but an exporter of culture. By 1966, British fashion was so successful that organisations which had been founded specifically to promote British designers via export markets were no longer required.131 The establishment of London Fashion Week, along with a permanent export trade centre, gave foreign resellers the opportunity to purchase British products. The British Group of Fashion Exporters embarked on a two-month promotional tour of Europe and America in order to negotiate deals with retailers.132 Foreign business owners were even provided with the opportunity to display British products in an authentic shopping environment. A London-based shop-fitting service offered a “custom-built prefabricated unit system”, specifically for the export market.133 Forty per cent of the clothes sold on the Parisian “Carnaby Street” were made by British manufacturers. In terms of design, however, “British style” had no clear definition.134 Young fashion designers from London tried to diverge from the old-fashioned British self-narrative and criticised the notion of Britishness that was promoted at foreign trade fairs, such as the one held in Oslo in May 1966.135 Here, Beefeaters, bowler-hatted city gents and London Transport buses were used as themes in fashion displays. British fashion, it seemed, was no longer reproducing the traditional concept of Britishness, embodied in tweeds and wax jackets, but instead favoured modern styles that represented the new urban and young meritocracy.136 Quant, among others, staged her models in the urban environment of London, thus strengthening associations between fashion and the modernisation of London’s working-class neighbourhoods, from whence many fashion actors had originally drawn their influences.137 In 1966, Twiggy, a young girl from a working-class suburb, attracted the attention of photographers who identified with her style because of their own social backgrounds.138 The press, too, were interested in Twiggy’s working-class history at a time when Cockney businessmen were in the news for making millions of dollars abroad.139 By 1964, fashion designers incorporated Britishness in a more explicit manner. The use of traditional British commodities, either manufactured in the country or identified with British culture, became a cliché, although

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symbols such as the Union Jack shifted their meaning without breaking with history. Once representing territorial expansionism, its role changed from symbolising political strength to showing off Britain’s global cultural success.140 In contrast to the St George flag, the Union Jack stood for multinationalism and thus was more suited to the young meritocracy’s new cosmopolitan interpretation of Britishness.141 The revival of the Union Jack as a fashion statement offered insights into the Swinging London revolution.142 Union Jack prints were a manifestation of youth culture’s desire to reclaim the national identity.143 Even if the Union Jack “add[ed] a patriotic affluence”144 to the wardrobe of the style-conscious teenager, by now, patriotism no longer glorified the imperial past so much as Britain’s prime position within the world of popular culture. Magazines in the mid-1960s published features such as Rave’s “The Best of British” photo series. At this juncture, the once-rejected traditional motifs and fabrics underwent a makeover. The new international trend for tattersall checks, pure wool, jersey, camel, and tweed was reflected in the slogan, “It’s Better Buy British this month.”145 Britain did not only export clothes that directly evoked the British national identity. By the end of June 1966, Britain had also imported £33 million worth of material.146 In the late 1950s, according to a contemporary witness, “outfitting was [still] strictly ‘British’: cloth, cut, style”.147 At the same time, however, working-class teenagers in London had begun to translate their passion for American jazz music into a fashion statement.148 Ready-to-wear fashion was not invented in Britain, but had been popularised by the arrival of continental and American imports.149 The importing of Italian and French menswear fostered a new kind of fashion-­ consciousness among British men. A crucial feature of the continental look was that it “broke the rules with the conservative English way of dressing”.150 A preference for continental and American styles, along with the hybridisation of British fashion culture, provoked generational tensions, as parents disliked the clothes worn by their offspring, and regarded such styles as un-British.151 Modernists in the late 1950s and early 1960s still had difficulty purchasing modern menswear in London. Demand, however, grew.152 In 1962, Jess Conrad, in the film The Boys, flaunted an Italian and Edwardian-­ inspired look.153 An important figure in the popularisation of continental menswear in London was the Lithuanian Sasha Goldstein. In 1929, he opened his first shop in the East End under the name Cecil Gee. It was quickly followed by others, including a new store on Charing Cross Road that supplied American soldiers stationed in Britain, many of whom wished

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to emulate the look of stars like Cary Grant and Clark Gable.154 British jazz musicians imitated their American colleagues, compensating for cheaper clothes by using the fancy American Old Spice fragrance which they bought from Geraldo’s Navy, a music agency that specialised in selling American goods to jazz musicians in London.155 The mohair suit, another Mod item, had its origins in show business too.156 Cecil Gee had become popular by implementing “his own vision of European chic” in London.157 In 1956, he launched an Italian minimalist style collection. Menswear designer John Simons, a former apprentice of Cecil Gee, remembers that Gee came up with the idea for this collection during a business trip to Italy, from which he returned fully dressed in Italian menswear, accompanied by a talented Italian tailor who began working for Gee in London.158 His film-star appearance yielded TV bookings for shows such as Mainly for Men, a fashion programme that discussed the latest trends for style-conscious men. Gee also dressed stars such as Cliff Richard, who starred in The Young Ones (1962), the opening sequence of which was filmed in front of Gee’s shop in Shaftesbury Avenue.159 His name is still today synonymous with the “bum-freezer”, a modified version of Brioni’s short box-jacket, which Gee radicalised in terms of shortness and tightness for his 1965 collection.160 The bum-­ freezer was the definitive Mod piece and proved successful because the jacket was modern and classless.161 As a British interpretation of an Italian garment, the jacket was emblematic of cultural hybridisation and exchange within the world of 1960s fashion. In every country, dressmakers and tailors copied ideas from their counterparts abroad and modified as well as breaking with national fashion traditions. In Britain, the new transnational fashion culture was stimulated by the arrival of continental youths seeking to improve their English at language schools in the south of England.162 Some towns had polytechnic colleges where young Britons studied crafts, and their designs began to incorporate the fashions they saw around them. Before long, traditional clothing designs merged with non-British fashions. The tartan mini skirt, for example, represented the continuing hybridisation of fashion, according to former Mod Tony Foley.163 By the mid-1960s, continental and American clothing was sold in a huge range of shops in London.164 Outside of London, however, the situation was different. In the capital, Austin’s and David’s, just a stone’s throw away from Cecil Gee,165 sold modern American menswear.166 Styleconscious teenagers could shop at Smart Weston, a chain store between

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Coventry Street and Piccadilly Circus, or John Michael Ingram’s shops.167 In 1961, Limited opened at 20 Brompton Road, selling “the Loveliest Continental Fashions in Suede and Leather”.168 The Anglo-­Continental men’s boutique at 75 Brewer Street was another shop that catered to young fashion victims. John Simons began running his own business together with Jeff Kwinter. Their idea was to cooperate with Greek dressmakers to reproduce American clothes in Britain and sell them at affordable prices via street markets.169 When Simons opened his first permanent shop, Clothesville, next to the Hackney Empire in 1964, he imported brands such as Brooks Brothers170 and renamed the G9 jacket into “Harrington” jacket. He chose the name Harrington because Rodney Harrington from the TV soap opera Peyton Place always wore a G9. Hollywood films and French cinema were other factors driving the popularity of continental and American menswear among working-class teens.171 Films such as On the Waterfront (1954) and West Side Story (1961) made jeans and T-shirts mainstream in Britain.172 Even cycling gear became fashionable. Cycling jerseys, used in the Tour de France, were trendy because of their flashy colours, sharp cuts, and round-necked style, which was associated with Mod culture.173 Paris could be reached by ferry relatively easily, and contemporary witnesses remember that some pieces were imported via weekend trips.174 Stylish young Frenchmen who studied in London visited clubs such as La Poubelle and Le Kilt, where they “were envied by a lot of hip-aspiring young English boys for their fashion sense”.175 For girls and women, Paris fashion remained influential.176 British fashion journalists queried in the late 1960s whether they should still cover Parisian couture in the light of the booming ready-to-wear fashion market, but concluded that high-value fashion from Paris had not lost its appeal.177 They were convinced that “[if] England wants to stay on top in the ready-to-wear field, […] we must see what is being done elsewhere and adapt it to our own particular knowhow”.178 Designers such as Chanel still dominated fashion columns in Britain.179 The majority of working-­class women could not afford original pieces, but copied the look with the help of more affordable shops. In addition, luxury fashion houses began to produce clothes for the mass market.180 The copying of designs had become an increasing problem in the early 1960s, and in response, the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture instigated a ban on the publication of photographs of new collections, in an effort to prevent other manufacturers from producing imitations.181 Big fashion

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houses also licensed their dresses, allowing department stores to reproduce styles to sell.182 In London, modern girls could for example shop for the Parisian look at Roberta’s Boutique on Golders Green Road.183 From 1966, the owner sold pieces from the continent, including Spanish, Italian, and French jewellery. Anglo-Continental in Soho offered clothes from Sweden, Poland, France, and Italy.184 Cathy McGowan wrote: “there are hundreds of other really good ideas that don’t seem to have caught on yet so this Continental craze could go on for some time.”185 Even countries behind the Iron Curtain organised fashion shows in London, keen to display their designs in a city that had become one of the most important fashion centres of the world.186 Sometimes, non-British fashion design arrived as a side-effect of migration.187 The Jewish immigrant Barbara Hulanicki, who moved to London in 1948, founded Biba.188 In Kingsland Waste alone in the early 1960s, twenty Jewish tailors sold clothes, along with hundreds more all over the East End. Tailoring was a long-standing employment sector for the city’s Jewish community. Thus, it was no surprise that the offspring of tailors became some of London’s first modernists.189 Greek immigrants ran shoemaking businesses in areas such as Islington and Battersea.190 Two Hungarian immigrants, who had escaped from Budapest during the uprisings, opened Star Shirtmakers and proceeded to make a living supplying West End shops and dressing stars including the Beatles.191 Celebrities, designers, and businessmen did not always appreciate the styles of other countries. In 1964, following a trip to the US, McGowan described American fashion as backward and conservative, and announced that she was happy to be “back in civilisation”. A few months earlier, Boyfriend had written that the British loved American pop records, but had failed to “take up their clothes”.192 In practice, though, casual T-shirts and jeans had already established a prominent place in the British market by the mid-1960s. Thus, such statements can be taken as an indication of economic competition. Since the mid-1960s, according to the Daily Express in 1972, Paris and London had been engaged in a battle for pole position,193 and ultimately there could only be one winner.194 Organisations joined forces to promote their respective fashion industries abroad.195 The reputation of a nation’s fashion industry was determined not just by international sales, but by the respect it was accorded by well-known foreign designers. London’s status as a city of fashion was confirmed when Balenciaga showed his clothes for the first time outside his own salon at a ball in aid of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in 1963.196

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Like British pop music, fashion looked to the non-Western world for inspiration in the late 1960s. This was a natural progression for dressmakers, since London’s black communities had already had a significant influence on fashion in the early 1960s, and black Londoners were widely employed in the industry.197 Richard Weight writes that “music and fashion were zones where multiracial Britain was not only visible on the surfaces of style, but where an underlying social dialogue took”.198 According to Hebdige, the consumption of black culture transcended racial boundaries when West Indian fashion penetrated Mod culture.199 The “pork pie” hat and colourful clothes formed the signature style of West Indians in districts such as Willesden, Brixton, and Hackney and before long had infiltrated local youth scenes.200 Black migrants set new trends in London as many had moved away from buying ready-made fashions, and instead got their clothes from their own tailors.201 These tailors, according to Georgie Fame, emulated the style of black GIs, an influence they shared with white working-class youth.202 By 1967, black Londoners were the main wearers of the Ivy League look, thereby embodying the “cultural transfer between England, America and the West Indies” that inspired stars like Georgie Fame.203 A shared preference for style, however, did not mean an end to racism. In 1964, Rave asked an insurance clerk from Chelsea for his opinion on white clothes. “White suits?” responded the teenager. “You see them all over Africa. How can you be Mod if you’re behind Africa?”204 The Historian Douglas Johnson wrote in 1966 that nationalism was still part of British culture, and conferred a sense of superiority according to the new framework of developed and underdeveloped countries.205 The situation of black photographers, models, and designers in the fashion business illustrates the extent to which Britain had become a multiracial society, and how rocky this path had been. In contrast to black photographers, such as Gordon Park, who was already working for Vogue in the mid-­1940s, black models were still heavily under-represented in the fashion magazines of the 1940s and 1950s.206 In the 1960s, however, their visibility grew so much that by the mid of the decade you could see “the picture of an African or West Indian beauty modelling” in nearly every “glossy magazine or the national newspapers”.207 Donyale Luna was the first black model to appear on the cover of British Vogue in 1966. This event was a door-opener, not just for herself but for other black models who, by the late 1960s, were increasingly featured on the covers of fashion magazines.208 The newfound success of black models fostered aspirations among

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black teenagers. Many dreamed of becoming models and a market had arisen in the years since the war to cater for the explicit needs of black women.209 The prominence of black models, however, was not enough to transform the notion of race in Britain. Blackness was still differentiated from white mainstream culture. Some white people in show business even held black American showgirls responsible for “selling out” and exoticising their own culture.210 In truth, however, the British and American pop business exacerbated otherness. In May 1967, the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination launched a petition against the Black and White Minstrel Show, attracting support from 200 black Londoners who signed in protest at the hideous impersonation of blackness that characterised the programme.211 The BBC failed to recognise the problem.212 Others complained about comedian Leslie Crowther’s portrayal of a Pakistani immigrant singing about living on National Assistance. Nevertheless, the heightened physical presence of black people in the world of fashion and beauty was instrumental in freeing beauty from its restrictive associations with whiteness.213 Black girls were increasingly on display as they became a frequent feature of fashion shows in London.214 Jamaican Carole Joan Crawford won the Miss World competition in 1963—the year after Jamaican independence—which suggests that black models were, if not considered equal to their white counterparts, at least now accepted in the world of fashion. Their success, according to historians today, initiated a new post-colonial identity following independence.215 In the view of Britain’s black community, Crawford won the contest because she was different.216 She succeeded, not because the jury for the first time included black members, but because the world now understood that “beauty is a very personal thing and different nations have different concepts of good looks”.217 In the same year, Rick Wayne from St Lucia won the Mr Great Britain contest, declaring that “beauty knows no boundaries”.218 Britain was now to be represented by a black man at the forthcoming Mr Universe competition. Further, the first black designer had become successful in Paris. Martinique-born Antoine Nisas, supported by the governments of West Africa, designed clothes for wives of African ambassadors, chose black models for his shows, and believed that “only young African women [could] wear what [were] essentially African-­ inspired dresses”.219 In some collections, however, he combined African and Caribbean traditions with European styles, to ensure that Europeans would wear his clothes too.

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Booker for fashion shows in London hired black models to present exclusive, eccentric, and exotic dresses in a striking manner. Otherness and othering were tools of fashion marketing. As early as the mid-1950s, Christian Dior had hired Asian-looking models such as Alla Ilchun.220 Givenchy booked Chinese models, while Pierre Cardin was convinced that the Japanese model Hiriko was perfectly suited to the designs of his winter collection.221 In London fashion shows, black models were chosen to feature in special themes such as A Thousand and One Nights, in which they modelled nightdresses against an Arabian Nights-inspired backdrop.222 Flamingo remarked that British fashion houses booked black models “when they consider their style to be particularly ‘exotic’”.223 In a similar way to blackness in popular music, the alien appearance of non-white models represented a break from the ordinary. Often, “the audience of show business and fashion celebrities showed their enthusiasm” when black models appeared on the catwalk.224 In Dior’s salon in 1967, “tropical Africa [inspired] the mantelpiece in florists’ jungles of palm and ferns and monkey puzzles”.225 Models went “on safari” and used gimmicks such as hunters’ trophies.226 Dior used the shock of otherness and the “drama in the totem dresses” to draw attention to his designs.227 In London, too, Indian girls modelled at the Chelsea Liberals’ Christmas bazaar in 1965  in “their native attire”, “so heralding that possibly the ‘India’ look” could become the next King’s Road trend.228 Indeed, traditional clothes from India, which arrived in Britain around this time, became a global trend as a result of their popularity in Chelsea. By the end of the 1960s, the “non-western styles” of Hippies in London “challenged the futurism of 1960s pop fashion” by making an “anti-­ fashion” statement.229 In July 1966, young designers at the Royal College of Art dress show “turned Eastwards for ideas”.230 Batik, originally from Indonesia, also became fashionable this year.231 Supplier sold bright-­ coloured East African cottons, which women bought to wrap, drape, and tie around themselves as dresses or skirts.232 Shawn Levy writes that “the upper-class bohemians” from Chelsea went for their “hashish-addled trips to Morocco and Asia” and returned in “bright native costumes”.233 Non-­ Western styles also swept over from the US, where the American West Coast was experiencing “a growing awareness and concern for the environment, black pride, feminism, and sympathy for American Indians”.234 This provincialisation, in the words of Dipesh Chakrabarty,235 of Europe and America in Western fashion culture was by no means a British innovation, such styles having brightened the streets of Haight-Ashbury in San

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Francisco too.236 The introduction of non-Western fashions over the course of the 1960s, however, was not entirely at odds with the modernisation theory. Such styles were sometimes called the “peasant-inspired look”, which reproduced the notion of the cultural backwardness of non-­ European countries.237

Be “Original, Different, Unusual”: Fashion and Street Culture Fashion’s integration of non-Western styles by the late 1960s was encouraged by the desire of young people to look different, particularly from the older generation. This desire was not new and had already played a vital role in the fashion industry in previous decades. Working-class youth had adopted a do-it-yourself approach to fashion, which allowed the creation of new trends in the years before the politically inspired upcycling and second-hand boom hit London. DIY fashion was often a strategy to circumnavigate expensive prices.238 Teens who had moved into the suburbs, where there was no fashion infrastructure, trained themselves in hairdressing and wore homemade clothes.239 Mods completed tailoring courses, bought basic garments on shopping trips to the West End, and upcycled their findings at home.240 Working-class girls attended dress-making classes at youth clubs and organised small, local fashion shows.241 In the early 1960s, when incomes increased  further, DIY fashion became a matter of choice. Now, designing clothes for oneself became an intrinsic part of the process around the fragmentation of tastes and the growth of self-expression. While to many outsiders Mods all looked the same, young people did not approach this trend as though it were a uniform. “All over England, Mods were springing up and doing their own thing,”242 said Mickey Tenner, a Scene Club aficionado, recalling that there was so much imitation between followers of the style that in the end nobody really knew where ideas had originally come from. An article in Mod’s Monthly about what defined a Mod came to the conclusion that except for certain characteristics, there were no strict rules.243 A Mod must be “original, different, unusual”, and the culture itself was “so successful that, especially in London, there [were] shops that [catered] only for the Mods”.244 Many teenagers found Carnaby Street too commercial for their tastes and eschewed such popular shopping areas245 in favour of back-­ street tailors in their own neighbourhoods.246 Businessmen and designers,

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on the other hand, were interested in understanding grassroots trends.247 In order to be economically successful in the mid-1960s, fashion designers should study and take their lead from the behaviour of young people in the West End.248 It benefited designers and retailers such as Quant and Ingram that they were young themselves, meaning that they were able to understand the teen market.249 Often, those responsible for marketing made the mistake of not personally visiting the places where young people hung out. Moreover, the ready-to-wear market sought to emulate street looks with the help of magazines such as Mod’s Monthly. Fashion magazines invited readers to share their knowledge of the latest trends, including the names of fashionable boutiques and designers, and sometimes to appear as models in their features.250 Styles changed rapidly over time and were also subject to regional variation. Individualism was a guiding principle in terms of shopping behaviour.251 To look different had become imperative. But Mod gear was expensive, and this encouraged some working-class youngsters to resort to criminal activity.252 According to Hulanicki, shoplifting was the worst problem encountered in running a boutique.253 Pop-related items were probably the most frequently stolen goods in London. In May 1967, a man broke into a record shop in London’s East End and stole 2100 records.254 Others tricked shop staff in order to obtain clothes and items without paying for them, or used bad cheques. Across London’s neighbourhoods, middlemen sold goods stolen by criminal networks that operated in the West End.255 In response to the rapid increase in shoplifting, the Chelsea Juvenile Court decided in April 1964 to take a hard line and to no longer allow bail for young people caught stealing.256 Some business owners took matters into their own hands and were fined for physically attacking shoplifters.257 In August 1966, the average age of shoplifters was fifteen or sixteen, and they were mostly girls. Magistrates described it as a “national sickness”.258 Stealing was not the only strategy for self-determination that led young people into conflict with their elders. Legal provocations did so too. One of the biggest annoyances for older people was the modification of school uniform. Pupils had little freedom of expression in this regard, so resorted to measures such as shortening their skirts, often simply by rolling them up to look like a mini skirt. There were sometimes even direct protests against uniforms. “When a High School bell rang for lessons yesterday,” wrote the Daily Mirror in March 1962, “eighty senior girls [were] chanting ‘Ban the berets’”, whereupon, according to the report, they threw

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their berets in the air.259 Boys, too, complained that their caps were out of fashion.260 Joining the sixth form was an important landmark, as such status conferred “more relaxed rules about school uniform”.261 While the above examples tend to suggest that Lilliput magazine was incorrect in stating that nearly everything had changed in the twentieth century apart from the way that men dressed,262 it was true that the past still had relevance for fashion. Mod’s Monthly described modern fashion as a combination of the past, the present and the future, citing the dandy look as well as the “city gent” style that Mod culture had sought to redefine.263 In the view of fashion scholars, Mod culture imitated such looks because Mods wanted to rebel against the notion of Merry England.264 Mod fashion also incorporated folklorist themes attached to English stereotypes—mainly in the form of tweed—which were given a new lease of life when reimagined by designers such as Mary Quant.265 By this process, these tired symbols of national identity were freed from their stuffy past and recoded by interpreting traditional materials in a modern context.266 References to the past and to national symbolism also included the use of army surplus and military-style clothing. In the 1950s, military clothing inspired young people to recreate the “civvies” look, imitating the outfits worn by soldiers for civil events and when not on duty.267 Well-known tailors such as Moss Brothers had since the early part of the century been involved in the supply and manufacture of military clothing. John Stephen had begun his career working in the military department of Moss Brothers.268 Demobbing—leaving the army—would entitle a man to a free “whistle” (suit) from a high-street outfitter such as Burton.269 Long before American Hippie culture embraced army surplus stores in its quest to “protest sartorially the wastefulness of the consumer society”,270 these shops stocked colourful and modern-shaped garments.271 The latter years of Mod fashion featured parkas,272 military accessories, such as regimental badges and epaulettes,273 and duffle coats, which were also trendy among students. Young followers who lived close to military bases were fortunate to have access to tailors who regularly catered for members of the armed forces.274 Other historical periods had their own revivals in the 1960s. “Victorian [undergarments], 1920s flapper dresses” or “1930s gangster suits” were on sale in shops such as I Was Lord Kitchener’s Valet or Granny Takes a Trip.275 According to historians David Cannadine and Stuart Ward, the fashion for militaria was not simply pop-cultural eclecticism but a reaction to the end of the empire and the emergence of a multicultural Britain.276

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Dave Allen, in contrast, saw military gear as representing a nostalgic interpretation of the past. Together with the new nostalgia seen in popular films of the decade, they recalibrated the relationship between past, present, and future.277 By the late 1960s, optimism had been replaced by a “pessimistic acceptance of working-class cultural poverty”, which offered young people “a range of images of a more romantic past in the guise of a dream for the future”.278 In terms of gender roles and beauty ideals, Britain’s working-class youth both reshaped and manifested existing norms. Scholars claim that youth cultures allowed for female self-expression. “Mod women”, for example, developed “their own feminine culture within the subculture”.279 Heike Jenß writes that “listening to music at home or dancing in Mod clubs formed a space in which [girls] could forge their own self-­portrayal”280 and found in Mod culture more opportunities for female participation than in other youth cultures. At the same time, however, looking modern, for both sexes, often meant emphasising one’s figure.281 While Mod’s Monthly believed that Mod culture did not discriminate between “fat or thin, tall or short”,282 the magazine received letters from readers who criticised the looks and figures of the non-professional models who appeared regularly in the magazine.283 Ursula Bloom, a fashion columnist, criticised girls who did not fit into the small sizes of King’s Road fashions, writing that she wished “the too-fats realized they were too-fat” and reciting what she called an “ancient but remarkably poignant rhyme: Why do you go through this world in slacks? You fat white woman whom nobody smacks?”284 Similar to other fashions, youth fashions incorporated dominant aspects of body culture. Modern clothes were still designed around ideals of slenderness, tallness, and sharp body lines.285 In the early 1960s, young Britons grew up with an imposed cultural anxiety about their personal appearance, in which spots could have “a big psychological effect”.286 Instead of criticising the discriminatory elements of beauty culture, teenage, youth, and lifestyle magazines published articles on diets and explained to their readers how to deal with skin problems. Nevertheless, the 1960s diversified beauty ideals and allowed different femininities to coexist. Even black women, according to Flamingo, could adopt different feminine looks.287 Girls no longer had to accept their natural appearance and were able to change their (self) image with the help of perfume and makeup. Community magazines reported that black women adopted the role of the exotic woman, the career woman, or the romantic woman. Apart from the exotic profile, these personas were not much

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different from their white counterparts. Each adopted visual images and notions popularised in the world of pop.288 The media paid particular attention to the “dolly bird” look. The dolly bird embodied a contrast to existing ideas of sexiness, and was “neat, bright, hip, switched-on”.289 Some researchers concluded that such traits were ultimately a reflection of the sexual desires of men, while others interpreted the concept of the “swinging chick” or the “liberated” dolly bird as a new iteration of the femme fatale, and as such that it could empower women.290 The dolly bird symbolised the slow and gradual progress of women’s liberation in the 1960s, from internalised gender roles to the opening of Brook Advisory Centres in 1964 and the arrival of the contraceptive pill on the market, though it was officially only intended for use by married women who were keen to avoid pregnancy for professional reasons. In parallel to fashion, beauty and hairstyle trends moved at tremendous speed in the 1960s. In 1964, the “pinhead” look arrived in Britain from Paris.291 Actors and pop stars copied the stereotypical look of the French, Italian, American, or black man or woman, and in doing so instigated new trends. By the mid-1960s, girls wore their hair in short, geometric cuts, a style popularised by the British hairdresser Vidal Sassoon.292 Hairstyles changed so frequently that wigs became popular as a way of achieving the long-haired look without waiting for it to grow.293 Wigs allowed a radical change of look, having an almost “magical” effect. Before long, haircuts had become a political topic which attracted the attention of the media.294 The fashion for men to wear their hair long provoked “incoherent rage and disgust”295 and collided with existing gender norms.296 Boys bought wigs so that they could maintain a conventional appearance at work,297 and this was also because teenagers were frequently sacked for their hairstyles.298 Most obviously, Mod culture changed gender roles in allowing men to be interested in clothes, and in the process helped to do away with the idea of fashion as being exclusively for women. This change, however, came about relatively slowly. A contemporary of the era remembers that his “father used to say very discouraging things to [him]” because “it was considered cissy if a bloke paid any attention to his appearance”.299 Despite menswear having importance for certain classes, mainstream magazines had largely ignored men’s fashion up until the mid-1960s.300 However, new employment sectors, particularly white-collar work, together with growing affluence, changing materials, and the advent of mass production, had by degrees changed attitudes to menswear since 1945.301 Soon,

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it was claimed that menswear on Carnaby Street was miles ahead of the Regent Street shops that sold clothes for women and that men found it easier than women to find good-quality, affordable, and modern-looking clothes.302 Former Mod Penny Reel attributes the Mods’ passion for clothes to the influence of queer culture on white working-class youth,303 recalling that “men were just checking each other [out]”, while “women just didn’t exist”.304 Often, men wanted to impress men.305 Fashion historians observe that “male fashions in the 1960s became highly feminine”,306 while contemporaries noticed an awareness of beauty culture among working-class boys.307 According to today’s scholars, the changing perception of homosexuality, along with the passing of the Sexual Offences Act in 1967, corresponded with Mod culture. The unisex approach to clothes that was favoured by Mods from the mid-1960s onwards allowed young people to wear clothes designed for the opposite sex. By November 1963, “with-it” girls no longer went to the ladies’ woollen counters, instead choosing “small sizes in men’s cardigans and sweaters”, which also tended to be of better quality.308 “We’re borrowing from the boys,”309 said a girl in Jackie in January 1965. A few months later, the military look had become popular among both boys and girls.310 “Trousers and waistcoats have been ‘stolen’ from the boys and taken over by the girls”,311 who now shopped alongside their male counterparts on Carnaby Street. “Pyjama suits were often too expensive for girls” and consequently young women started to buy and modify men’s pyjamas.312 In 1965, Stanley Adams explicitly designed his clothes for both boys and girls.313 The fashion among young women for borrowing “men’s” clothes, however, did not negate the desire to look feminine. Menswear was often combined with feminine pieces to create a contrasting look. Boys began to buy womenswear, too. M&S crew-necks for women came in brighter colours, as well as a finer knit, making them an affordable substitute for the expensive sweaters designed by John Michael.314 Contemporaries remember that it was “great to have something different”, but the wearing of certain colours also provoked negative reactions.315 Fashion-conscious Mods were called “poofs” or “dreamers” for “wearing pink shirts”.316 The mothers of these youths sometimes took it upon themselves to destroy such garments, giving their sons money to buy new ones, in fear that other people might think them homosexual.317 Some girls were not happy with the trend towards unisex fashion. Mods began to wear “eye shadow and [carried handbags]”, and some complained that it had become more difficult to find “a real masculine [boy]”.318 The

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longer Mods resisted the “homosexual” label, the more the trends they set, particularly for wearing bright colours, started to become mainstream. However, while Mod culture helped to break down the barriers between male and female fashion, it still followed clear and straightforward ideas of gender. Looking feminine was still an important consideration for young women, and the revival of Edwardian fashion among girls in 1964 was due to the fact that these clothes incorporated a high degree of femininity.319 Fashion broke with gender norms which once shaped the Victorian straitjacket Arthur Marwick wrote about when historically contextualising the social and cultural change that took place in 1960s Britain. Working-­ class youth soon dictated the new ready-to-wear fashion market in times of mass production. Young people’s creativity gave rise to London’s status of being a serious player within the global competition of fashion centres which fought for the pole position on the lucrative fashion market. New fashion districts such as King’s Road or Carnaby Street provoked the attention of big fashion magazines and exported a new image of Britain and of London in particular into the world. London gave itself a new economic and cultural identity with the help of fashion. This new identity, however, was also influenced by young people’s new interest in fashion history and fashion revivals that set new trends among young fashion designers from the mid-1960s onwards. Fashion traditions such as the worldwide renowned tailoring business now served London’s young style-conscious working-class youth and young designers who worked in the capital in the mid-1960s put new efforts into negotiating British identity with the help of commodifying the meaning of national symbols. Historical narratives such as imperial superiority were challenged by the new attention the scene paid to non-Western fashion. The unofficial statement: it was time to ask what it meant to be British in an era in which Victorian moral standards as well as Victorian political projects such as the empire had gone. High streets and pavements in working-class neighbourhoods turned into catwalks on which the city’s youth reinterpreted and rearticulated popular readings of British identity.

Notes 1. Ken the Beard and Ray Johnson, in: Anderson, Mods, 11. 2. See Szreter, Fertility, Class and Gender, 40; Searle, A New England?, 112; Richmond, Clothing the Poor. 3. See Jewish Museum London, Moses, Mods and Mr. Fish, 5 f.

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4. For style influences, see Hebdige, Subculture. 5. See Armstrong, Swinging Britain, 8–21. 6. “Teenager’s £900,000,000 pocket money—‘teach them to spend wisely’,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 12 April 1963. 7. See Letter from Mr K.  Smith, Department of Education and Science, about university research funding in response to an enquiry by Prime Minister Harold Wilson, September 1968, TNA PREM 13/2594. 8. Ibid. 9. Conekin, “Eugene Vernier and Vogue Models in Early ‘Swinging London’”, 104. 10. “King’s Road is A La Mode by Ursula Bloom,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 23 September 1960. See also Robert F. Wilson’s guide for the use of colour in industry published as Colour in Industry Today. 11. See Wheatley, “Marvellous, Awesome, True-to-lie, Epoch-making, a New Dimension”, 146. For colour supplements and menswear advertising, see Jobling, Advertising Menswear, 90–98. 12. “Let’s play the leather guessing game,” Jackie, 15 August 1964; “This Is Carnaby Street,” London Life, 14 May 1966. 13. “Girls who get around wear squares,” Jackie, 18 January 1964. 14. See Turner, Beacon for Change; Sugg, “Ideal Homes at London’s Design Museum”. 15. See the “Pavilion of Beautiful Things” exhibition in 1949. 16. See Jackson, “Mix and Match Colour Schemes,” 824. 17. Brown, A history of Britain, 45. 18. Gardiner, From the bomb to the Beatles, 89. For more information, see Farr, Design in British Industry, 197 f. 19. Hornsey, The Spiv and the Architect, 208. See also Obelkevich, “Consumption”. 20. Lloyd-Jones and Lewis, British Industrial Capitalism, 156. 21. Gardiner, From the bomb to the Beatles, 92. 22. See Ugolini, Men and Menswear, 110 f.; Honeyman, Well Suited, 54 f. 23. Troxell, Fashion merchandising, 167; Manlow, Designing Clothes, 96. 24. Armstrong, Swinging Britain, 53 f. 25. See Kirkham and Cohen, “Contexts, Contradictions, Couture, and Clothing,” 114. For the breakthrough of jeans and T-shirts, see Byre, The Male Image, 157. 26. English, From the Catwalk to the Sidewalk, 77; Reed, Fifty Fashion Looks, 66. 27. For the history of the Teddy Boy look, see Ferris and Lord, Teddy Boys, 9. For nostalgia and fashion see Buckley, Designing Modern Britain, 192. 28. See “Toast of the Town,” Fabulous, 3 October 1964. 29. See Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.

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30. Troy, “Art,” 34. 31. See Alloway, “The Development of British Pop”. 32. Gardiner, From the bomb to the Beatles, 139. 33. Alison Settle, “London: Can It Become a World Fashion Center?,” Picture Post, 6 January 1955. 34. Paul Norton, in: Anderson, Mods, 35. 35. “Of ‘Savile Row’ and Savile Row”, Men Only, December 1962. See also Walker, Savile Row; Sherwood et al., Savile Row. 36. For Max Décharné, King’s Road and Chelsea had already been an epicentre of fashion in earlier centuries. See Décharné, King’s Road, 10. 37. Longrigg, A High-pitched Buzz. 38. Hunter Davies, “Bye-bye Quant? Hello Biba,” The Sunday Times, 22 June 1969. 39. Boyd and Junor, Wonderful Tonight, 46. 40. Décharné, King’s Road, 91. 41. McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage. 42. See “Chelsea! Here we come!,” Jackie, 23 April 1966. 43. Décharné, King’s Road, xvi. 44. “This Is Carnaby Street,” London Life, 14 May 1966. 45. “King’s Road is A La Mode by Ursula Bloom,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 23 September 1960. 46. “on the scene,” Jackie, 19 December 1964 47. Lloyd Bradley, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 90. 48. See Mark Feld in “Faces Without Shadows,” Town Magazine, September 1962. 49. Interview with Tony Foley on 10 June 2015. 50. Levy, ready, steady, go!, 109. 51. Waddell, How Fashion Works, 32. 52. “Swinging London—a guide to the Chelsea action,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 16 June 1967. 53. Levy, ready, steady, go!, 117. 54. See the Piccadilly Rent Boys, in: Reed, The Dilly. 55. Paul Norton, in: Anderson, Mods, 35. 56. Breward, Fashion, 151. 57. For more information see Scott, “Mods Inc.,” Daily Mirror, 30 March 1963. 58. See “This Is Carnaby Street,” London Life, 14 May 1966. 59. See Hebdige, Subculture, 87. 60. “The Swingiest Street in Town!,” Rave, March 1965. 61. “Down Carnaby Street,” Mod’s Monthly, September 1964. See also Aitken, “Young Meteors”. 62. Terry Wheeler, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 81.

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63. “Mods of Tomorrow,” Mod’s Monthly, April 1964. 64. Nigel Mann, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 96. 65. Peter Hall, “Britain’s uneven shrinkage,” New Society, 14 April 1966. 66. Brown, Booted and Suited, 59. 67. “Mecca for Mods,” Jackie, 22 October 1966. 68. “This Is Carnaby Street,” London Life, 14 May 1966. 69. Mickey Tenner, in: Anderson, Mods, 31. 70. Aitken, “Young Meteors,” 99. 71. “Carnaby St, London, West One,” Rave, March 1967. 72. Aitken, “Young Meteors,” 99. 73. John Crosby, “What on earth has happened to King’s Rd.,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 29 November 1968. 74. Hunter Davies, “Bye-bye Quant? Hello Biba,” The Sunday Times, 22 June 1969. 75. For the rise of fashion mail ordering see also Coopey et al., Mail Order Retailing in Britain, 50–66. 76. “Of ‘Savile Row’ and Savile Row”. 77. See Gill Evans, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 26. 78. Pimlott, “The boutique and the mass market,” 3. 79. “Why are Mods so much in the News?,” Mod’s Monthly, March 1964. 80. “Beat age is Boutiques,” Fabulous, 14 May 1966. 81. “Sarah Drummond Talking Fashion,” London Life, 16 July 1966. 82. Majer, “Boutique,” 179 f. 83. “Beat age is Boutiques”. 84. “Scenes as singer opens new shop. ‘Helmets Fly’”, Hackney Gazette, 1 May 1964. 85. See Hilfiger, Rock Style, 12. 86. “Flash! It’s new art,” London Life, 27 August 1966. 87. Granados, Those Were the Days. 88. “Which shops are Mod?,” Mod’s Monthly, November 1964; “Headgear that’s real gear,” Mod’s Monthly, March 1964. 89. Polemus and Procter, Pop Styles, 6. 90. See “Cathy McGowan,” Mod’s Monthly, July 1964. 91. See “The Changing Scene,” Mod’s Monthly, June 1964. 92. Aitken, “The Young Meteors,” 96. 93. See McDermott, Design, 30. 94. For the In Place see “The Beat Age”. Quote from “This Is Carnaby Street.” 95. “Sarah Drummond Talking Fashion,” London Life, 20 August 1966. A year before, shop windows were darkened. Rave explained the success of boutiques with “the air of mystery about them”. See “Keep it Dark, But Boutique,” Rave, September 1965.

276 

F. FUHG

96. “Of ‘Savile Row’ and Savile Row”. 97. See Rachel Lindsay, “Chain Story,” Boyfriend, 30 November 1963. 98. Ibid. See also “I was a shopgirl once,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 17 June 1960. 99. Alison Adburgham, “A shopping revolution,” The Guardian, 30 March 1967. 100. “The Boutique Bandwaggon”. 101. Mary Quant, “Quant on Quant,” 94. 102. Summers, Fashion on the Ration. 103. Brigid Keenan‚ “In the French Style,” Sunday Times Magazine, 10 November 1963; “Down Carnaby Street,” Mod’s Monthly, September 1964. For falling prices see Fitzgerald, “Marketing and Distribution,” 414. 104. Quoted after Steele, Paris Fashion, 250. 105. “Down Carnaby Street,” Mod’s Monthly, September 1964. 106. Jeff Dexter, in: Anderson, Mods, 25. 107. “Which shops are Mod?,” Mod’s Monthly, November 1964. 108. Booker, Neophiliacs, 265. 109. “Sarah Drummond Talking Fashion,” London Life, 30 July 1966. 110. Rubinstein, Dress codes, 114, 220. 111. See Conti, “The charm of nonchalant elegance,” 235; Anderson, Tweed. 112. “Of ‘Savile Row’ and Savile Row”. 113. “Which country leads the Mod trend?,” Mod’s Monthly, May 1965. 114. Production notes and script for a short film item about Mary Quant in “London Line Colour ‘C’ No.4”, 1966, TNA INF 6/1237. 115. Décharné, King’s Road, 139. 116. Patrick Sergeant, “New York goes wild for Mods,” Daily Mail, 30 September 1965. 117. Ibid. 118. “You’re Doin’ Swell. That’s the U.S. verdict on British fashion,” Fabulous, 28 November 1964. 119. “Cathy McGowan’s Mod Miscellany,” Mod’s Monthly, May 1964. 120. “the Beat Age is … Carnaby St.,” Fabulous, 14 May 1966. 121. “This Is Carnaby Street”. 122. “Who has the mini-est skirts in Europe?,” Daily Mirror, 14 November 1966. 123. “Carnaby Street, Paris, East Four,” Rave, March 1967. 124. “Mods of Tomorrow,” Mod’s Monthly, April 1964. 125. “Carnaby Street, Paris, East”. 126. “Who has the mini-est skirts in Europe?”. 127. Phyllis Heathcote, “English as it is worn,” The Guardian, 26 October 1967.

7  CULTURAL RENEWAL AND THE TRANSNATIONAL FASHION INDUSTRY 

277

128. “Royalty ‘Doing Little for Fashion’,” The Daily Telegraph, 27 August 1966. 129. Fiona McCarthy, “Just another swinging dolly girl?,” The Guardian, 11 August 1969. See also Matheson, Princess Anne, 85. 130. “Royalty ‘Doing Little for Fashion’”. 131. Sheila Black, “Strong foreign flavor in swinging London fashion,” Financial Times, 3 August 1966. 132. “Fashion gangsters fly out,” The Sunday Times, 17 March 1968. 133. “‘Swinging’ shops for export to United States,” The Daily Telegraph, 15 January 1968. 134. “Carnaby Street, Paris, East Four”. 135. B. Sullivan, W. F. Moody, “Swinging Britain at the Oslo Trade Fair,” The Guardian, 27 May 1966. 136. Woodham, Twentieth Century Design, 89–94. 137. Décharné, King’s Road, 139; Gardiner, From the bomb to the Beatles, 137 f. 138. See “This is the Face of 1966,” Daily Express, February 1966; Aitken, “Young Meteors,” 51. 139. Thomas Whiteside, “Twiggy,” The Guardian, 17 December 1967. 140. Huygen, British Design. 141. For Union Jack fashion, see “Simply Stunning,” Jackie, 14 August 1965; “Recipe for Fun,” Jackie, 25 September 1965; “The Who in the Union Jack-et,” Jackie, 26 November 1966. For patriotic underwear, see “Nifty Night-Wear,” Jackie, 8 October 1966. 142. Groom, The Union Jack. 143. Brooks et al., Mad Dogs and Englishness, 137. For a contrary position, see Morra, Britishness, Popular Music and National Identity, 158. 144. “The Best of British,” Rave, November 1965. 145. Ibid. 146. Sheila Black, “Strong foreign flavor in swinging London fashion,” Financial Times, 3 August 1966. 147. Interview with Tony Foley on 10 June 2015. 148. See Marsh and Gaul, Ivy Look, 122–131; Brewster and Broughton, The Record Players, 27. 149. “Fashions For Men,” Flamingo, November 1961. 150. Lisi, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, iii. 151. Gill Evans, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 85. 152. See Hillier and McIntyre, The Style of the Century, 159 f. 153. Ray Johnson and Jeff Dexter, in: Anderson, Mods, 13. 154. For American soldiers, see Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 83. 155. Noyer, In the City, 73. 156. Steuart Kingsley-Inness, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 44.

278 

F. FUHG

157. Lloyd Johnson, in: Anderson, Mods, 16 158. John Simons, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, 5. 159. Jobling, Advertising Menswear, 86. See also Cohn, “Yellow Socks Are Out,” 32. 160. For Brioni’s influence on Cecil Gee, see Dorner, Fashion in the Forties & Fifties, 54. 161. Cohn, Today There Are No Gentlemen, 44 f.; Gorman, The Look, 28. See also Cole, Don We Now Our Gay Apparel, 71. 162. “Contentale Brighton is ‘Tres Gai’,” The Sunday Times, 2 September 1956. 163. Interview with Tony Foley on 10 June 2015. 164. “Mods Around the World,” Mod’s Monthly, March 1964. 165. See Gorman, The Look, 27, 33. 166. John Simons, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, 4. 167. Veronica Horwell, “John Michael Ingram obituary,” The Guardian, 3 July 2014. 168. Décharné, King’s Road, 117. 169. John Simons, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, 30. 170. Gorman, The Look, p. 58. 171. Rob Nicholls, in Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 44. See also Brunsdon, “Maigret across the Channel,” 109 f. 172. Patrick Uden, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 51 f. 173. See “Cathy McGowan’s Mod Miscellany,” Mod’s Monthly, May 1964. 174. Penny Reel, in: Anderson, Mods, 47. 175. Levy, Ready, Steady, Go!, 120. 176. “Cathy McGowan’s Mod Miscellany,” Mod’s Monthly, June 1964. 177. Alison Adburgham, “Only from Paris,” The Guardian, 18 January 1968. 178. Ibid. 179. Ernestine Carter, “Doyenne of Paris Fashion,” The Sunday Times, 3 February 1963. 180. “Changes in the Fashion World,” The Guardian, 10 July 1960. 181. Sarah Drummond, “Vive Paris,” London Life, 27 August 1966. 182. Ibid. See also Palmer, Couture & Commerce, 174. 183. “The Pick Of The Bunch From The Continent,” Jackie, 29 October 1966. 184. “A New Femme Boutique,” Mod’s Monthly, November 1964. 185. “Mods Around the World,” Mod’s Monthly, March 1964. 186. Felicity Green, “Russia’s Twiggy,” Daily Mirror, 11 May 1967. 187. See Weight, “A material they were sampling”. 188. Aitken, “The young meteors,” 18. 189. Penny Reel, in: Anderson, Mods, 21. See also DeGroot, The Sixties Unplugged, 168; Bushell, Hoolies, 12. For the rise of Jewish tailoring, see Ugolini, Men and Menswear, 138. For Jewish youth and early Mod culture, see Fowler, Youth Culture in Britain, 128.

7  CULTURAL RENEWAL AND THE TRANSNATIONAL FASHION INDUSTRY 

279

190. See Frank Cooper, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 55. 191. Henschel, Der dreizehnte Beatle, 36. 192. “Casuals U.S.A.,” Boyfriend, 28 September 1963. 193. See Sandy Fawkes, “Britain hits back!,” Daily Express, 17 April 1972. 194. Alison Adburgham, “Only from Paris,” The Guardian, 18 January 1968. 195. Sandy Fawkes, “Britain hits back!,” Daily Express, 17 April 1972. 196. “…That Dress The Young,” Sunday Times Magazine, 3 March 1963. 197. Black newcomers often worked in the fashion business, not as designers but as employees in factories. See “Stich and Sew,” Flamingo, April 1962. 198. Weight, Mod, 80. 199. See Hebdige, Subculture. 200. Alan Fletcher, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, 35; Ian R. Hebditch, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 52. 201. Carol Tulloch, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 33. For fashion and black newcomers see also MacInnes City of Spades. For the popularity of the blue beat hat see David Middleton, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 53. 202. Georgie Fame, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 52 f. 203. Gildart, Images of England through Popular Music, 59. 204. Quoted from Richard Weight, Mod, 86. 205. Douglas Johnson, “The Importance of Nationalism,” New Society, 1 September 1966. 206. See Martineau, Icons of Style, 154. 207. “Models on Parade,” Flamingo, August 1963. 208. Koda and Yohannan, The Model as Muse, 66. 209. Ford, “Violence at Desmond’s Hip City,” 209. 210. “The American Show Girl is a Bore,” Flamingo, June 1962. See Pieterse, White on Black, 132–151; 172–187; Brown, Babylon Girls. 211. “Ban them!,” Daily Mail, 19 May 1967. 212. Ibid., For more information see Bidnall, West Indian Generation 69 f.; Malik, Representing Black Britain, 113. 213. Koda and Yohannan, The Model as Muse, 66. 214. “Fashion Breakthrough,” Flamingo, June 1964. 215. “Miss World 1963,” Flamingo, January 1964. See also Barnes, Cultural Conundrums, 67 f. 216. “Miss World 1963. 217. Ibid. 218. “Mr. Great Britain,” Flamingo, November 1963. 219. “Antoine Nisas. First Negro Designer in Paris,” Flamingo, July 1962. 220. Koda and Yohannan, The Model as Muse, 66. 221. See Burt Glinn, “Five Beauties Steal Style Show in Paris,” LIFE, 12 September 1960.

280 

F. FUHG

222. “Fashion Breakthrough” Flamingo, June 1964. 223. “Fashions For Men,” Flamingo, November 1961. 224. “Fashion Breakthrough. 225. Alison Adburgham and Phyllis Heathcote, “Paris fashions,” The Guardian, 27 January 1967. 226. Ibid. 227. Ibid. 228. “Now—the ‘India Look’ for Chelsea,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 24 December 1965. 229. Douglas, “fashion (1960s)”, 181. 230. “Sarah Drummond Talking Fashion,” London Life, 16 July 1966. 231. “Sarah Drummond Talking Fashion,” London Life, 30 July 1966. 232. “Sarah Drummond Talking Fashion,” London Life, 20 August 1966. 233. Levy, ready, steady, go!, 119. 234. See Welters, “The Natural Look”. 235. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe. 236. Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 73. 237. For the term “Peasant-inspired looks”, see Smith, “Peasant-Inspired Looks”, 243 f. 238. See Pat Farrell, in: Anderson, Mods, 43 f. 239. Street-Porter, Baggage, 152, 185; Hardy, Women of the 1960s, 108. 240. See Alfredo Marcantonio, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 53; Jeff Dexter, in: Anderson, Mods, 16. 241. See “They’re preparing for spring fashion parade,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 14 January 1964. 242. Mickey Tenner, in: Anderson, Mods, 31. 243. “Are You A Mod?,” Mod’s Monthly, September 1964. 244. Ibid. 245. Mickey Tenner, in: Anderson, Mods, 31. 246. Aitken, “Young Meteors,” 99. 247. Waddell, How Fashion Works, 14. 248. “Who decides the fashion trend,” Mod’s Monthly, December 1964. 249. See “Teensy-weasy: At nineteen he owns a salon for teenagers,” Daily Mirror, 29 July 1960. 250. “Why are Mods so much in the News?,” Mod’s Monthly, March 1964. 251. “Girls who get around wear squares,” Jackie, 18 January 1964. 252. See John Leo Waters, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 44. 253. Aitken, “Young Meteors,” 98. 254. “Sequel to Theft of Record Shop’s Stock,” Hackney Gazette, 11 July 1967. 255. Angela Ince, “Gang Menace in London Shoplifting,” London Life, 13 August 1966.

7  CULTURAL RENEWAL AND THE TRANSNATIONAL FASHION INDUSTRY 

281

256. “Young shoplifters will be refused bail,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 10 April 1964. 257. See “Detectives deny ‘beating up’. Allegation by West Indian,” Hackney Gazette, 29 March 1963. 258. Angela Ince, “Gang Menace in London Shoplifting,” London Life, 13 August 1966. 259. “80 Girls in Ban-Beret Strike,” Daily Mirror, 30 March 1962. 260. “Mad Caps!,” Daily Mirror, 14 October 1960. 261. Street-Porter, Baggage, 178. 262. “Clothes and the City Man,” Lilliput, March 1960. 263. Arnold, Fashion, Desire and Anxiety, 114. 264. See Hutton, The Rise and Fall of Merry England. 265. Blaszczyk, Fashionability, 170. 266. “Which shops are Mod?,” Mod’s Monthly, November 1964. 267. See also Ugolini, Men and Menswear, 100. 268. Alistair O’Neill, London: After A Fashion, 143. 269. See Waddell, How Fashion Work, 77. 270. Wilson, “Oppositional dress,” 37. 271. Lucy L. Horton, Campus Style: It’s a Mod, Mod. 272. See Roland Kelly, in: Anderson, Mods, 45. 273. See Laury Callan, in: Anderson, Mods, 47. 274. Ted Brooks in Anderson, Mods, 40. 275. Le Zotte, From Goodwill to Grunge, 142. 276. Anderson, Tweed, 144. 277. Allen, “British Graffiti,” 104. 278. Ibid. 279. Smallbone, A Girl in the Sixties, 70. 280. Jenss, Fashioning Memory, 45. 281. David Cole, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 55. 282. “Which shops are Mod?” 283. See “Mod Mailbag,” Mod’s Monthly, June 1964. 284. “King’s Road is A La Mode by Ursula Bloom,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 23 September 1960. 285. “You can’t win,” Jackie, 18 April 1964. See also Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Women in Twentieth-Century Britain. 286. “Teenage Trouble Spots,” Mod’s Monthly, May 1964. 287. See “Basis to Beauty: Skin Care,” Flamingo, November 1961. Flamingo published a full-page article on careers in the field of beauty services. See “Careers Beauty Culture,” Flamingo, May 1964. 288. “The Perfume You Use,” Flamingo, August 1962. 289. “Dollies & Birds,” Fabulous, 14 May 1966.

282 

F. FUHG

290. See McRobbie, Feminism and Youth Culture, 10. For dolly birds and the modern femme fatale, see White, Violent Femmes, 65 f. 291. “Cathy McGowan’s Mod Miscellany,” Mod’s Monthly, June 1964. 292. “The Beat Age Is … Short Cut to Freedom,” Fabulous, 14 May 1966. For more information on Vidal Sassoon, see Sassoon, Vidal. 293. See “Cathy McGowan’s Mod Miscellany,” Mod’s Monthly, June 1964. 294. See “Wigs Wigs Wigs,” Flamingo, February 1963. 295. Ibid. 296. See also Berg, The Unconscious Significance of Hair. 297. “Now It’s Wigs for Bright Young Men,” Hackney Gazette, 16 February 1968. 298. See Eileen Barnes and Ann Sullivan, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 61. 299. David Cole, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 51. 300. “Life and Colour Needed in Men’s Clothes,” Mod’s Monthly, December 1964. 301. Alex MacGuire, “Emancipated and Reactionaries,” New Society, 28 May 1964. 302. “Which shops are Mod?,” Mod’s Monthly, November 1964. 303. Penny Reel, in Anderson, Mods, 25. For more information, see Jachimiak, “Poofs Wear Lacquer, Don’t They, Eh”; Weight, Mod, 74 f. 304. Penny Reel, in Anderson, Mods, 25. 305. Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 56. See also Carlo Manzi, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 60. 306. Maltby, Dreams for Sale, 162. See also Buckley and Clark, Fashion and the Everyday Life, 183. 307. Alex MacGuire, “Emancipated and Reactionaries,” New Society, 28 May 1964. 308. “Chain Story,” Boyfriend, 30 November 1963. 309. “We’re borrowing from the boys,” Jackie, 16 January 1965. 310. For Dior’s military greatcoat, see “Dior goes down,” The Guardian, 29 July 1966. 311. “Down Carnaby Street,” Mod’s Monthly, September 1964. 312. “Are You A Mod?,” Mod’s Monthly, September 1964. 313. “Keep it Dark, But Boutique,” Rave, September 1965. 314. Chris Hardy, in: Anderson, Mods, 31. 315. Roland Kelly, in: Anderson, Mods, 12. 316. Mickey Modern, in: Anderson, Mods, 35. 317. Carlo Manzi, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 58. 318. Miss McLean, in “She’s Asking For It!,” Jackie, 3 April 1965. 319. See “Toast of the Town,” Fabulous, 3 October 1964.

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Obelkevich, James. 1994. Consumption. In Understanding Post-War British Society, ed. Peter Catterall and James Obelkevich, 141–154. London/New York: Routledge. Palmer, Alexandra. 2001. Couture & Commerce: The Transatlantic Fashion Trade in the 1950s. Toronto: UBC Press. Pimlott, Mark. 2007. The Boutique and the Mass Market. In Boutiques and Other Retail Spaces: The Architecture of Seduction, ed. David Vernet and Leontine de Wit, 1–15. London/New York: Routledge. Polemus, Ted, and Lynn Procter. 1984. Pop Styles: An A-Z Guide to the World Where Fashion Meets rock ‘n’ roll. London: Vermilion. Quant, Mary. 2009. Quant on Quant. In The Sharper Word: A Mod Anthology, ed. Paolo Hewitt, 73–74. London: Helter Skelter. Reed, Paula. 2012. Fifty Fashion Looks That Changed the 1960s. London: Conran Octopus. Reed, Jeremy. 2014. The Dilly: A Secret History of Piccadilly Rent Boys. London/ Chicago: Peter Owen. Richmond, Vivienne. 2013. Clothing the Poor in the Nineteenth Century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rubinstein, Ruth P. 1995. Dress Codes: Meanings and Messages in American Culture. Boulder: Westview Press. Searle, G.R. 2004. A New England? Peace and War, 1886–1918. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sherwood, James, Tom Ford, and Guy Hills. 2010. Savile Row: The Master Tailors of British Bespoke. London: Thames & Hudson. Smallbone, Nicola. 1996. A Girl in the Sixties: Mods, Rocker and Nobody? Unpublished BA Thesis at the University of Brighton. Steele, Valerie. 2017. Paris Fashion: A Cultural History. New  York/London: Bloomsbury. Street-Porter, Janet. 2005. Baggage: My Childhood. London: Headline. Sugg, Deborah. 1993. Ideal Homes at London’s Design Museum. The Journal of Museum Education 18 (3): 11–14. Summers, Julie. 2015. Fashion on the Ration: Style in the Second World War. London: Profile Books. Szreter, Simon. 1996. Fertility, Class and Gender in Britain, 1860–1940. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Troxell, Mary D. 1971. Fashion Merchandising. New  York: Gregg Division/ McGraw-Hill. Troy, Nancy J. 2013. Art. In Fashion and Art, ed. Adam Geczy and Vicki Karaminas, 29–42. London: Bloomsbury. Turner, Barry. 2011. Beacon for Change: How the 1951 Festival of Britain Shaped the Modern Age. London: Aurum Press.

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Ugolini, Laura. 2007. Men and Menswear: Sartorial Consumption in Britain, 1880–1939. Aldershot/Burlington: Ashgate. Waddell, Gavin. 2009. How Fashion Works: Couture, Ready-to-Wear and Mass Production. Oxford: Blackwell Science. Walker, Richard. 1989. Savile Row: An Illustrated History. New York: Rizzoli. Weight, Richard. 2015. Mod: From Bebop to Britpop, Britain’s Biggest Youth Movement. London: Vintage Books. ———. 2016. ‘A material they were sampling’: Jews and the Making of Mod. In Moses Mods and Mr. Fish: The Menswear Revolution, ed. Jewish Museum London, 51–64. London: Jewish Museum London. Welters, Linda. 2008. The Natural Look: American Styles in the 1970s. Fashion Theory 12 (4): 489–501. Wheatley, Helen. 2014. “Marvellous, Awesome, True-to-lie, Epoch-making, a New Dimension”: Reconsidering the Early History of Colour Television in Britain. In Cinema, Television and History: New Approaches, ed. Laura Mee and Johnny Walker, 142–163. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. White, Rosie. 2007. Violent Femmes: Women as Spies in Popular Culture. London/ New York: Routledge. Wilson, Robert F. 1960. Colour in Industry Today: A Practical Book on the Functional Use of Colour. London: Allen & Unwin. Wilson, Elizabeth. 2001. Oppositional Dress. In Consumption: Objects, Subjects and Mediations in Consumption, ed. Daniel Miller, 26–49. London/New York: Routledge. Woodham, Jonathan. 1997. Twentieth Century Design. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Ina. 2001. Women in Twentieth-Century Britain: Social, Cultural and Political Change. Harlow: Longman.

PART IV

Space

CHAPTER 8

The Creation and Use of Public Space

In the late 1950s, Tosco R. Fyvel looked out of his flat in a former working-­ class district that had been subject to redevelopment and noticed that the majority of Teddy Boys he saw lived in newly built estates.1 The kids, Fyvel saw in his neighbourhood, were not too “interested in television” and spent their leisure time outdoors.2 Elsewhere, youths criticised their parents for being “hypnotised by […] monster called Telly”, which disagreed with the views of post-war sociologists who thought that the use of public space was in decline.3 In April 1958, the Sunday Times announced that “the young […] don’t let television ownership interfere”.4 Traditionally, the post-war period had been identified as an era shaped by a retreat into the private—perfectly illustrated by the popularity of watching television at home—and yes, better living conditions supplied ordinary working-class families with new private space. In September 1958, the Daily Mirror advised parents to give their children a place at home for themselves.5 On television, Barry Bucknell’s DIY show provided information on how to build a “teen room”, declaring that “the whole job can be done […] in only two weeks of evening work for less than £25”.6 Teenagers dreamed of furnishing their rooms with modern devices.7 Records “made popular music a personal as well as a group experience and created a direct relationship between the lonely teenager in his or her bedroom and the musical star”.8 Teenagers used record players as alarm © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Fuhg, London’s Working-Class Youth and the Making of Post-­Victorian Britain, 1958–1971, Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68968-1_8

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clocks9 and personalised their private spaces with posters from teen magazines.10 Scholars have highlighted the meaning of the bedroom in girls’ participation in post-war youth culture.11 In the last years, however, this view of reading post-war Britain as a period shaped by privacy came under fire. The study of British post-war youth culture in particular called this assumption into question. Sian Lincoln, for example, argued that girls’ participation navigated between private and public spaces.12 Recent research on contemporary youth culture even goes so far as to place space in the middle of their analytical framework for studying daily forms of youth culture.13 From a historical point of view, it can be also argued that, despite the privatisation of consumption, cultural activity continued to take place in public spaces.14 Often, kids from London resisted an ongoing privatisation of cultural consumption and they were able to do so because London and its surrounding territory offered plenty of space that could have been adopted for self-chosen activities. In the last couple of years, scholars working on British post-war youth culture have paid special attention on the meaning of space within the so-called teenage revolution. Sarah Kenny, for example, writes that “evening leisure space formed a central part of the lifestyles of young people, providing a space for them to socialise away from adult supervision”.15 Kenny is right by stressing the relevance of leisure venues for the formation and shifts within popular working-class youth cultures. While commercial and voluntary leisure space stands in the focus of the final chapter of this book, the upcoming pages concentrate on public, urban, and surrounding spaces that in media and youth work had become associated with the cultural production of working-class kids. Teenagers not just spent their free time in commercial leisure venues but also made use of streets, parks, squares, and disused bomb and construction sites to organise gatherings and meet up with friends. Scholars already noted that since the nineteenth century, thanks to the shortage of private space, the cultural activities of young people had mainly taken place in public, and urban planners themselves studied the literature, seeking inspiration from the way streets were used for social and cultural encounters.16 The British historian Leif Jerram remarks that an alternative history of twentieth-century Europe, with a focus on the lives of ordinary people, is still to be written.17 Jerram himself, however, along with the great chroniclers of late nineteenth-century street culture such as Henry Mayhew, Charles Booth, Friedrich Engels, and Charles Dickens, fails to formulate a theory of street life.18 Around 1900, Hans Ostwald edited the

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book series Großstadt-Dokumente, whose purpose was to record street life in Berlin at the turn of the century.19 The collected essays, however, omitted to address the street culture of ordinary people.20 The Chicago School imported the methodological approach to the US in order to investigate the lives of urban minority groups in the 1920s and 1930s.21 Contemporary anthropologists worked hard to define a concept of street culture, describing it as a “complex and conflictual web of beliefs, symbols, modes of interaction, values and ideologies that have emerged in opposition to exclusion from the mainstream”.22 In contrast to this definition, however, the spatial realms used in public cultural production and consumption in the 1960s attempt to avoid framing street culture as being in opposition to mainstream popular culture. Moreover, pop culture was consumed on the street, meaning that the street itself became a marketing tool, allowing pop groups to present themselves as connected to their fan base. Thanks to the media and influential street photographers, the urban environment was perceived to be under the control of working-class youth, giving rise to public fear as well as tensions between teenagers and local authorities.23 During the 1960s, London’s young people found themselves and their environment under the spotlight. Jane Jacobs had argued in 1961 that local streets were regarded by many people as a measure of the uniqueness of their city,24 while post-war Londoners’ notion of their hometown was in part defined by young people’s presence on the streets. The main problem encountered in documenting street life, according to the British Council, was that citizens “know their streets so well that they no longer find anything particularly interesting in them”.25 However, contemporary sources such as youth work reports, films, and images preserve a record of street culture and illuminate the reciprocal relationship between youth culture and public space. Cultural entrepreneurs, for example, paid attention to street life because young people’s street culture set the tone for fashion.26 Public protests in the late 1960s and their affiliation with youth cultures intensified the attention given to the social and cultural functions of public space, even though such demonstrations were not a new phenomenon.27 Nevertheless, demonstrations had become a media spectacle in which the tropes of politics, rivalling youth cultures, and public space were intertwined.28 In the late 1960s, public space was already filled with graffiti, which were used by young Londoners to express political standpoints.29

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The Meaning of Public Space for Youth Culture The street, according to historian Joe Moran, was by the early 1960s imagined as “a space of spontaneous community, set against the rational, contractual operations of both the market and the state”, and thus was filled with “symbolic means of articulating hopes for and anxieties about social and political change”.30 This spontaneity, whose decline had been described by contemporary scholars such as those working at the influential Centre for Community Studies, was seen by youth experts as being preserved within working-class youth tribes and thus became associated with urban youth culture.31 While in urban sociology redevelopment was held responsible for the disappearance of spontaneity in its attempt to rationalise urban life on the basis of capitalist efficiency, the term “deprived areas” described districts that had resisted such development. Their built environment, so Moran, was imaginatively linked to the “aesthetic patterns of the rundown street” and “bombed-out houses”, illustrating that the character of streets was still an indicator for evaluating the vibrancy of a city.32 In his book on leisure, citizenship, and working-class men in Britain, Brad Beaven quotes social reformer J.  B. Paton, who was concerned in 1908 that young men widely practised their “degenerate culture” on the streets of urban working-class neighbourhoods.33 The historians Hamish Fraser and Callum Brown, writing about the 1950s, legitimise such concerns, describing “the youth gang, roaming loose in jumbled bomb sites and along city streets, jostling passersby with an insouciant hard machismo”.34 Like “Cosh Boys” and “Spivs” in the immediate post-war years, Teds and other subcultural tribes would have become representative of a bustling and tough street culture, shaped, according to the narrative, by urban poverty. For Jerry White, expert in the history of London, the capital’s youth “remained more immune than others to the lure of indoors”,35 preferring instead the street corners that enabled the aestheticisation of the informal culture of inner-city working-class life.36 The use of such spaces, however, was soon inhibited by the huge increase in car traffic.37 The building of adventure playgrounds in the 1960s was intended to compensate for the lack of open space.38 Local councils introduced schemes, which allowed children to play on the streets under supervision.39 Financial difficulties meant that the LCC was unable to address many needs.40 Pictures shot in the 1950s and 1960s illustrate that street furniture was sporadically

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co-opted as play equipment and the use of backyards, pavements, and doorsteps suggests that space was often seen as neither private nor public in the mid and late 1950s (Image 8.1). Until the Betting and Gaming Act was passed in 1960, “street bookies”41 organised betting in neighbourhoods, which was frequently interrupted by the police.42

Image 8.1  Children, photographed by John Gay, swinging on ropes tied to a lamppost beside the site of a demolished terraced house in either Islington or Camden in the early 1960s. (Copyright: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo)

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Generally speaking, privacy was still an expensive commodity in cities, and contemporaries recall that street life was more vibrant in London than in other parts of the country.43 Often, a variety of records suggest, using public space was for working-class kids an important childhood experience. Films such as Joan Littlewood’s Fun Palace documented that, in the mid-1960s, children still played in the streets of the East End.44 The survival of Victorian ideas about public order meant that park and street life was policed.45 This notion of control, however, was subject to challenge. A survey on the use of open spaces in 1964 revealed that young people “strongly disliked the restrictions and authoritarian influences by park guards”.46 Photographers and film-makers turned their focus onto social upheaval and cultural renewal, regarding the streets as an ideal location for the observation of consumption and cultural (re)production.47 Roger Mayne, for example, explored the culture of working-class youth in order to capture the rhythm of a city in the process of self-renewal. Often, the photographic documentation focused on two influential and popular themes: the surviving Victorian working-class slums of the previous century, with their unique architecture and social organisation, and the urban landscape of a bombed-out metropolis.48 Mayne’s early series, portraying teenage life in London around 1955–56, demonstrates that the city was far from achieving the swinging, prosperous, and modern image to which it later laid claim. His shots illustrate urban working-class life, with popular narratives such as kinship networks, street-corner culture, and fluidity between public and private space. Mayne explicitly addressed the fear of public spaces being controlled by teenage gangs.49 While by the end of the 1950s, physical mobility had changed the notion of space, Mayne’s photographs suggest that teen life was still a territorial experience. The depiction of bicycles in many shots alludes to young people’s preference for their local neighbourhoods and familiar social and cultural institutions. The density of urban life captured and transmitted in photographs meant that white working-class youth had to share public space with immigrants and their offspring, who were subject to the same poor housing conditions as working-­class families, exacerbated by a racially biased housing market.50 Mayne, who photographed street scenes in Notting Hill in the year after the riots, created a counter-narrative to racial tensions by capturing the effect of poverty as a stimulus for fraternisation.51 Images also show that local teenager in the 1950s already “tagged” their territory using graffiti, marking abandoned sites with the name of

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their local football team. London’s bomb sites had special significance at a time when playgrounds and youth clubs were not yet widely available or shaped by supervision and were used as a backdrop by photographers looking to portray their young models as a symbol of societal renewal.52 This public narrative transformed bomb sites into a spatial pop-cultural commodity, lending them to use by bands playing live gigs in entertainment districts. They were also used in fiction-writing at the time.53 According to historians Hans-Luidger Dienel and Malte Schophaus, European cities in the twentieth century had been shaped by “semi-public spaces” which had become “starting points for new cultural and leisure activities as well as for new services and economic enterprises in the shadow economy”.54 In the immediate post-war years, “young people did make use of open rubble sites in many different ways”55 and “hoped to move on to better public spaces after the reconstruction of the cities”.56 Bomb sites represented the unexplored, wild urban jungle of uncontrolled space which the post-war metropolis offered teenagers. These places were not just seen as a locus of immorality, prostitution,57 drug-dealing and crime,58 but also as a threat to children’s health.59 Large numbers of bomb sites disappeared in the mid-1960s,60 but were replaced by new residual sites during the city’s building boom. These were similarly used for the supply of drugs, especially around the nightclubs of Soho.61 Urban renewal, so the public assumption, exacerbated the social and cultural effects of declining community. Contemporaries recall that by the mid-1960s, street life in London’s working-class neighbourhoods had begun to disappear, at the same time as increasing car traffic anonymised large swathes of the city’s streets. As a feature of an imagined British working-­class heritage, however, the social and cultural function of the streets was often preserved in stories passed down through families, leading to the concept of street life being enshrined in popular culture in the 1960s. The Rolling Stones, for example, made use of the street as a marketing tool. In their first promo shot in 1962, Philip Townsend photographed the band on the street in front of their flat in Edith Grove in Chelsea.62 This image placed the Stones at the heart of Chelsea’s Bohemian scene, conveying the idea that their lifestyle was inspired by London’s diverse, popular, and vibrant street culture(s). The photograph resonated among thousands of teenagers who spent their day-to-day lives on the streets of London.63 Townsend’s message was that modern was the result of an energetic city whose sense of both tradition and novelty allowed a recalibration of the notion of Britishness. A similar move was done by The Small Faces. They staged themselves on a bomb site in the City of London

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Image 8.2  The Small Faces on a bomb site on Ludgate Hill, London, in September 1965. (Copyright: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo)

and by so doing sent the message that they are speaking for the generation of young Londoners which will determine the future of Britain’s capital (Image 8.2). By the end of the 1960s, themes of affluence and social mobility had disappeared from cultural representations of the street and had been replaced by those highlighting once again the poverty of urban working-­ class communities. Such references had never vanished from popular culture, although they had been drowned out by the bravado of Swinging London. The Kinks released “Dead End Street” in November 1966, a song which espoused the idea that life in 1960s Britain was “not as great as everyone [thinks] it is”.64 Ray Davies debunked the misleading Swinging Britain image, pointing out that many Britons, like their Victorian predecessors, still found themselves trapped in poverty. For Davies there was no difference between America’s post-war depression and post-war Britain, in which hope and glory were eclipsed by the realities of austerity and fear.

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The video was shot in an eighteenth-century street, with the band dressed as Victorian coffin-bearers, symbolically burying the millions of hopeless working-class Londoners who, in contrast to the myth of social mobility, had become victims of the new inequality instigated by modern capitalism.65 The views of musicians and photographers matched contemporary accounts of experimental youth projects, which chose “high density, working class neighbourhood[s]” for the purpose of reaching out to delinquent teenagers in their “natural environment”.66 Similar to photographers who pictured their protagonists in front of the flourishing commercial leisure venues of London, such projects focused on locations such as the corners of main roads, where they were able to study the repetitive cultural practices of young people. According to Justyna Stepien, working-class kids were taking part “in the [new] visual spectacle directed by consumer industry and its brand names”.67 With little appreciation of the zeitgeist, youth workers dismissed these forms and formats of daily routines as dull and driven only by the need to finance the next coffee-bar or cinema visit. A re-reading of contemporary reports illustrates that the flow of young people was by no means random. Youth gangs clustered around leisure venues, and the walk from one facility to another included stops at various street corners. Street gatherings became a source of stability and continuity and offered security in times of social and cultural change. Investigative youth work report illustrates that in their boroughs and manors, teenagers knew one another. Friendship circles were interwoven, and policemen “on the beat” knew local youths from their own estates. The Teddy Boy hysteria of the mid-1950s, however, affected loitering in that people supported new regulations of public urban space. Soon, juvenile delinquency was not just an analytical framework within urban sociology, youth work, and psychology but also a political tool employed by “many formal agencies” to “battle for control throughout the 1950s and 1960s”.68 Because of the privatisation of public space and discussions on modern forms of urban governance, control, and the rise of the so-­ called security talk,69 the regulation of public space had become well discussed in recent childhood studies. Already back in the days, police action, for example, was proposed to try to put a stop to the territorial rivalries which local newspapers blamed for knife crime on the streets of London.70 According to a variety of newspaper articles, the space in front of commercial leisure venues became a danger zone, where rival gangs would confront one another.71 In the 1950s and 1960s, obstructing footways

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was an offence with which youths were often charged, being asked to “move on” in an effort to control and restrict the use of urban public space.72 The Vagrancy Act of 1824 was used for the purpose of clearing public spaces in respect of teen or black community gatherings in the 1960s and 1970s.73 Such police actions were part of an overall effort to maintain respectability in British society, untouched by the negative connotations of urban culture. The film Expresso Bongo used Soho as the backdrop to its portrayal of teenage entertainment colliding with the “illegitimate sexuality of the strip club”, popularising the idea of a destructive urbanity.74 Parliamentary discussions over the increase in street prostitution in mid-1950s London paved the way for its criminalisation,75 with the effect that the sex industry became a shadow economy.76 In executing the new laws, police forces were charged with protecting the souls and minds of the city’s youth from the sexual depravity traditionally associated with districts such as Soho.77 In the battle to protect moral standards from the harmful influences of street life, prostitution stood as the enemy alongside organised crime, which according to the press constituted another threat to young people. The tabloids reported that gangsters were recruiting Cockney youngsters from working-class districts to join their criminal workforce.78 For young people, so the assumption, crime promised social mobility and access to material consumption.79 While for the Guardian the arrival of the affluent teenager meant that Soho was no longer the exclusive playground of the city’s underworld,80 gangsters such as the Krays still controlled large swathes of the financially lucrative entertainment business in the mid-1960s.81 Troubles, the British media associated with young working-class dweller, were not always explained with making money. In 1966, England’s victory in the World Cup made football popular again. Official studies soon warned that a new sort of street violence had emerged around football matches.82 When the crisis in Mod culture made way for the rise of Hippies and Skinheads around 1967,83 football terraces across the country were conquered by “bootboys”. In the view of the CCCS, action taken against hooliganism was designed to exclude working-class people from football and to “bourgeoisify” a working-class sport.84 Alongside policing and high ticket prices, strategies included denying fan status to those involved in disturbances.85 While it is true that moral panic around football hooliganism went hand in hand with the demonisation of workingclass culture, the CCCS somewhat trivialised the violence that took place

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both inside and outside stadiums.86 More problematic, however, is that the working class itself was stigmatised by studies which associated its cultural identity with macho behaviour and violence.87 By the late 1960s, football hooliganism took the most prominent place of all sorts of public disorder, which in newspapers were associated with young Britons. Significant for this was that violent clashes did not only take place on match days.88 Football fans filled not only streets but buses, trains, and Tube lines on match days, making them unusable by other passengers, and the police, so numerous newspaper articles intervened in an attempt to stop violence between rival supporters.89 Fans increasingly travelled to away matches, and local gazettes warned that railway stations became a hotspot for disruption.90 Football clubs themselves set up schemes to prevent hooliganism, identified the young fans responsible, and founded Junior Supporters’ Clubs in order to increase supervision.91 Conflicts had become so explosive that, so the Guardian in 1969, outside football grounds, police forces disarmed bootboys by removing their footwear or confiscating bootlaces.92 According to the public perception of modern youth cultures, Hippies too tried to take control over public space. The Guardian, for example, named that in guerrilla-style city guides, Hippies recommended parks in London “where people could sleep for free”.93 In some areas of the city, much to the displeasure of residents, the pavements would have been under the control of Beatniks.94 In contrast to street gatherings, which were tolerated as a facet of working-class culture, such loitering was considered to contribute to a negative image of Britain. When Hippies gathered at Piccadilly Circus in 1967–68, various groups demanded better policing of public spaces in Central London, where it was felt that the sanctity of tourist attractions and other important sites was under threat (Image 8.3).95 The area surrounding the Eros statue was popular among young Londoners, with Piccadilly being seen as the gateway to Soho and Covent Garden. By frequenting teenagers, it became a natural venue for protests against Mick Jagger’s arrest on drugs charges in 1967.96 Residents complained that the “Hippie problem” at Piccadilly Circus was out of control, and asked the Metropolitan Police to deal with it.97 The media began to refer to the traffic island as a symbol of the “great unwashed layabout, swinging London”.98 There were fears that crime would spread from the area into other parts of the West End, although letters sent to the police at the time indicate that no serious offences took place. The Police responded that officers cannot “play the babysitter for

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Image 8.3  Young people in Piccadilly, London, in August 1969. (Copyright: Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy Stock Photo)

24h per day”,99 arguing that police activity would give tourists the impression of an authoritarian culture and that the law did not allow for the dispersal of such crowds in any case. The most effective strategy, according to the police, was urban planning. It was suggested that a guard-rail be installed around the centre island, and the pedestrian concourse be removed, alongside the introduction of a bylaw affording the police additional powers. Planning departments themselves considered the effects of redevelopment on teenagers. For Piccadilly, the solution was to make “the central area […] an unattractive or uncomfortable place for congregation”.100 In 1961, the Ministry of Housing warned that a new petrol station opposite an “approved school” in a town near Manchester “would enable undesirable youths to loiter outside and attract the girls’ attention”.101 Planning departments began to reflect on possible negative effects of such redevelopment schemes. Having been ousted from Piccadilly, Hippies squatted in a nearby empty building, calling themselves the London Street Commune102 with

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the aim “to return the streets to the people”.103 By the mid of decade, Beatniks were involved in occupying disused buildings.104 The London Street Commune, organised by “Dr” John Moffat and Sid Rawle, offered lodgings to foreign visitors who came to England to attend the Isle of Wight Festival and the Hyde Park Festival in 1969, and hundreds were arrested when the police raided the squat.105 Londoners appreciated the police taking action against what they regarded as a workshy group, whose presence they feared would result in a cost to residents, even though the council denied that the squat had any effect on its financial budget.106 Skinheads too resented the presence of the squat, and attacked the building.107 Subculture-related disturbances also broke out after Mods and Rockers returned to London following the seaside riots in 1964.108 In Battersea Park, the local funfair had to close for hours after hundreds of teenagers clashed. Mods and Rockers attacked one another with weapons outside Hammersmith Underground Station, and at London Airport, police officers stopped teenagers to ask “if they had ‘good reason’ for being there”.109

Meeting in the Green: Youth and the Parks of London Although local newspapers shaped the narrative of parks as hosts to teenage battles, traditionally, particularly since the Victorian age, parks and gardens had served the need for urban working-class recreation.110 During the 1960s, the park was still one of the most visited outdoor spaces by young Londoners, although the popularity of the street as an outdoor space was not measured. In 1964, 81 per cent of those aged eleven to sixteen had visited their favourite park in the preceding month, and 51 per cent in the preceding week.111 While some planners believed that increased mobility would encourage residents to visit the countryside,112 most visited nearby parks on foot during the week.113 Preferences changed over time and with age, with resting and relaxing and meeting friends being the main activity for those over thirteen.114 Parks had provided recreational space since Victorian and even Georgian times, but had somewhat lost their function as leisure facilities during wartime.115 The outbreak of the Second World War had also meant the requisition of iron, and the dismantling of railings had turned parks into open spaces which young Londoners could use more freely than before.116

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Green urban areas hugely varied in size and number.117 Garden squares were often not open to the public, their use being restricted to residents of the immediate vicinity.118 Children in boroughs such as Kensington were lucky to have access to a multitude of recreational facilities.119 The new Green Belt for London was meant to provide enough green space for recreation in the outskirts during the post-war years and to allow young people to meet in public.120 According to the County of London Plan 1951, however, the administration recognised the deficiency of public open space within the county. Youth-club leaders too complained that young children had too little space specifically designed for them.121 In an evaluation of the goals of the County of London Plan in 1960, it became clear that more efforts had to be made to acquire the acreage required to serve a metropolis the size of London.122 The survey demonstrated the need not just for the extension of older recreational facilities, but for new ones to be built.123 Changes in lifestyles and recreational needs among children and teenagers, alongside the decline in child-safe streets, had made such steps necessary, argued a Paddington representative at an LCC meeting on open space for young people in March 1962.124 A side-effect of redevelopment was often that fewer children had access to large back gardens. The chairmen of borough youth committees continually reminded councils that play and recreational space were essential to community life. In both Britain and America, youth experts emphasised young people’s need for open space in cities and feared that urban sprawl would limit the availability of land. Thus, political intervention was considered necessary to guarantee a balance between density and open space.125 Some London boroughs had access to green space outside the city. Facing the outbreak of war, the government had provided local authorities with land through the Physical Training and Recreation Act of 1937, to facilitate training and encourage physical fitness among young people.126 After the war, councils charged individuals and groups to use this land. While the Ministry of Education complained that no reduction was granted to youth clubs by certain boroughs, the main reason that local youth groups did not use such spaces came down to distance and the high cost of transport. Angela Bartie and Louise Jackson found that many British cities reinstalled railings, fences, and other visual “cues” in the early 1950s and designed re-education projects to “‘train’ children as to what were appropriate spaces for ‘play’”.127 Camping, according to the London Youth Committee (LYC), was to be permitted only under supervision, and only

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when other park visitors did not object to it. The introduction of designated and supervised areas was intended to reduce vandalism and delinquency which had become a constant topic in the press. Further, they were also intended to ensure that visitors were not disturbed. In 1960, the LYC asked the Parks Committee to “cater for the leisure time interests of young people in a more imaginative way”.128 Football pitches were a popular idea and could be used at night if floodlit. Young people had to travel some distance in order to find a suitable place to play, and many youth groups had to use school halls, as no open space was available. The process of political decision-making, however, had meant that “progress towards meeting [their needs] has not been very rapid in recent years”.129 Local youth committees, too, complained of inadequate facilities in their boroughs.130 In order to meet demand, it was suggested that school playing fields should remain open over the summer, with extended opening hours.131 Further, there was the question of lighting for such facilities.132 Floodlighting was discussed in an informal meeting of representatives from borough youth committees in December 1963, during which it was noted that “the system of dealing with open spaces is not as easy as it would at first seem”.133 In the East End, local authorities suggested using open spaces in certain locations and floodlighting some public gardens. Most importantly, however, they agreed to the development of new open space.134 By way of addressing similar issues, Shoreditch Borough Youth Committee suggested a new area as well as extending the area of Haggerston Park. Portions of these areas were taken up with slowly progressing redevelopment schemes, but the committee agreed it was essential to have permanent, full-time space available with floodlighting.135 The entertainment programmes organised by local councils, or by social and cultural institutions, began in post-war times to cater for citizens interested in modern popular culture. Annual open-air programmes normally ran from the Easter weekend until late September. Sometimes, the Parks Committee organised special events in cooperation with local councils, in response to local political and social developments. In July 1959, in reaction to the activities of Oswald Mosley in North Kensington, the Parks Department planned a goodwill week “as an antidote to Mosley”.136 Not just bad weather but old-fashioned programmes and high entrance fees kept visitors away from open-air events. In the 1950s, the inclusion of

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amateur acts helped support self-organised activities in London and also ensured that costs would be kept to a minimum.137 The decline of visitor numbers over the summers of the late 1950s encouraged the Parks Committee to revise its programme. The chief officer of the committee remarked that “children [in particular] return home in considerable numbers to view popular television serials”.138 It was agreed that parks were intended “to provide an escape from home activities” and therefore must “keep in line with modern developments”.139 Scholars as well commented that parks were too puritan and that the Victorian concept of a park was no longer in keeping with the zeitgeist.140 It was felt that the integration of the arts into parks was important, but also that the original concept of building parks to tempt people away from pubs might be approached from a different angle. Thus, scholars suggested that pubs should be built in parks, along with libraries, restaurants, and galleries. In order to bring visitors back, the Parks Committee wondered whether the television should become part of open-air entertainment, allowing people without a television to access TV programmes. Some officials rejected the idea, while others went so far as to propose licensing parks to sell alcohol during film screenings.141 The committee agreed that a test phase should take place in six selected parks in 1959.142 The concept was not entirely new. Open-air cinema shows had already taken place in London parks during the war.143 Nonetheless, efforts to integrate television into open-air programmes provoked widespread resistance.144 Leaving aside the idea of television in parks, few events specifically attracted young Londoners. Exceptions were funfairs, which had been popular among youngsters since the nineteenth century. Jazz concerts were attended by youths in the early 1960s, which sometimes led to trouble.145 The council removed jazz concerts from its open-air programme when they were considered more likely to be attended by young people than by “audiences that take their jazz seriously”.146 Sensation-seeking journalists frequently reported on the dark side of teenage life in parks, while at council meetings, representatives were confronted with petitions of local residents and reports on damages “caused by […] swinging on trees, playing ‘cowboys and Indians’”, and lighting fires.147 Parks were also used to escape from the police after committing crimes.148 In May 1964, the superintendent of Central London Parks gave to paper that he was “fed up” with hooliganism.149 Local newspapers reported that youths threw items into the Thames and into lakes. Vandalism in

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parks infuriated local residents, although newspapers sought to explain it variously as a result of overcrowding, the non-availability of open space, and, according to influential psychologists, a lack of parental love.150 Some youth experts saw residential schools as the most promising strategy for “civilising” delinquent youngsters, while others suggested imprisoning the “child in a concrete box in the sky”.151 Vandalism, however, could have been a reaction to outdated entertainment. In the second half of the 1960s, some boroughs began to modernise their programmes and allow open-air gigs by popular groups. On 17 June 1967, Episode Six played at Haggerston Park in Hackney. The GLC used those gigs to promote the image of Swinging London and to keep kids off the street corners.152 The committee, however, failed to realise that pop shows needed a scale of planning far beyond that required for brass band concerts, and thus ended with teenagers behaving like “wild animals”. While the Hackney Gazette reported that a policeman was kicked and another punched while holding back crowds of wild fans, a police officer stated that the troubles were not serious. Before long, parks were also used for privately organised events. The first Hyde Park concert took place on 29 June 1968. In a change from previous, smaller events, Blackhill Enterprises worked alongside the local administration. The festival, according to Nick Mason, drummer for Pink Floyd, “was wonderful because it was much more a picnic in the park than a mini-Woodstock”.153 In Victoria Park in April 1970, the Peace Festival was disrupted when a group of Skinheads started a riot.154 Traditional celebrations also became catalysts for teenage riots. On Guy Fawkes night, troubles broke out but varied in terms of intensity. In 1959, youths threw fireworks at the police, and some were arrested for shouting and swearing.155 Ten years later, London was reported to have had its safest bonfire night for years.156 Although the GLC itself tried to foster the image of Swinging London, and by doing so demonstrated to some extent an appreciation of the cultural dynamics of self-determination, self-organised use of parks was restricted. Regulations were enforced by organisations, institutions, and government bodies responsible for individual parks.157 This was particularly the case when Hippies in the second half of the 1960s politicised the use of public space. In Regent’s Park in June 1967, a sit-in was started by members of the Exploding Galaxy art collective. Alarmed by the incidence of so-called smoke-ins, which had begun in Hyde Park at Speaker’s Corner on 21 May that year,158 park guards asked the group to leave the area

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because “no performances are allowed”.159 After an argument, the guards returned with riot police. By this time, the Hippie crowd had already acquired the support of the public.160

Mobility and Space: Travelling Without Parents The use of public and open-air space by foreigners provoked particular outrage, which was stoked by the media. In letters sent to local police departments, residents called on the government to “deport this violent foreign trash”.161 “An unwashed pyramid of people—from the provinces, the Continent, from America” had become the capital’s most “bizarre tourist attraction”, announced the Daily Express in 1969.162 The Guardian warned that at the Piccadilly the culture of sharing had been replaced by struggles between different nationalities.163 This illustrates that space and locality determined cultural production, but were partially transcended by the growth in physical mobility. Young people were more than ever before able to break out of the spatial restrictions that had previously limited their cultural and aesthetic horizons. In post-war times, London’s youth began to see the world with their own eyes.164 The number of holidays taken abroad quadrupled from 1951 to 1978. Paid holiday entitlement was extended after the war, made short weekend breaks possible.165 As part of its election campaign in 1950, the Labour Party urged holiday centres to offer “reasonably priced holidays”.166 A significant increase in holiday-making had taken place by the late 1940s. In the 1960s, holidaymakers also had more money to spend on, and during, their trips.167 The travel industry also started to create special offers and services for young customers. Popular destinations, for example, were the holiday camps of Billy Butlin.168 In addition, low-price charter flights now flew working-class Britons to southern Europe.169 Thanks to growing incomes,170 holidays abroad had become an annual event and were even regarded as an indicator of fulfilment.171 In 1964, according to teen magazine Jackie, foreign holidays were “not such an impossible dream” any more.172 For many teenagers, holidays abroad were important enough that they would save their money in order to pay for them.173 By the end of the decade, middle-class sons and daughters of former upper-working-class families had not just started to attend universities but also had the opportunity to travel to non-Western countries which had not yet become popular with tourists. Though those taking holidays in India

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or Afghanistan often cited a political interest, such trips were often, like package holidays, simply a way of seeking entertainment. Taking a holiday in an Indian village was easy, because, a contemporary witness remembers, the short length of stay meant that visitors could avoid confronting the real difficulties of living in such places.174 Today, we know that Britain’s youth were not necessarily looking “to become an Indian prince” but to “find out what England was”.175 Naturally, holiday-making and travel had become major themes within popular culture by the early 1960s, especially in films, whose influence on people’s holiday choices began to be felt.176 La Dolce Vita, Fellini’s 1960 film, popularised a stereotype of Italian culture. Interest in  Italy was heightened  again by the Olympic Games which were held that year in Rome. The holiday industry promoted foreign lifestyles, with the help of romanticised and often stereotyped images of other countries.177 All over Britain, people dreamed of sitting on “Roman scooters driving past the Hotel Excelsior”.178 Young people remarked in teen magazines such as Jackie that those who had lived their whole lives in the same town “must have missed an awful lot”.179 Not just British but also Continental teenagers were affected by rising incomes and were thus able to travel.180 During holidays, teenagers, teachers, and youth workers were surprised to find that the lifestyles of foreign youngsters were similar to those of young Britons and that British youth culture had found its way to the continent. Teddy Boy gangs were spotted in a Mediterranean resort near Toulon.181 Teenage magazines prepared young travellers for their trips, with tips on beauty culture, local in-places, and other vital information.182 During the 1960s, young Britons started to travel without their parents. In the previous decade, holidays for the majority of teens still meant staying with their families in the British countryside.183 The Tourist Information Centre of the British Travel and Holidays Association alerted young travellers to new opportunities. Short trips to France or Belgium were quite common. Reduced train fares were available for those under sixteen and for groups. Student guides wrote that it was common among students to hitchhike to spend a weekend in the countryside,184 while youngsters in financial need were helped to go on holiday by the youth service.185 In many cases, costs were partially covered by youth organisations, or subsidised with the help of donations.186 The new youth hostels all over Europe made it easy for large groups to organise and plan trips.187

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Group holidays often had structured programmes.188 Organised football matches abroad fostered connections between young travellers and locals.189 A youth club in Westminster even considered using a mobile clubhouse that would allow members to “travel abroad in summer without having to find accommodation”.190 Often, such trips were the first experience of foreign travel for local youths. Local newspapers informed their readers that their offspring were shocked to find “cars driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road, cycling on the pavements and cows in the back yard”.191 Youth workers organised trips with the help of guides published by institutions such as the Educational Interchange Council or specialised travel agencies.192 Cooperation between the London Youth Council and organisations such as the Anglo-Austrian Society were also helpful.193 Magazine for youth leaders updated readers on new opportunities.194 Most trips took the form of traditional educational visits and were not explicitly organised as leisure holidays. Happenings such as Anglo-French weekends were planned in order to bring French and British teenagers together.195 Another popular format was the sporting holiday.196 Outdoor activities such as climbing took place in locations as exotic as Kurdistan, where mountain-climbing was combined with geographical surveys and the study of local life.197 International Youth Conferences also invited British representatives to attend. The nature of these trips did not always align with the cultural preferences of London’s youth. Many preferred to take trips to surrounding seaside towns, to which they were able to travel with friends and which were, in contrast to those organised by youth organisations, unsupervised. In the immediate post-war years, seaside resorts had been the backbone of the British holiday industry.198 Since the mid-1930s, said the historian Fred Gray, such towns had “provided architects with the maximum opportunity of ‘achieving a characteristic modern expression’”.199 Cliff Richard’s 1962 film Summer Holiday perfectly illustrates how young people tried to escape “from the monochrome dullness of the by-now traditional English seaside holiday”200 by travelling independently to seaside towns. Their presence did not simply represent a lucrative customer base for local entertainment industries, but called into question the idea of the traditional family seaside holiday. Many youngsters, however, internalised the traditional class-colour relationship of seaside towns, which had informed holiday-making since the late nineteenth century.201 Associated to this day with the influential post-war mythology of teenage riots, seaside towns were more than just trouble-spots. Pop stars gave

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seasonal open-air performances, which were specially advertised in teenage magazines and the music press.202 In 1965, Jackie magazine announced that the summer was too hot for going to clubs, instead recommending summer raves in seaside towns.203 Open-air concerts by well-known beat and rhythm and blues bands ensured that local leisure industries benefited from the spending power of London’s teenagers.204 Short trips afforded an escape from the crowds, speed, and stress of the metropolis. A Ford Zephyr or an old ambulance van, former Mods from London remember, transported larger groups to seaside towns, where they were made responsible for troubles.205 By the end of the 1960s, Skinheads too made the headlines for having fights on the piers.206 More prominent in Britain’s cultural memory, however, are the media reports that claimed to have spotted fights between Mods and Rockers. Such troubles, whether they truly happened or not, hold a place in national history, as well as playing a part in the British nostalgia for seaside holidays.207 The riots are even now used in marketing, attracting British tourists to the sites of the 1964 disturbances.208 The so-called bank holiday riots made sure that every citizen was aware of the dangers of Britain’s new youth cultures.209 Scenes depicted on TV and in newspapers 210 exposed a shocking contrast with the image of Merry England, and the events were sensationalised with headlines such as “Wild Ones Invade Seaside”.211 Even the New York Times on the other side of the Atlantic reported from the seaside towns, while the pope commented on the “unhappy faces” of Teddy Boys, Mods, and Rockers responsible for “profound, piteous dramas”.212 For him, it was the task of the Scout movement to civilise and counterbalance the destructive behaviour of modern youth culture, which favoured passive consumption over a spiritual lifestyle, and individualism over congregation. Youth workers began to organise special weekends in an effort to deter youngsters from travelling to the riots, while other parties called for the reintroduction of National Service to teach young people how to behave.213 Hysteria even sent teenagers to prison for petty crimes.214 In 1965, anyone stopped by the police on their way to a seaside town and found to be in possession of “purple hearts” pills was sentenced to six months in prison or given a fine of £200, and sometimes even both.215 A survey of 450 teenagers involved in the Brighton riots in 1964 claimed to reveal that drug-taking was one of the reasons for the disturbances.216 The media, in contrast, blamed the rivalry between Mods and Rockers.217

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Contemporary witnesses, however, state that there was little difference between teenagers in the 1950s, who spent their summers in seaside towns, and those in the 1960s who were made responsible for the troubles, except that the latter attracted the attention of the media and the police.218 The authorities, of course, had their own explanations. In Clacton, a Labour MP blamed housing estates without social amenities, and a teen population with nothing to do, spending all their time in amusement arcades.219 A local magistrate felt that young people “have no serious views on really worth-while matters”.220 The Labour MP for Rowley Regis and Tipton was convinced that leisure space could prevent future riots.221 A similar point was made by the National Association of Youth Clubs (NAYC).222 Having grown up in London, used to their needs being met by modern commercial leisure facilities, teenagers found that many businesses along the pier barred entry to young people unless accompanied by their parents. Journalists writing about seaside holiday destinations commented that “television, bingo, cars and caravans [were] altering even this most conservative of all our institutions”.223 Work shortages in the north of England and competition placed many resorts under pressure. Some looked to survive by modernising their facilities to cater for the affluent youngsters on whose custom their businesses relied, while other towns provided old-fashioned attractions to meet the demands of an older working-­class clientele. The NAYC was one of the first organisations to carefully study what had happened in seaside towns in 1964 and 65.224 The scenes were reminiscent of those in places like Trafalgar Square on Guy Fawkes night and New Year’s Eve, with “much larking about, throwing clothes and screaming girls into the sea; leaps from the pier with umbrellas aloft; tipping policemen’s helmets—general larks”.225 Brighton was described by the NAYC as a Mod town, meaning that the arrival of Rockers was bound to provoke conflict. In contrast to institutions, politicians and journalists who blamed individuals, subcultures, or a “restless” generation for the troubles, some contemporaries examined society’s role.226 Another group called the media hysteria into question. Peter Laurie, for example, who published in 1965 his well-known book Teenage Revolution, commented that “the Urban Borough of Clacton suffered damage worth 513 pounds, nearly four pence per head: a very modest cost for a year’s major holiday in a town that makes its entire living out of holidays”.227 Laurie was immediately

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criticised by newspapers, who complained that he was downplaying the damage. Much has already been written about the bank holiday riots in seaside towns in the mid-1960s, and as such there is no need for a further reconstruction of the happenings.228 Questions have arisen, however, about the way in which mobility undermined spatial boundaries, and to what extent the seaside town riots were interpreted as the result of increased physical mobility, and how this in turn stimulated fears about a newly mobile youth. In Margate, for example, it emerged that only five of the twenty-six “sawdust Caesars” arrested were locals.229 A teenager who died after falling from the cliffs at Brighton was one of the many who had arrived from London on scooters.230 Like them, teenagers visited the seaside town closest to their London working-class neighbourhood.231 The owning or “borrowing” of transport vehicles enabled young people to travel further away, even though Britain in 1964 still had few motorways, and many Mods from Birmingham only travelled to Brighton following the completion of the M1.232 Some youngsters travelled thousands of kilometres over the summer, resting overnight before reaching the next seaside town on their scooters.233 These journeys resulted in tensions arising from long-established regional rivalries. Skirmishes between members of the same subculture took place along the lines of regional identity.234 Such loyalties even brought members of hostile gangs and subcultures together. Those who did not arrive on scooters or by car took the train from London, or hitchhiked.235 Teenagers had to be fairly confident in order to hitchhike, as “motorists would jeer at [them] […] or worse still, spit”.236 Public transport was more moderate. The paper train brought hundreds of youths to Preston Park, who jumped over the fence “because they never had tickets”.237 The milk train connected Brighton and London in order to provide the capital with fresh milk. On its return journey, the train was a cheap and “convenient transportation for sleepless club-goers”.238 For many kids from London it was mandatory to visit Brighton at least twice a year,239 but getting there was only half the battle. The majority had no place to stay, and on missing the last train, staying longer at a party, or meeting a girl, the easiest solution was to sleep at the beach or in another public place. The NAYC found “sleeping rough” to be a problem confronting towns as well as teenagers.240 Police officers patrolled and tried to move teenagers on, but this was no solution as they simply looked for a different place to sleep, sometimes, the honorary secretary of the NAYC reported, ending up “on the roofs of public toilets or in fairground

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huts”.241 Others used shelters, rolled their sleeping bags out under bandstands, or slept on their scooters or in rowing boats on the beach.242 The NAYC was convinced “that the provision of general cheap and affordable accommodation for young people would prevent troubles”.243 The police attempted to break up riots with the help of mobile units that intervened whenever a crowd formed spontaneously. Often, kids were put into waiting vans which brought them back up the hill to the railway station. Those who walked up by themselves loitered with other youths on Church Street and Queens Road. At the station, the police barred the exits. Youths on scooters formed lines that stretched for kilometres on their way back to London. Police forces were completely unprepared, and controlled the roads into the town to try to prevent the arrival of more teenagers.244 When the riots were over, media and politics communicated that the public order which historically shaped the notion of respectable Britishness had been set under fire by London’s working-class offspring. Urban public spaces such as the street—already used for cultural production and for cultural activities of London’s working classes in Victorian times—were seen as being in danger of being controlled by working-class thugs who transformed soon even representative areas into subcultural teen spaces. While it was no longer in the hand of local authorities or of the council to regulate the forms how the city was seen by tourists and other countries, strategies to limit the use of public space such as police actions or urban redevelopment plans were implemented. Fashion, music groups as well as influential photographers popularised the idea of London as a city historically and contemporary shaped by young people’s use of public spaces. While young people’s adoption of public space helped to reinvent Britain’s capital as a city known for youth culture and cultural production, London’s youth continued with the working-class tradition of using public spaces for social and cultural interaction and by so doing rearticulated modes of cultural production which had been long time associated with the portrait of the Victorian working-­ class slum.

Notes 1. See Fyvel, Insecure Offenders. 2. Edward Shils, “Handicapped October 1961.

Hedonists,”

The

Guardian,

13

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3. “The Way You Live,” Boyfriend, 2 June 1962. 4. Geoffrey Gorer, “Home-Life, Habits and Hobbies,” The Sunday Times, 27 April 1958. 5. “Dream Room for a Teenager…,” Daily Mirror, 9 September 1958; “The Teen Room: a plan that keeps them happy at home,” Daily Express, 4 January 1960. 6. “Dream Room for a Teenager…”. 7. Laraine Moss from Solihull, Warwick, in “My idea of SELF-CONTAINED BLISS,” Jackie, 25 September 1965. 8. Sutcliffe, An Economic and Social History of Western Europe. 9. “The Beatle beat wakens me every morning,” Jackie, 18 January 1964. 10. “Clear a Space,” Jackie, 19 March 1966; Janet Bowser from Sheffield, in Jackie, 4 July 1964. 11. Mazzarella and Pecora, “Revisiting Girls’ Studies”. 12. Lincoln, “Teenage Girls’ ‘Bedroom Culture’”, 105. 13. Chatterton and Hollands, Urban Nightscapes. 14. Jeremy Bugler, “A Pub in the Park?,” New Society, 24 October 1968. 15. Kenny, Unspectacular Youth?, 6. 16. Fyfe, “Reading the Street,” 1–4. For the lack of private space in Victorian London, see Andersson, Streetlife in Late Victorian London; Davies, “Youth gangs and late Victorian society”. 17. Jerram, Streetlife. 18. For these authors and the notion of street see Pemberton, Dickens’s London; Mayhew, Life and labour of the people in London; Engels, Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England. 19. Fritzsche, “Vagabond in the Fugitive City”. 20. See Jazbinsek and Thies, The Berlin “Großstadt-Dokumente”, Thies, Ethnograph des dunklen Berlin. 21. See Thrasher, The Gang; Shaw, The Jack-Roller; Whyte, Street Corner Society. 22. Bourgois, In Search of Respect, 8. 23. Fyfe, Images of the Street. See also Schildt and Siegfried, European Cities, Youth and the Public, 2. 24. See Jacobs, The Life and Death of Great American Cities, 39. 25. The British Council, In London’s Streets (London/New York/ Toronto, 1946). 26. Tzvetkova, Pop Culture in Europe, 331. 27. Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 40, Grosvenor Square Anti-Vietnam Riots, British Pathé 1968; Cottrell and Browne, 1968, 110 f.; Vague, Anarchy in the UK, 26; Leese, Britain Since 1945, 92 f. 28. See also Thomas, “Protests Against the Vietnam War in 1960s Britain”.

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29. Jeremy Bugler, “The writing on the wall,” New Society, 18 April 1968. For more information see Perry, The writing on the wall. 30. Moran, “Imagining the street in post-war Britain,” 166. 31. See Fyvel, Insecure Offenders, 94. 32. Moran, “Imagining the street in post-war Britain”, 168. 33. Beaven, Leisure, Citizenship and Working-Class Men in Britain, 114. 34. Fraser and Brown, Britain Since 1707, 508. 35. White, London in the Twentieth Century, 324. 36. Hutton, Life in 1950s London, 179 f.; Davies, Youth and the condition of Britain, 147. 37. Adams, Playparks. 38. See National Playing Fields Association, Adventure playgrounds; Turner, Something extraordinary; J.  B. Mays, Adventure in play; Nicholson, Lollard Adventure Playground (London, 1956). For general information on the spreading of playgrounds and urban renewal in post-war Britain, see Kozlovsky, The Architecture of Childhood. 39. See Thomson, Lost Freedom, 143; Bartie and Jackson, Policing youth: Britain, 157 f. 40. Sheila Benson, “A Place for Children to Play,” New Society, 23 July 1964. 41. See Kynaston, Family Britain, 1951–1957, 193; Granger, Up West, 403 f. 42. “Boys gambled in street,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 2 October 1959. 43. “Letters to the Editor,” The Guardian, 23 November 1962. 44. For the project see B. N. Lewis, “Fun Palace: Counter-Blast to Boredom,” New Society, 15 April 1965. 45. Bartie and Jackson, Policing Youth, 156. 46. Greater London Council Planning Department, Survey of the use of Open Space (London, 1968), 6. 47. Stevie Smith, “Youth and Age,” The Guardian, 23 October 1955. 48. Thomson, Lost Freedom, 36 f. 49. For the long history of Ephebiphobia see Pearson, Hooligan. 50. Malik, From Michael de Freitas to Michael X, 56. 51. Brooke, “Revisiting Southam Street,” 495. 52. For bomb sites and modernity see Mellor, Reading the Ruins. 53. See Gross, British Fictions of the Sixties, 94 f. 54. Dienel and Schophaus, “Urban Wastelands and the Development of Youth Cultures in Berlin,” 110. 55. Ibid. 56. Ibid., 121. 57. Liate, Common Prostitutes and Ordinary Citizens, 174. 58. “Cleaning-Up Long Overdue: Bombed Sites Probe,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 23 January 1959. 59. Bartie and Jackson, Policing youth, 157.

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60. Butler and Hamnett, “Regenerating a global city,” 49. 61. John Leo Waters, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 57. 62. See Malvinni, Experiencing the Rolling Stones, 91. 63. For authenticity and rock music culture see Mazullo, Authenticity in Rock Music; Attias, “Authenticity and Artifice in Rock and Roll”. 64. Kitts, Ray Davies, 75. 65. Jovanovic, God Save the Kinks. 66. George W.  Goetschius and M.  Joan Tash, The Report of the London Y.W.C.A. Coffee Stall Project, 1965, TNA EDI 24/316, 1. 67. Stepien, British Pop Art and Postmodernism, 87. 68. Bradley et al., “Editorial: Youth and Crime,” 11. For more information, see Muncie et al., Youth Justice. 69. See, for example, Malone, “Street Life”; Pyyry and Tani, “Young Peoples Play with Urban Public Space”; Owens, “No Teens Allowed”. 70. “Youth carried stiletto,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 21 August 1964. 71. “Alleged attack in 59 Club: Youths sent for trail,” Hackney Gazette, 27 July 1962; “N.16 Youth on Murder Charge,” Hackney Gazette, May 26 1967; “Leather Jackets Sex Problem,” Hackney Gazette, 18 August 1964. 72. “A week to think about it: sequel to incidents outside club,” Hackney Gazette, 25 October 1963; “Obstruction in Mare Street: Youth arrested,” Hackney Gazette, 6 November 1964; “A week to think about it: sequel to incidents outside club,” Hackney Gazette, 25 October 1963. 73. An Act for the punishment of idle and disorderly persons and rogues and vagabonds (Vagrancy Act 1824). See Lawrence, “The Vagrancy Act (1824) and the Persistence of Pre-Emptive Policing in England”. 74. Hill, Sex, class, and realism, 119. See also Espresso Bongo, directed by Val Guest, 1959. 75. “Difficulties in control of vice,” The Manchester Guardian, 3 July 1956. 76. Tony Geraghty, “The price of driving prostitution indoors,” The Guardian, 11 November 1964. 77. Judge John. M. Murtagh, “I am appalled by this sin in the sun,” Daily Mirror, 9 June 1958; “In a Soho side street,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 2 October 1959. 78. “Man who was ‘No. 1 Gang Chief’ found stabbed,” Daily Mirror, 12 August 1955. 79. Tom Tullett and Edward Vale, “The Incredible Krays,” Daily Mirror, 5 March 1969. 80. Tony Miles and Patrick Doncaster, “The Teenagers of Soho,” The Daily Mirror, 1 April 1957; “Soho ‘not so bad as in its gangster days,’” The Guardian, 12 April 1961. 81. Morton, Gangland Soho.

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82. Houlihan, The Government and Politics of Sport, 178. See also Dunning et al., The Roots of Football Hooliganism. 83. Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 207–232; Sarabia, “Skinhead Identity Contested,” 116. 84. See Clarke, Football, Hooliganism and the Skinheads; Critcher, Football and Cultural Values; Critcher, Football since the War. 85. “Local magistrate slams soccer rowdies,” Hackney Gazette, 25 April 1969; “The Saturday Terrors,” Daily Express, 29 September 1969. 86. Whannel, “Football, crowd behaviour and the press,” 327. 87. See Critcher, Football since the war; Critcher, “Putting on the style”. 88. “Young Arsenal fans sprayed Spurs’ walls,” Hackney Gazette, 13 December 1968. 89. “The Week Ban on Soccer Supporter,” Hackney Gazette, 1 December 1967; “Soccer hooliganism must stop,” Hackney Gazette, 22 March 1968; “Soccer hooligans stopped tube service,” Hackney Gazette, 20 May 1969; “Hooligans still won’t learn,” Hackney Gazette, 23 August 1968. 90. “Local magistrate slams soccer rowdies,” Hackney Gazette, 25 April 1969. 91. “Hooligans: Junior Supporters’ Club plan,” Hackney Gazette, 6 February 1970. 92. Jack Wood, “Boots off the Brown,” The Guardian, 26 October 1969; “Hooligans with no means of support,” The Guardian, 31 March 1970. 93. Jackie Leishman, “Eros becomes star hotel for the young,” The Guardian, 5 August 1969. 94. “Let’s Call It—Beatnik Parade,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 23 September 1960. 95. Cohen, Rethinking the Youth Question, 24. 96. Coates, “Whose Tears Go By?,” 192; “When London Belongs to Me,” Boyfriend, 16 June 1962. 97. Mail Correspondence between neighbours and the Metropolitan Police about the “Hippie Problem” at Piccadilly Circus, 1969-1973, TNA Mepo 31/43. 98. Jackie Leishman, “Eros becomes star hotel for the young,” The Guardian, 5 August 1969. 99. Mail Correspondence between neighbours and the Metropolitan Police about the “Hippie Problem” at Piccadilly Circus, 1969–1973, TNA Mepo 31/43. 100. Ibid. 101. “Fear for girl inmates,” The Guardian, 15 March 1961. 102. Leech, Youthquake, 138 f.; Cohen, Archive That, Comrade; Mills, Young Outsiders. 103. Fraser, 1968, 303. 104. “Beatniks’ Bath Parade,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 23 July 1965.

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105. For political intentions see interview with Frank Harries, in Clancy Segal, “144 Piccadilly,” New Society, 9 October 1969. 106. “Hippy, Hippy Hurrah!,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 17 October 1969. 107. John Ezard, “No blood lost in ‘fight’ for Endell Street,” The Guardian, 26 September 1969; Clancy Segal, “144 Piccadilly,” New Society, 9 October 1969. 108. “‘Mods’ and ‘Rockers’ in London Clashes,” Sunday Telegraph, 24 May 1964. 109. Ibid. 110. See, for example, Jordan, “Public Parks”; Gaskell, “Gardens for the Working Class”. 111. Greater London Council Planning Department, Survey of the Use of Open Space (London, 1968). 112. Jeremy Bugler, “A Pub in the Park?,” New Society, 24 October 1968. 113. Greater London Council Planning Department, Survey of the Use of Open Space, 20. 114. Ibid., 65. 115. London Borough of Lewisham Amenities Department, Lewisham at Leisure, Archives and Local History Department Information Sheet 2, Bishopsgate Institute. 116. Bartie and Jackson, Policing youth, 157. 117. Ministry of Education, A Survey of the Provision for Youth made in the Borough of Kensington, London, Spring 1960, TNA ED 49/128. 118. Kensington Youth Committee Survey, 1964. 119. Ministry of Education, A Survey of the Provision for Youth made in the Borough of Kensington, London, Spring 1960, TNA ED 49/128. 120. For the history see Sadler, The Story of London Parks; Sexby, Municipal Parks, Gardens and Open Spaces of London; Amherst, London Parks and Gardens. For an overview of their function and building in the twentieth century, see Hannikainen, The Greening of London. 121. See Turner, Ship without Sails, 28. 122. See London Youth Committee, Survey of Social and Recreational Facilities in North-East London, 1964, LMA ED/HFE/1/259. 123. London Youth Committee, Meeting of the Committee, 11 January 1960, LMA ACC1888/91. 124. Report of a Meeting of Chairman of Borough Youth Committees with Officers of the London Youth Committee at County Hall, 22nd March 1962, LMA EO/HFE/1/196. 125. See William H. Whyte, “The City’s Threat to Open Land,” Architectural Forum 108 (1958), 87–90; Whyte, Open space action; William H. Whyte, “Open Space, Now or Never,” Landscape Architecture 50 (1959), 8–13;

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Whyte, The Exploding City; Whyte, The Last Landscape. For more information, see Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside. 126. Gosden, Education in the Second World War, 206. 127. Bartie and Jackson, Policing youth, 157. 128. London Youth Committee, Meeting of the Committee, 11 January 1960, LMA ACC1888/91. 129. Ibid. 130. “Boating, swimming and dancing by floodlight in parks urged,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 29 January 1960. 131. London Youth Committee, London Youth Committee Meeting, 14 December 1959, LMA ACC1888/91. 132. See Hackney Borough Youth Committee, Hackney Borough Youth Committee Meeting, 23 September 1963, LMA EO/HFE/1/181. 133. London Youth Committee, Informal meeting of officers with representatives of borough youth committees, 2 December 1963, LMA EO/ HFE/1/181. 134. Bethnal Green Youth Committee, Proceedings of a Meeting of the Bethnal Green Youth Committee, 2 March 1964, LMA EO/ HFE/1/174. 135. Shoreditch Borough Youth Committee, Annual Report to 31st August 1964, LMA EO/HFE/2/282. 136. Letter sent by the Chairman of the Parks Department, 1 May 1959, LMA CL/PK/1/18. 137. Letter sent by the Secretary of the Concert Artistes Association Evelyn Darcy to the Chairman of the L.C.C. Entertainments Committee, 20th March 1959, LMA CL/PK/1/18. 138. London County Council, Open Air Entertainments—Television. Report by the Chief Officer of the Parks Department, 4 March 1959, LMA CL/ PK/1/18. 139. Note of a meeting held in the Leader of the Council’s room at 4.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 23 February 1959. Open Air Entertainments in Parks— Television, LMA CL/PK/1/18. 140. Jeremy Bugler, “A Pub in the Park?”. 141. Note of a meeting held in the Leader of the Council’s room at 4.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 23 February 1959. Open Air Entertainments in Parks— Television, LMA CL/PK/1/18. 142. London County Council, Open Air Entertainments—Television. Report by the Chief Officer of the Parks Department, 4 March 1959, LMA ­CL/ PK/1/18. 143. London County Council, Open-Air Entertainment, Report by the Chief Officer of the Parks Department, 30 September 1959, 7, LMA CL/ PK/1/18.

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144. Letter sent by A. McPherson to the Chairman of the County Council, 27 February 1959, LMA CL/PK/1/18. 145. London County Council, Opens Air Entertainments. Report by the Chief Officer of the Park Department, 26 September 1960, LMA CL/ PK/1/18. 146. Ibid. 147. Bartie and Jackson, Policing youth, 157. 148. “Mile Chase in Park,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 28 August 1959. 149. “Hooliganism in parks,” The Guardian, 20 May 1964. 150. The argument that delinquency was caused by an absence of parent’s love was inspired by the bestseller book of John Bowlby, published as Child Care and the Growth of Love. 151. “Delinquent more to be pitied than blamed,” Hackney Gazette, 2 June 1967. 152. “Beat Group Fans Mob Police,” Hackney Gazette, 20 June 1967. 153. Miles, Pink Floyd. 154. “Skinheads try to spoil Peace Festival,” Hackney Gazette, 3 April 1970. For more information see also Malcolm Dean, “No peace from the Skinheads,” The Guardian, 30 March 1970. 155. “40 youths threw fireworks at a policeman,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 13 October 1959. 156. “Record bonfire night ‘safest for years’,” Daily Express, 6 November 1969. 157. See London County Council, London Statistics Vol. 5 (London: London County Council, 1963). 158. The first “Smoke In” was badly attended but the fact that people were able to smoke cannabis in public space without being arrested was a breaking point. The “Legalise Pot Rally ’68” a year later on 7 July was much bigger than those first events. 159. “In Their Hearts They Know We’re Right,” International Times, 30 June 1967. 160. Ibid. 161. Mail Correspondence between neighbours and the Metropolitan Police about the “Hippie Problem” at Piccadilly Circus, 1969–1973, TNA Mepo 31/43. 162. James Davies, “Escape to the Far-Out World of Eros Island,” Daily Express, 11 August 1969. 163. Jackie Leishman, “Eros becomes star hotel for the young,” The Guardian, 5 August 1969. 164. See Lane, A history of post-war Britain, 118 f. 165. See Holiday Pay Act 1938. For more information see Barton, Working-­ Class Organisations and Popular Tourism, 133 f. For rising holidays in the 1930s see also Stevenson, Social conditions in Britain between the wars, 41.

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166. Donald Chapman, Holidays and the State, Fabian Society Pamphlet Series No. 275 (London, 1949). 167. Geoffrey D. M. Block, “In Pursuit of Rest,” New Society, 25 July 1963. 168. Page and Connell, Tourism, 35. For the history of holiday camps, see Ward and Hardy, Goodnight Campers! 169. See Cormack, A History of Holidays, 71–79. 170. Geoffrey D. M. Block, “In Pursuit of Rest”. 171. Tom Burns, “A Meaning in Everyday Life,” New Society, 25 May 1967. 172. “Fun in the Sun,” Jackie, 8 February 1964. 173. “It’s always the same parties!,” Jackie, 18 April 1964. 174. Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 78. 175. Ibid. 176. Kerry, The Holiday and British Film, 134–163. 177. “A Load of Old Troddle—But They Need The Money!,” Jackie, 9 July 1966. 178. Ludwig Bemelmans, “A Midas Tour of Italy,” About Town Magazine, March 1962. 179. Halina Skoczen from Lancashire, Jackie, 4 July 1964. 180. See Judt, Postwar, 342. 181. “Chelsean saw ‘first French teddy boys’,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 28 August 1959. 182. See “Rave in Spain!,” Rave, July 1967; “Rave in Russia,” Rave, July 1967; “Rave in America,” Rave, June 1967; “Dusty goes to Spain,” Jackie, 27 February 1965. For beauty culture and European products, see “Pack Up And Go!,” Jackie, 20 June 1964; “Holiday Gear for Go-Girls,” Jackie, 4 July 1964; “Cosmetics Go Continental,” Jackie, 15 May 1965. 183. For more holiday reports, see “The type of girl who always spells trouble,” Jackie, 9 July 1966. 184. David Harris, The Student Guide to London (London, 1964), 44. 185. “Italian Holiday for St. Georges,” Hackney Gazette, 24 July 1964. 186. “Fun and games at the week-end,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 22 June 1962; Westminster Youth Committee, Westminster Youth Committee Meeting Minutes, 4 July 1962, LMA ED/HFE/1/198. 187. For the history of youth hostels in the UK, see Coburn, Youth Hostel Story; Neal and Neal, Youth Hostels of England and Wales; Maurice-Jones and Porter, The Spirit of YHA. Europe’s youth massively contributed to a united Europe by backpacking around the Continent. See Jobs, Backpack Ambassadors; Schildt, “Across the Border”. 188. “Italian Holiday for St. Georges”. 189. “Nearly an international incident,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 29 June 1962.

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190. “Clubhouse on Wheels is His New Idea,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 28 October 1966. 191. Ibid. 192. See Middleton and Lickorish, British Tourism, 78; Kynaston, Austerity Britain, 223. 193. See Prospect. The News Bulletin of the London Youth Committee, No. 43, Jan/Feb 1969, GPI/JLR/1/2/4. 194. See “Getaway ‘67. A Challenge Special Supplement,” Challenge, January 1967; “Holiday Travel 1970,” Challenge, January 1970; “Sports Holidays Abroad,” Challenge, Spring 1964; “Sports Holidays abroad,” Challenge, Winter 1963/1964. 195. Inner London Education Authority, South-East and South-West London Youth Hostel Weekend, Holmbury St Mary Youth Hostel, Dorking, Surrey, 28–30 October 1966, in: Inner London Education Authority, Minutes of a meeting at the Country Hall on 5 December 1966, LMA ACC1888/105. 196. For those who, because of various reasons, could not travel abroad or to the countryside (alone, with the family or with the youth service), the London Youth Service designed a programme for the summer. See Prospect No. 56, April 1971, LMA ACC1888/174. 197. Doug Scott, “Journey into the unknown,” Challenge, January 1967. 198. Chapman, Holidays and the State, 9. See also Walton, The British Seaside; O’Hara, Britain and the Sea, 194; Paul Feeney, A 1960s Childhood, 25. 199. Gray, Designing the Seaside, 61. 200. Walton, The British Seaside, 10. 201. Morgan and Pritchard, Power and Politics at the Seaside, 49. 202. See “All at Sea,” Fabulous, 29 August 1964; “A Raver’s Holiday Guide!,” Rave, April 1967. 203. “what have they done to the rain—it’s all wet,” Jackie, 5 June 1965. 204. For Seaside town gigs of Gerry and the Pacemakers, see “No Doubt About It … The sun won’t catch him crying!,” Jackie, 15 August 1964. 205. Penny Reel, in: Anderson, Mods, 47. 206. “Hooligans with no means of support,” The Guardian, 31 March 1970; “Resort police banish rowdies,” The Guardian, 26 May 1970; “Skinheads sent home,” The Guardian, 1 June 1970; “Skinheads turned away,” The Guardian, 18 May 1970; “Youths in seaside clash fined,” The Guardian, 15 April 1970. 207. See the publicity given to the riots on its 50th anniversary, in: Rod McPhee, “Mods v Rockers! The beach battles that rocked Britain in 1964—and terrified bank holiday tourists,” The Mirror, 20 April 2014; Mods and Rockers Rebooted, BBC August 2014; Leon Watson, “Mods Vs

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Rockers! Best friends mark 1964 clash that became part of Sixties folklore and inspired iconic film Quadrophenia,” Daily Mail, 18 May 2014. 208. See the Renegade Collection of the Brighton Museum, presenting youth culture as an object which historically shaped the identity of the city. 209. See Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics. 210. For TV reports, see, for example, Whitsun Playtime Aka Mods & Rockers Clash At Margate, British Pathé 1964. 211. “Wild Ones Invade Seaside—97 Arrests,” Daily Mirror, 30 March 1964. 212. “Pope’s Pity for Mods and Rockers,” Daily Telegraph, 18 August 1964. 213. “The bishop has an answer,” The Guardian, 25 May 1964. 214. For court judgements, see Marsh and Melville, Crime, Justice and the Media, 50. 215. Raymond Hyams, “The ‘Mods and Rockers’ Seaside Riots,” True Detective, May 1966. 216. “Drug habits of young people in Brighton,” The Guardian, 22 May 1964. 217. For contemporary sources describing the dichotomy and rivalries attached to the seaside town riots, see, for example, “Brighton rockers’ complaint,” The Guardian, 28 April 1965; Alex MacGuire, “The Mod-­ Rocker riddle,” New Society, 28 May 1964; Paul Barker, “Brighton Battleground,” New Society, 21 May 1964. 218. Rob Nicholls, in Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 181 f. 219. Hyams, “The ‘Mods and Rockers’ Seaside Riots”. 220. Ibid. 221. “The bishop has an answer,” The Guardian, 25 May 1964. 222. C. G. Burrows, Honorary Secretary of the National Association of Youth Clubs on “Weekenders”, August 1965, TNA Mepo 2/10477. 223. Alex Low, “We Still Like to Be Beside the Seaside,” Sunday Times Magazine, 1 September 1963. 224. C. G. Burrows, Honorary Secretary of the National Association of Youth Clubs on “Weekenders”, August 1965, TNA Mepo 2/10477. 225. Ibid. 226. “Teenage Problems are of Society’s Own Making—Lord Robertson,” NABC Bulletin, No. 21, November/December 1964. 227. John Blake, “Teenage revolution,” Hackney Gazette, 30 September 1966. 228. See, for example, Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panic; Osgerby, “Brighton Rocked”; Shields, “Ritual Pleasures of a Seaside Resort”; Weight, Mod, 87 f. 229. McDonald, Britain’s favourite view, 43. 230. Anderson, Mods, 125. 231. Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 180. 232. Bernie Price, in: Anderson, Mods, 131; John Bentley, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 182.

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233. David Birchall, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 186. 234. Sid Poulton, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 181; Anderson, Mods, 127. 235. See Jan Tench, in: Anderson, Mods, 131. 236. Rob Nicholls, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 181 f. 237. Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 127. 238. Rob Nicholls, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 181 f. 239. John Leo Waters, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 202. 240. C. G. Burrows, Honorary Secretary of the National Association of Youth Clubs on “Weekenders”, August 1965, TNA Mepo 2/10477. 241. Ibid. 242. Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 186; Anderson, Mods, 127. 243. C. G. Burrows, Honorary Secretary of the National Association of Youth Clubs on “Weekenders”, August 1965, TNA Mepo 2/10477. 244. Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 186; Reggie Webster, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 206.

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Stevenson, John. 1977. Social Conditions in Britain Between the Wars. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Sutcliffe, Anthony. 1996. An Economic and Social History of Western Europe Since 1945. London: Longman. Thies, Ralf. 2004. Ethnograph des dunklen Berlin: Hans Ostwald und die “Grossstadt-Dokumente” (1904–1908). Köln; Weimar; Wien: Böhlau. Thomas, Nick. 2008. Protests Against the Vietnam War in 1960s Britain: The Relationship Between Protesters and the Press. Contemporary British History 22 (3): 335–354. Thomson, Matthew. 2013. Lost Freedom: The Landscape of the Child and the British Post-war Settlement. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thrasher, Frederic Milton. 1927. The Gang: A Study of 1.313 Gangs in Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Turner, M. Lloyd. 1953. Ship Without Sails: An Account of the Barge Boys’ Club. London: University of London Press. Turner, Herbert S. 1961. Something Extraordinary. London: M. Joseph. Tzvetkova, Juliana. 2017. Pop Culture in Europe. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio. Vague, Tom. 1997. Anarchy in the UK: The Angry Brigade. London and San Francisco: AK Press. Walton, John K. 2000. The British Seaside: Holidays and Resorts in the Twentieth Century. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press. Ward, Colin, and Dennis Hardy. 1986. Goodnight Campers! The History of the British Holiday Camp. London: Mansell. Weight, Richard. 2015. Mod: From Bebop to Britpop, Britain’s Biggest Youth Movement. London: Vintage Books. Whannel, Garry. 1979. Football, Crowd Behaviour and the Press. Media, Culture & Society 1: 327–342. White, Jerry. 2001. London in the Twentieth Century: A City and Its People. London: Viking. Whyte, William Foote. 1943. Street Corner Society. The Social Structure of an Italian Slum. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Whyte, William Hollingsworth. 1958a. The City’s Threat to Open Land. Architectural Forum 108: 87–90. ———. 1958b. The Exploding City. Garden City: Doubleday. ———. 1959. Open Space, Now or Never. Landscape Architecture 50: 8–13. ———. 1962. Open Space Action: Report to the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission. Washington: U.S. Govt. Printing Office. ———. 1968. The Last Landscape. Garden City: Doubleday.

CHAPTER 9

Leisure Venues: London by Day and by Night

Most visitors to towns such as Brighton sought to avail themselves of local leisure facilities. Increased affluence demanded modern forms of entertainment from the mid-1950s onwards. The outbreak of war had each time paved the way for new leisure venues, due to the growth in demand for entertainment to compensate for rationing, as a distraction, and as a boost to morale. Theatres, for example, were repurposed as dance halls,1 and communal canteens opened, known as British Restaurants, and provided food to millions of civilian workers and soldiers. The fast-developing commercial teenage market, which had catered for the tastes of working-class youth since the war, provided young people with a range of new leisure facilities in the early 1950s, which competed with existing leisure institutions as well as having an impact on local traffic. For long, the cinema was expected as the only place that allowed participation in transnational modern popular culture, and it was popular as one of the few unsupervised spaces within the city.2 Although from a historical point of view rioting in semi-public spaces was not specifically a post-war phenomenon, the media had been increased and turned the so-called Rock Around the Clock riots into a symbol of an age of teen troubles. Now, riots would take place because pop films were explicitly produced for a young audience. British newspapers were able to do so also because the movie provoked forms of disorder within the public sphere simultaneously in nearly every Western country.3

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Fuhg, London’s Working-Class Youth and the Making of Post-­Victorian Britain, 1958–1971, Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68968-1_9

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In Britain, an association for cinema owners criticised that the media exacerbated outbreaks of violence by giving alleged rioters publicity.4 Picture-houses responded by banning those who dressed in Teddy Boy gear, and kept blacklists. In 1961, the LCC introduced a new bylaw that defined the use of “insulting words or behaviour in a place of entertainment” as an offence, and thus gave police the power to respond to “noisy cheers, comments and advice” during romantic scenes, or the throwing of orange-peel or sweet-wrappers.5 Despite this, cinemas continued to be an important local facility for young working-class Londoners and lost none of their appeal as a source of inspiration for music, lifestyle, and fashion,6 or the opportunities for romantic encountering.7 Nevertheless, as a result of the new regulations, cinemas became quieter and more civilised. A bigger threat than teenage behaviour, however, was the success of television as a mass medium. Its arrival meant that cinemas soon faced massive economic difficulties, resulting in the closure of many picture-houses.8

Black Shining Modernity: The Coffee-Bar Revolution in London As the chapter on Swinging London and new city marketing strategies has shown, the desirability of a neighbourhood was frequently evaluated by the quality and quantity of its teenage hangouts. Beside cinemas, amusement arcades, youth clubs, and bowling alleys, the provision of food, coffee, milk, or other soft drinks at affordable prices by commercial premises made an area more attractive to young people. They allowed kids to spend more free time out of the house and provided neighbourhoods and districts with a new, youthful image that was relevant for re-reading the self-­ narrative of the British capital. Coffee bars were in particular able to do so because they explicitly provided space for social and cultural interaction (Image 9.1).9 The absence of supervision provoked local as well as national moral panics. Many parents disapproved of these venues,10 in part thanks to TV programmes such as No Hiding Place, which depicted fights taking place in coffee bars. Media reports warned that Britain’s offspring were drifting into “dark, unhealthy dungeons; dens that are breeding grounds for juvenile crime”,11 and blamed youth crime on an “aimless juvenile café society”12 through which troublemakers turned respectable teenagers into wild animals.13 Bill Osgerby demonstrated that local authorities sought to

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Image 9.1  A group of young people at a London coffee bar in the late 1950s. (Copyright: Pictorial Press Ltd./Alamy Stock Photo)

control teenage working-class culture in an effort to prevent offensive behaviour in urban spaces.14 Although the interpretation of delinquency as an inevitable consequence of coffee-bar culture was often a political strategy to restrict a new, unwelcome leisure institution identified as a place of moral decay, vandalism and fighting indeed took place in the vicinity of these venues which concentrated young citizens who were in a period of life characterised by testing the limits of society.15 Authorities tried to combat such issues with new policies.16 In London, discussions over new regulations began in 1961, particularly in respect of opening hours.17 Local newspapers such as Westminster & Pimlico News called for a standardisation of such policies, which differed between boroughs.18 Local authorities supported the proposal because of an alleged increasing drug-trafficking.19 Police raids and new laws had pushed drug-trafficking underground, so that dealers

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arranged to meet customers in or in front of coffee bars. Residents, in contrast, often complained about the noise.20 Local health inspectors shared those views and worried that listening to music while eating was unhealthy, and supported fines for coffee-bar owners who failed to restrict the volume of their jukeboxes.21 Being often the only local venues with stocking modern and popular records, coffee bars contributed to the rise of rock ‘n’ roll in Britain. Originally imported from the US in small quantities, there were over 80,000 Wurlitzer jukeboxes in the UK by the late 1950s, mainly playing American music.22 By 1962, 300,000 jukeboxes were installed around the country.23 Once a teenage gimmick, the jukebox became the central focus of commercial leisure culture.24 Different ones were known for stocking different genres. The Sam Widges bar in Soho, for example, had a reputation for playing the newest jazz releases.25 Jukeboxes enabled teenagers to access the world of American pop music for just six pence, providing an alternative to mainstream pop music and allowing the evolution of youth identities.26 Coffee bars also hosted live shows.27 London’s coffee bars in particular were springboards for talent, attracting both musicians and their fans to the city.28 The best known was the 2i’s bar, which is still referred to as the birthplace of British rock ‘n’ roll.29 By so doing, they began to feature in pop films30 and also enabled the formation of transatlantic musical networks.31 Coffee bars, close to the many recording studios on Denmark Street, were frequented by well-known musicians and gave youngsters the opportunity to see their idols with their own eyes.32 Girls in particular loved 2i’s, according to fashion designer John Simon, because it offered an alternative to the artsy atmosphere of jazz clubs and catered to a “more fun-loving lifestyle”.33 As early as 1959, kids on scooters would line up outside the bar, on Old Compton Street, waiting to see Marty Wilde or Adam Faith. In Liverpool, well-known live music venues such as the Mardi Gras and the Cavern had started as coffee bars without an alcohol licence. Teenagers generally preferred coffee bars over supervised facilities because of their easy, relaxed, informal atmosphere34 and the sense of autonomy they offered in contrast to the regulation of working life.35 Thus, it is not surprising that historians, as well as contemporary journalists, came to regard coffee bars and other commercial leisure venues as the places where modern youth culture began.36 Similar to modern youth clubs, which “drew on international influences (e.g. from America and Europe) to create localised youth cultures”,37 coffee bars fostered cultural

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production, by providing a safe and affordable space for teenagers to spend their time. Class affiliation was not just apparent in young people’s choice of drinks. Klaus Nathaus, a historian working on the history of popular culture, points out that working-class teenagers inherited venues which had once catered for working-class adults, and which thus represented and constituted urban working-class culture.38 Coffee bars often had their specific place in the weekly schedule for local youth.39 Even old-fashioned “greasy spoon” cafés, sometimes run by Cypriot or other immigrants as a form of social club, were equipped with jukeboxes, table football, and pinball machines. Together with fancy coffee bars, they facilitated the new freedom of choice enjoyed by London’s working-class youth, who migrated from café to café.40 Contemporary research inspired by anthropological approaches figured out that teenagers who knew each other from school or other activities visited cafés in groups, and friendship circles engendered a sense of local identity. Boys of fourteen and fifteen especially favoured coffee bars as they were not old enough to drink alcohol.41 Even older kids were regularly unwelcome in pubs, as “noise and music were seen as a threat”.42 Additionally, girls did not generally visit pubs alone,43 and the informality of coffee bars was conducive to flirting.44 The strong connection between coffee bars and local youth also based on the various special relationships that evolved between coffee-bar owners and their customers.45 Some organised entertainment programmes, while others opened their doors to teenagers who arrived before or after opening hours. This was important because, in some areas of London, local councils had restricted opening hours, taking the view, according to Tosco R. Fyvel, that “night life resulted in disorderly behaviour”.46 While in London’s outskirts and suburbs there was often just one coffee bar that opened late, inner-city districts had a complex cultural geography, on which the arrival of coffee left its imprint in respect of both social life and national identity. Coffee and the cultural habits that accompanied the consumption of coffee had made their first appearance in Britain a long time before the first modern coffee bars opened in London. Historically, according to sociologist Richard Sennett, the coffee houses of the previous century had fulfilled a similar social function, providing a stimulus to civil society by offering space for political discussion and exchange and ultimately paving the way for the English Enlightenment.47 This image survived until the 1950s, with some more exclusive coffee bars being regarded as the home

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of London’s urban Bohemia.48 Around the turn of the century, Lyons Corner Houses stayed open till late and along with premises owned by the Aerated Bread Company (ABC) catered for customers with different class backgrounds.49 In contrast to post-war coffee bars, however, these were formal establishments, with waitresses and table service, and were not designed to appeal specifically to young people.50 In the 1950s, in contrast to previous café models, coffee bars embodied the slow fading of the post-rationing era, supplying modern drinks in a modern environment.51 Milk bars, the predecessors of coffee bars, made use of features such as neon signs, the jukebox, and a certain style of interior design, which were associated with the modern consumerism commodified by American popular culture.52 The coffee bar, in contrast, offered more of a continental experience. The British notion of coffee-­ making was transformed by Italian businessman Pino Riservato and his Gaggia espresso machine,53 which epitomised Italian style and product design. Riservato built his showroom in Dean Street with the Gaggia as its centrepiece, marketing the Italian lifestyle along with the machine itself.54 In 1953, Riservato and his wife, the actress Gina Lollobrigida, opened Moka Bar at 29 Frith Street, proposing that they could sell 1000 cups of coffee per day to young Britons seeking to spend their leisure time in a modern environment.55 Espresso, the designer Terence Conran remembers, was regarded as so fancy in London at the time that “espresso coffee was to the fifties what marijuana was to the sixties”.56 Already by the mid-­ 1950s, coffee was big business57 and popular with entrepreneurs because “the outlay [was] fairly cheap and the profits high”.58 Low-rent premises and the cost of modern interior design meant that many coffee bars often had an improvised, eclectic feel. The TV comedy show Hancock’s Half Hour in 1956 gave attention to this democratic and self-realising notion of coffee bars by communicating that anyone could open their own bar.59 Running a bar, said the tenor of research today, required minimal business knowledge, and by 1960, there were 500  in London alone.60 Competition was high, however, and in the late 1950s, “for every three coffee bars opened up, two closed down”.61 Many started to sell simple food, while others became proper restaurants. Some proprietors reduced fixed costs by renting temporary facilities on redevelopment sites. Coffee bars played an important role in challenging British eating and drinking habits, and they quickly acquired a reputation as an urban space representing cultural renewal,62 exemplified in contemporary phrases such

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as “coffee bar phenomenon”, “coffee bar craze”, and “espresso revolution”.63 Films such as Expresso Bongo (1959), Beat Girl (1960), The Rebel (1961), and West 11 (1963) explicitly chose the coffee bar as an authentic backdrop to their depiction of pop and youth culture, given its role in providing space for cultural and social interaction, which in turn gave rise to the formation of an independent teenage identity.64 Would-be existentialists such as author Colin Wilson, who was known as the “milk bar messiah”, the “coffee bar philosopher”, or the “espresso evangelist”, aestheticised and formalised modes of behaviour in reference to everyday urban culture, thus influencing urban youth identities.65 In popular culture, the coffee bar represented “London’s particular forms of urban sociability, defined by jazz and skiffle, by teenage fashions and migrant expectations”,66 and was described as a playground for the “voyeuristic urban flaneur”.67 The example of the coffee bar gives an illustration of the specificity of urban culture, with the city providing numerous late-night hangouts while in the countryside, teenagers depended on more  traditional institutions. Youth services looked to coffee bars for inspiration in their efforts to modernise old-fashioned youth programmes. John Barron Mays wrote that one-third of Britain’s youth in 1961 were not members of youth clubs and instead patronised coffee bars.68 Youth workers suggested that youth clubs try to replicate the coffee-bar atmosphere in their efforts to prevent moral decay and youth crime by providing safe and attractive venues. Challenge wrote in 1960 that “some of the more ardent do-gooders within the Youth Service” were already “going into the coffee bars to try to ‘reach’ the teddy boys”.69 The magazine recommended that the youth service alter its approach to modern youth culture. The more progressive youth workers saw teenage culture not as a threat but as a chance to bring young people back into supervised youth clubs.70 Coffee bars began in the mid-1960s to be used as instruments to intervene in local areas known to have youth problems.71 In March 1958, the first youth service coffee bar opened in London, “designed to interest young people in youth club activities, which [had] already been tried with success in Sheffield”.72 The National Association of Mixed Clubs and Girls’ Clubs opened two coffee bars in London, which did not require membership and provided skiffle music as well as the opportunity to organise jazz sessions or dances.73 Other cities followed suit, with local youth services and Christian groups opening bars in competition with commercial premises. Coffee bars were incorporated

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centrally into youth-club renovation and building schemes. Political parties also opened coffee bars to try to reach young people. At a meeting of the Young Socialists in 1960 to discuss the declining interest of members in party politics, it was suggested that opening “Left Wing coffee bars” might help.74 The media accelerated myth-building. This maybe explains why Dominic Sandbrook uncritically re-drew the picture of the archetypal coffee bar.75 A closer look reveals that coffee bars varied considerably in terms of design and clientele. They tended to attract a local customer base, although those in the West End because of their localisation in a citywide entertainment area transcended local community boundaries.76 Some were visited by artists; others wanted to politicise its customers; and a French did its best to avoid being identified as a coffee bar at all, resembling a newspaper shop from the outside.77 A group of activists who had worked on the Universities & Left Review ran the Partisan, instrumentalising modern popular culture in an attempt to turn youths against Americanisation. They feared that they influence of American culture would destroy authentic British working-­class culture and hamper revolutionary goals with its hedonism. Political activists met in ordinary coffee bars to plan actions such as the attempted killing of the Shah in 1965.78 In Soho, said Mim Scala in his cult memoir Diary of a Teddy Boy, a new generation of hustlers, creatives, Beatniks, and young entrepreneurs spent day after day in coffee bars in the mid-1950s.79 On the King’s Road, too, Mary Quant and others remember, cafés facilitated collaboration between business and creatives.80 According to youth workers, other premises became caught up in troubles between the rival subcultures whose members frequented them.81 As hosts to local informal networks,82 coffee bars were easily seen as gang members’ territory,83 so that the arrival of another gang provoked violence.84 Coffee bars varied widely, in terms of both the customers they served and the character of their premises. Some catered for migrant communities, while others attracted middle-class customers. Some adopted a minimalist and modern design, and others a more eclectic or exotic style. Some were quiet, while others revolved around music. As opposed to the stereotypical image propounded by historians, coffee bars became a symbol of the affluent, teenage-driven, modern consumer society precisely because they accepted and fostered the fragmentation of culture. At the same time, they had certain key characteristics, the study of which allows scholars to shed light on contemporary sociocultural transformation. First of all, according to Architecture and Building in 1955, the independence of

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coffee bars was their defining feature.85 Second, coffee bars such as La Roca, Le Macabre, and the Heaven and Hell popularised the aesthetic of American entertainment. Third, while labourers preferred the traditional London working-class cafés86 because of their low prices,87 coffee bars were not always single-class establishments.88 This contributed to the reproduction of class identities, when teenagers mixed with those from other social classes. Coffee bars in particular offered new opportunities to working-class youth, who, before such venues opened their doors, could only rarely afford a night out.89 Coffee bars also symbolised cultural change in post-war Britain, in representing the new cosmopolitan London.90 Panikos Panayi, specialist in the history of food culture in Britain, writes that commercial coffee bars were frequently owned by immigrants, as one of the few opportunities available for unskilled newcomers to earn money.91 Migrant businessmen could count on the custom of their fellow immigrants, as food fostered a connection with the home country.92 Social gatherings associated with migrant cafés, said Steven Berkoff who grew up in the Jewish East End community in the 1950s and 1960s, fostered self-assurance and rhetorical skills among the children of immigrants.93 Living between cultures made migrants more likely to experiment with new products, designs, and retail strategies.94 Turkish Cypriots popularised Wimpy bars in Britain, while new immigration laws in America had restricted migration of Italians to the US, encouraging them to move to London instead, where many opened Italian-style coffee bars.95 According to historian Elisabetta Girelli, London’s youth appreciated the “continental glamour and a desirable lifestyle” represented by these bars, which “reflected Italy’s new fashionable image”.96 While the pub was once the “refuge from grinding poverty and exploitation”,97 emulating the continental lifestyle by sitting outside a coffee bar or drinking espresso had become a feature of modern life.98 Contemporaries such as the journalist Martha Gelhorn suggested that exotic interior design appealed to working-class youth as a form of escapism, as “bull-fight posters, bamboo, tropical plants, an occasional shell or Mexican mask, the whole range of adornment, [would] feel romantic, feel like distant places”.99 Designs tended to be eclectic, but captured the right tone in a society captivated by the spectacle of commercial pleasures.100 Competition between businesses led to bolder experimentation. Before long, drinking coffee had become something of a conceptual experience.101 “Lavish decor, mystery, excitement and a sense of unreality,”102

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said the Architectural Review in 1955, provided an escape from the monotony of work. A bar in Richmond installed gondolas instead of tables,103 whereas in Kent, a former magician performed conjuring tricks while serving coffee.104 Even ordinary coffee bars had bamboo, black ceilings, or brick wallpaper. The El Cubano incorporated elements of both Latin America and seventeenth-century England in its design.105 Customers were confronted with bizarre curiosities, such as apes sitting on the shoulders of bartenders.106 Distinctiveness was an important marketing strategy in a highly competitive market, although eclectic designs sometimes resulted from pragmatic considerations, such as limited space and finance. Some writers complained that coffee bars had become little more than a tourist attraction by the second half of the 1950s.107 According to journalists John Pearson and Marghanita Laski, however, the introduction of a non-American aesthetic had been important in helping Britain break free of the omnipresence of American leisure culture.108 In their view, coffee bars were modern and European. Others were alarmed by what they saw as the Americanisation of Britain via coffee bars and jukeboxes, as well as American beef burgers, which were sold in Wimpy bars and licensed by the Lyons Company.109 Coffee bars were also associated with the popularisation of black culture, and in some cases had the potential to become contact zones, providing space for cultural and personal exchange.110 The film Sapphire, released in 1959, for example, paid tribute to coffee bars as black urban venues. T. R. Fyvel claimed to have figured out that black youths realised that in coffee bars where teenagers listened to black music, they could slouch around “with an air of authority”.111 At the same time, racial tensions intruded on relations between black and white customers. While Markman Ellis saw coffee bars as playing a progressive role in integration,112 others documented the racism among coffee-bar customers.113 Londoners felt that each nationality had its own particular coffee bars.114 In some, French was spoken; in others, there was Spanish dancing. Bars that were situated close to language schools enjoyed a broad, multinational clientele.115 Soho was especially conducive to cultural encounters and racial interaction, both of which took place under the umbrella of entertainment. Such interaction was heightened by the performances of black musicians in coffee bars.116 During the mid-1950s, a passion for rock ‘n’ roll and rhythm and blues brought immigrants and working-class youth together, although stigmatisation persisted. Black musicians still performed against the exotic backdrop of coffee-bar decor, which highlighted the entertainment value of their otherness.

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London by Night: Dance Halls, Ballrooms, Nightclubs Besides coffee bars, London’s music clubs, dance halls, and live venues liberated youth culture from both the control of parents and the institutional supervision of youth services. Much has been published on London’s nightlife in the 1960s.117 Most authors, however, do not examine nightlife in relation to the socioeconomic and cultural features of post-war Britain, namely fragmentation, and instead homogenise the city’s diverse late-­ night hangouts. A closer look suggests that their diversity reflected the arrival of the consumer society. As businesses searching for the newest trends, they pushed the boundaries in respect of self-expression, race relations, and musical taste. Thus, they enable us not only to reconstruct social and cultural change but also to analyse nightlife’s contribution to the making of a post-Victorian London. DJs, club owners, managers, and bouncers all had an impact on music, fashion, and race relations in 1960s London, establishing the city’s reputation as a global centre for modern popular culture rather than imperial politics.118 Tourist guides listed clubs that were frequented by the Chelsea Set and other celebrities,119 although many clubs enjoyed only transient popularity.120 Foreign observers saw London’s nightlife as unique in comparison to that of other large cities. In 1964, “it-girl” Jane Holzer remarked that London was different because here, celebrities danced alongside ordinary teenagers.121 In addition, the coexistence of American and European dance venues made the city a cultural laboratory.122 Clubs often catered for specific audiences on different nights. Former Mods remember that many youngsters rested on Monday evenings, resuming their night-time activities on Tuesdays, although the Hammersmith Palais was known for its Monday dances,123 and Guy Stevens played records at the Scene Club on Mondays. This meant that Monday-night dance-floors were relatively empty, allowing for the practice and development of new dances. According to the contemporary witness Pete Sinacola, young people often spent weeknights at facilities within their local neighbourhood,124 as—John Leo Waters remembers—it wasn’t safe to visit venues situated in territory controlled by rival gangs.125

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From August 1963, Ready Steady Go! was screened on Friday evenings, with the tagline “The weekend starts here”. For most youngsters, Saturday was the most important night of the week, with many making a pilgrimage to Soho or Covent Garden. Central London, said the well-known English broadcaster Janet Street-Porter, was regarded as common ground for teenagers from rivalling areas, though animosities remained.126 For kids from all corners of London, even the suburbs and new towns, the weekend began with the ritualised journey into the West End. Locality and friendship circles determined visiting patterns, but they were subject to disruption by girls, alcohol, or drugs. Len Deighton remarked in his influential London Dossier in 1967 that London was still not a twenty-four-hour city.127 A few services had special night-opening hours, but in general, the introduction of all-night events in the early 1960s was incongruous in a city whose habit was to sleep at night. Public transport schedules were out of line with these events. Teenagers flooded the streets of Soho by night, and young club-goers hid from patrolling policemen.128 Teen magazines reported that all-nighters provoked tensions between generations but also among teenagers themselves. Some enjoyed the less frantic character of all-night events, as well as the chance to spend time with the opposite sex, while others viewed all-­ nighters as hotspots for crime, sex, and drug-taking and feared the involvement of the police.129 In allowing contact between boys and girls, modern music clubs upheld the tradition of ballrooms and dance halls, in which the parents of Britain’s offspring had met during the war, and through which working-class Britons identified themselves with working-class culture.130 Although contemporary journalists showed little regard for history in describing dancing as a new phenomenon,131 it was part of a long tradition. For every “full- or part-time”132 raver in the late 1950s, dancing was still the favourite pastime. Former Mods write that performing to a high standard could afford young dancers recognition, locally or even nationally. Dance-floors were even prepared with French chalk to make them more slippery.133 New dance styles were often invented by individuals, circulated within the club scene, and were popularised around the country via teenage magazines.134 Along with musical trends,135 some older dance styles enjoyed a revival,136 though which inspired which was not always clear. Fashion, too, was associated with different dance styles.137 Fashion and music magazines illustrate that artists and record labels used dances to promote records or

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even whole musical genres.138 Music programmes on TV had professional dance demonstrators who promoted grassroots club dances by studying dances in London’s nightlife. Jeff Dexter, still today a well-known contemporary witness who represents the teen revolution of the 1960s, was hired to teach the latest dance moves at the Lyceum,139 while Patrick Kerr was employed by Ready Steady Go! in 1963.140 Commercially introduced dances like the Loddy Lo often failed. Contemporary witnesses remember that in London’s West End, agents and fashion scouts sought out the best dancers and invited them to perform on TV shows.141 Dancing became so popular that a TV show, TWIST, featured dance competitions between British soap-opera stars. Dance styles in the 1960s were considered innovative in their shift away from rules and towards a focus on self-expression.142 Further, teenagers now referred to foreign dance cultures for inspiration at a time when dance was becoming a global cultural phenomenon.143 Many of the dances performed at the Scene in 1963 had come from America. Others, such as the Tamouré, had originated in Tahiti and, according to teenager interviewed for the Generation X teenage revolution travel report, arrived in Britain via France around 1964.144 Perhaps the most striking symbol of the shift in dance culture was the Twist, which was invented by Hank Ballard in 1958, and whose popularity was eventually to outlive every other dance craze from the mid-1960s.145 Known for its uncomplicated moves, the Twist could be danced by anyone, said Chubby Checker, who released his version in 1960.146 Checker performed the Twist in front of 3000 teenagers at the Ice House in Haddonfield,147 though the dance was popularised more widely by Clay Cole’s show Record Wagon.148 The global centre of the Twist was the Peppermint Lounge in New York, and by 1961 the dance had arrived in London.149 A year later, young people were twisting in New  York, Paris, London, and even Bulgaria.150 In Britain, teenagers encountered the dance in a club frequented by French youths151 and danced along to Checkers’ record at the Lyceum,152 although Jeff Dexter, the first to do so, was banned from the club as the now-­famous moves were considered obscene.153 The subsequent popularity of the dance led the Lyceum not just to allow it to be performed, but to hire Dexter as an official dance instructor. Before long, twisting was filmed by British Pathé and featured in films such as Twist Around the Clock (1961).154 Twist clubs were set up, at which people performed the dance for hours.155 For Checker, who understood Britain’s love affair with American pop culture, the success of the dance was not a surprise.156 British and American artists

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followed his example, releasing their own Twist songs. This went on until the arrival of new dances in the mid-1960s,157 which, far from breaking with the new trend for self-expression,  sometimes encouraged radical improvisation and the expression of emotions.158 At this time, the global popularity of dance styles had already provoked discussions about national sovereignty and security. In 1957, years before the Twist had become such a worldwide phenomenon that it prompted the Soviet Union to seek an “antidote”,159 British ballroom dancing had worried Russia’s young Communists, who saw it performed during the Moscow Youth Festival. The official organ of the Communist Youth League warned that Western ballroom dancing was “a purveyor of the aesthetic views of the modern bourgeoisie”.160 In London, however, young people appreciated the opportunity for direct interaction with the opposite sex, which had previously been regulated by gender separation in youth facilities. France Dust argues in his ground-breaking study Dance in Society, published in 1969, that popular dances in the 1960s dispensed with the tradition of boys “leading” and girls “following”,161 and the role of the partner declined,162 meaning that girls in particular had freedom to express themselves via dances such as the Go Go, which in the view of one contemporary commentator signified “woman’s final break from man”, or by dancing in a cage, which was described as a “new space for the female sexual performance”.163 Kids of the same sex danced the Locomotion together, while the Twist explicitly referred to dancing with the opposite sex and thus broke barriers of sexual interaction in public and semi-­ public spaces. Nightlife paved the way for a permissive society in the 1960s, but attitudes to interaction on the dance-floor remained ambivalent.164 Mixing between the sexes, so the observation of Hamblett and Deverson in their Generation X compendium, rarely took place in the early evening.165 Young club-goers often waited until the dance-floor was full, danced with several girls, and then decided which to speak to. The local Hackney Gazette also reported in 1969 that foreign teenagers claimed that British boys were more sexually repressed than them, while British boys found the sexual confidence of French girls strange.166 Further, dancing was associated with drug-taking. Dances such as the Block imitated the motoric effects of certain drugs.167 “Freaking out” was a style of dancing popularised by singers such as Kim Fowley, whose single “The Trip” was banned for idealising drug-taking.168 The author Harry Shapiro suggested replacing the term Swinging London with “Speedy

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London”, because of “the amphetamine-induced arrogance, edginess, narcissism and freneticism of Mod culture” which “was reflected right through the art, music and fashion in the period”.169 Contemporaries recall that American soldiers popularised amphetamines, which were later adopted by American Beat culture.170 The British Medical Association retrospectively interprets the increase in drug-taking in the 1960s as a consequence of “artistic and political protest and expression of mistrust of establishment values and enforced conformity”.171 Some drug experts blamed an “unsettled adolescence”; others blamed the failure of child-­ rearing in modern society.172 The Church of England suggested inadequate education, leading to boredom, depression, and anxiety.173 Some commentators saw drug-taking as the consequence of a technologically advanced society which had distanced people from their inner selves.174 The Sunday Times Magazine wrote in 1963 that drug-taking was an imported problem that had arrived in Britain on the back of Beatnik culture.175 In general, it was felt that American pop heroised drug consumption. The Beatles too were seen to pay tribute to LSD in their song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, as well as in the cover artwork for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.176 However, others felt that drug-taking presented differently in Britain and America. While in the US it was mainly associated with educated high-school kids, in Britain it was seen as a problem of youth in general, although a distinction was made between “trades”—intellectuals who took drugs for a purpose—and “pops”, real addicts who took drugs for “the kick”.177 Tabloid articles illustrate that the public perception of different subcultures was affected by their associations with particular drugs.178 From the early 1960s onwards, local authorities began looking more carefully at drug abuse,179 in response to shocking newspaper articles about youngsters taking amphetamines out of boredom.180 Drug-taking was so widespread that the World Health Organization in 1961 called on countries to limit the availability of these substances.181 The United Nations spoke in 1967 about “the epidemic-like spreading of this abuse, particularly among young people”.182 A few years earlier, the LYC had issued a warning about the use of drugs.183 Information about young people’s drug-taking circulated at local authority level,184 and councils warned that drug-taking was on the rise, although by 1970, a survey just named 5 per cent of youths in Hackney as kids who had been exposed to drugs.185 Despite being perceived as an international problem, drug-dealing was often a local concern. Each neighbourhood had its own supply network,

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with drugs being sold mainly around leisure facilities.186 Drug-dealers from all over the country also travelled to London to obtain drugs for local youth scenes.187 MP Ben Parkin was convinced that “pep pills” were being “brought in by club owners who want to introduce a new kind of club life among youngsters”.188 A Cypriot club near Tottenham Court Road, wrote the Sunday Times, was known in early 1964 as “Pills Paradise”, and the whole of London was talking about a car seen driving around the West End, supplying pushers.189 The police raided clubs, but newspapers illustrate that they often managed to fine only a few customers.190 Coffee bars supplied club-goers or customers frequently left clubs and returned with drugs.191 Councils defended themselves by saying that it was not in their hands to close premises.192 According to the Church of England, trafficking occurred “in clubs to which the police have no right of access”.193 On a local level, licences for music and dancing were supplied on the basis of “adequate adult supervision, with minimal standards of lighting and right of entry by police and other officials”.194 While some parties called for harsher sentences, others believed that providing adequate leisure opportunities would prove effective against drug-taking. Drug policy in the late 1960s, according to Colin MacInnes, could be either repressive, curative, or self-curative.195 Drug-taking was popular in part because of the ease of obtaining substances.196 Before amphetamines had become illegal under the Drugs (Prevention of Misuse) Act,197 which permitted raids on property,198 pep pills were sold legally as slimming tablets.199 In contrast to marijuana, which was often imported from North Africa via Europe,200 the black market was supplied with purple hearts obtained by legal prescription,201 a practice which declined after 1966 as it came to light.202 Further, pills were manufactured illegally in the UK or stolen from pharmacies or warehouses.203 Despite the moral panic, drug-taking was often a pragmatic decision. All-nighters required a lot of energy, said nightlife historians, and the easiest way for young people to sustain themselves on the dance-floor was to take stimulants.204 In a parallel with Victorian drinking habits,205 the majority of young dancers took drugs only occasionally. Health experts demonised the use of amphetamines for leisure purposes, whereas in wartime, speed had been used to aid concentration among soldiers.206 Experts frequently challenged those views by stressing that youngsters who consumed drugs were not “layabouts” but simply looking for excitement and

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a break from monotonous work.207 Scholars began to normalise drug-­ taking and criticised assumptions that placed drug-taking alongside “immoral” behaviours. Local authorities used licensing laws not just to fight drug-dealing but also to close facilities that the public saw as responsible for moral decay.208 The House of Lords, for example, blamed in 1960 clubs which caused neighbourhood disturbances by “prostitution, homosexuality and drug-­ trafficking”209 and attracted the “wrong types” of teenagers. Trouble arose when such clubs opened in the vicinity of newly built luxury flats. To address and avoid complaints,210 club owners, such as those of the Ad Lib, invested thousands of pounds in noise reduction.211 Further, each form of entertainment required its own licence.212 While coffee bars had it easier to open because they didn’t sell alcohol,213 other premises had to apply. Planning departments were free to interpret national laws independently.214 One way to circumnavigate the need for a licence was to turn premises into a “members only” club, which reclassified public space as private. Authorities such as the Church mobilised against local striptease clubs,215 while political campaigns tried to topple the passing of the Gambling Act. “Easy money”, proclaimed the Daily Mail in 1966, “spins crime.”216 Politicians hoped to reduce interest in gambling by making it difficult to open gambling clubs.217 Local newspapers warned that the sale of alcohol generated a lot of problems in the West End of London, although most convictions in 1963 were related to licensing law.218 In general, proprietors could apply for a general licence to sell alcohol until 11 p.m., a “supper certificate” that extended the licence until midnight or a “special hours” licence that allowed alcohol to be sold until 3 a.m.219 As food had to be available, drinks were expensive due to the costs of running a kitchen. Debates about alcohol licensing were prompted by incidents such as the one which took place in June 1963 when a professional dancer at the Lyceum, under the influence of alcohol, crashed his car into a line of taxis on Wellington Street.220 Planning policy was, of course, unstable and changed frequently during the 1960s.221 While “licensing of places of public entertainments”222 had been the responsibility of metropolitan district councils since the passing of the 1964 Licensing Act,223 the London Licensing Committee managed compliance. Residents who were affected by rowdy behaviour wanted to broaden the power of local councils and made it more difficult to register “members only” clubs.224 Older laws already allowed local councils and the GLC to close unlicensed nightclubs, and as such, prosecutions in

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relation to licensing had taken place prior to the 1960s.225 The involvement of the owners in criminal activity, according to the Westminster & Pimlico News, expedited the closing of premises.226 Despite calls for more restrictions, local politicians sought to balance these against the broad compliance of club owners, not to mention the significant economic value of nightclubs. In Chelsea, Tories warned that over-regulation would reduce the area’s character to “the dreary mediocrity of a provincial town”.227 Further, venues such as coffee bars were important for local social life and to give mothers a break from reproductive work. For the first time, in the words of a councillor, “young people can go out for an evening without spending much money, and have an agreeable social time”.228 Leisure facilities also required a licence for playing music.229 Sometimes applications were rejected outright due to planning policy.230 In Gillingham in March 1959, young people planned to march on the municipal buildings in protest against the rejection of licences for three cafés and a club in the town.231 While there was undoubtedly conflict around the licensing of premises in residential areas, the West End was widely acknowledged as the traditional home of the entertainment industry.232 Jazz clubs which had opened in the 1950s were joined by new clubs such as the Scene or La Discotheque, themselves located in former jazz venues,233 and together they formed the backbone of London nightlife in the 1960s.234 In previous decades, districts such as Soho and Covent Garden had been the centre of commercial entertainment, but by 1964–65 this effect had intensified.235 The Daily Mirror in April 1957 wrote that “a new world of young people” had appeared in the “skiffle parlours, jazz joints, rock ‘n’ roll basements” and “young people [themselves] created it”.236 Here, teenagers were free from supervision, could dress up how they wanted, and by the late 1960s had replaced gangsters as the group most closely associated with Soho. In fact, however, crime remained rife within the entertainment industry.237 Gang disputes, wrote the gazettes, sometimes ended in bloodshed. Organised crime syndicates such as the Richardsons regarded takings from jukeboxes and amusement machines as easy money.238 Additionally, according to the Guardian, the protection business was still endemic in Soho in the late 1960s.239 The board of the Public Morality Council regarded London as the mecca of moral decay and crime,240 even though ordinary people rarely encountered violence.241 Juvenile courts sentenced

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teenagers for stealing money from their parents in order to attend parties.242 London’s youth fell in love with Soho, whose entertainment venues offered an escape from the daily grind of work and school. Here, the “mood […] changes dramatically from hour to hour”,243 wrote Len Deighton. On Sunday mornings, tired teenagers stranded at railway stations waited for trains to east London or Essex. Darkness fostered the kind of cultural exchange that was impossible by day. In the nightclubs and coffee bars of Soho, black and white people mixed; working-class teenagers danced next to well-known politicians, pop stars, and gangsters; and basement venues rubbed shoulders with private Bohemian clubs such as the Colony Room.244 People came just to witness the spectacle, having read newspaper reports of dancers who collapsed after jiving all night or musicians who fell from windows after taking drugs.245 The biggest teenage attraction was the rhythm and blues all-nighter, which by 1963—thanks to parties at the Flamingo, La Discotheque, and the Scene—explicitly catered for London’s Mod scene,246 and, according to Jackie, soon introduced the sound to a wider British audience.247 The popularity of rhythm and blues was such that it provoked, by the mid-­1960s, a counter-reaction in the form of folk clubs.248 Teen magazines shed light on clubs, whose proprietors strove for uniqueness in order to survive in a competitive environment.249 Some were theme based,250 while others located in historic buildings251 or had a purist style.252 Affordable entrance fees were popular, of course, while some gained a following by booking American stars,253 which sometimes made it necessary to move into bigger premises in order to accommodate demand.254 Contemporary witnesses remember that live gigs even took place in church halls.255 Some venues explored the route of exclusive membership as a strategy for increasing their appeal256 or exploited their affiliation with subcultural tribes257 and local celebrities.258 Some had well-known proprietors, such as La Discotheque and the Scene.259 Clubs also offered employment to familiar faces of the Mod scene such as Marc Bolan, while outside, local ex-boxers guarded the door.260 Clubs often gained a reputation for pre-releasing American records.261 For this, it was important that DJs had their own networks of distribution.262 Owners also placed ads in music magazines and ritualised entry to their club, which soon became a marketing gimmick.263 While by the late 1960s, the bands of the British Invasion had “lost excitement”, and the former coolness of pop stars had waned thanks to their arrogant behaviour

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on stage,264 DJs were starting to be seen as heroes for playing music for teenagers.265 The DJ cult grew so rapidly that in 1968, there were more articles about John Peel in the NME than about any band.266 Being regarded as the “in-places”, clubs in Soho provided the blueprint for club owners all over the country. Venues in nearly every part of the country looked to emulate London’s scene as by the summer of 1962, working-class youths from all over Britain were in thrall to “the styles and sounds of London” and “dreamed of exotic places called Flamingo, 100 Club, Marquee, even Studio 51” (the latter one was the nickname of Ken Coyler's Jazz Club).267 By 1963–64, contemporaries remember, London’s clubs were still “about six months ahead of the Wheel”—a venue in Manchester268—which encouraged teenagers to travel to the capital for entertainment (Image 9.2).269 While the majority of clubs in Central London were small and intimate with a loyal customer base, Beat City, the brainchild of Alexis Korner, aimed to be the biggest and best-equipped club in Britain.270 After refurbishment, the venue re-opened in February 1966. Renamed as Tiles, the club was unique in its interaction with the surrounding area, installing speakers in the entrances to nearby boutiques. Tiles was a “city within a

Image 9.2  The Speakeasy, a pop music–oriented club in 1960s London. (Copyright: Pictorial Press Ltd./Alamy Stock Photo)

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city”, with its own coffee bar, a “hangout room”, and a mini-Carnaby Street with boutiques, a record shop, and a beauty parlour.271 This set-up blurred the boundaries between day and night, simulating the feeling of a “Saturday afternoon in the High Street”, even if “it was ten o’clock at night”.272 Noise complaints as well as the club’s association with the sound of a musical era that was fading away led to its closure in 1967. Some venues kept pace with musical changes while others disappeared as a result of poor management, old-fashioned programmes, drug raids, increasing rents, or structural issues. In 1967, said the former Mod John Leo Waters, clubbing, which had once redefined London’s role in the world, found itself in crisis.273 The rhythm and blues clubs of the 1960s, symbol of the Mod era and foundation of London’s new image, did not last long and began to be replaced by folk and blues clubs and venues such as the UFO in Tottenham Court Road, playing West Coast, psychedelic, and prog rock.274 Even during the heyday of the discotheque in London in the mid-1960s, experts were predicting the decline of the club scene that had made London a global brand. “I detect a sign of change in supposedly swinging night life,”275 declared an article in the Daily Mail in October 1965. Brian Morris of the Ad Lib and Andrew Oldham also gave to paper that they were bored by the ubiquity of night venues.276 A major problem was that the new affluence of kids attracted businessmen to invest in clubs, which ultimately resulted in market saturation.277 Furthermore, making money from a club was not as simple as it seemed.278 Discotheques were risky investments, requiring significant outlay with no guaranteed return.279 In Central London in particular, owners faced high overheads and running costs, and those with sound financial backing made it harder for others to compete. To be successful, club owners needed a defined target group, not too big or too small. For this purpose, clubs developed their own distinct concepts.280 This illustrates that market knowledge and image-making were a big deal.281 The Daily Mail wrote that a hundred discotheques opened in London in 1967, but fewer than 10 per cent prospered.282 In 1970, 140 discotheques opened in London, but only a small minority were thought to be making money.283 By 1966, so Christopher Booker, three of the four clubs the journalist John Crosby had mentioned in his famous “Swinging London” article in 1965 were closed.284 In the mid-1960s, American rhythm and blues was already so popular that working-class kids did not have to attend all-nighters in Soho in order

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to listen to the sound. Suburban ballrooms began trying to attract young people, who had become a major target group within the entertainment industry. The Guardian wrote that in 1964, five million Britons still visited Ballrooms every week.285 In the 1950s many had updated their programmes, and the best-known dance halls in Central London, fashion designer John Simons remembers, soon acquired a reputation, hosting nights that attracted London’s first Mods.286 Other ballrooms, too, introduced recorded music sessions, or live gigs by popular bands, in an attempt to halt the decline in customer numbers. Change, however, was gradual. In the early 1950s, dance halls did not cater for young people at all,287 and even by the mid-1960s it was clear that broader musical tastes were still the focus. A Mecca official was quoted in a Daily Mail article in 1965, saying that “only 20 per cent of the people who go dancing want to dance to beat,” and particularly addressed other age groups.288 Suburban entertainment ruled during the week. Local pubs provided live music in working-class districts, where entertainment had historically functioned as a focus for community life and a break from hard work.289 Local councils joined in, holding events in their own premises such as Stratford Town Hall, where Mods met every Sunday,290 and many teenagers used scooters to travel between venues.291 Contemporaries recall that suburban nightlife was different from that of the West End. Firstly, according to teenagers interviewed by Hamblett and Deverson, some areas were strongly affiliated with subcultural tribes.292 Second, said Len Deighton, “there [was often] some xenophobia” and a “local feeling” in the air.293 Third, suburban venues were usually larger than West End clubs. Fourth, London Life wrote that decor and interiors were less glamorous, reflecting the provincial character of the suburbs, where dance-goers were attracted by the imitation of luxury.294 In north London, the sophisticated Starlite Ballroom was different and had a “more frighteningly smooth, cool, and well-dressed” crowd.295 The proprietor denied that the Starlite was a ballroom but maintained the dress code of a ballroom: collars and ties were a must, no jeans or leathers, and for girls, no trousers or unusual dresses were allowed. For under-sixteens, ballrooms regularly sold lager and lime with cider at the teen bar. The Wimbledon Palais de Danse, fourteen miles south of the Starlite, was another suburban venue and well-known for the London or Big L Nights.296 On the question of why they preferred the Wimbledon Palais, two girls said to a journalist of London Life in 1966, “We used to go up the West End but it’s not with-it anymore. […] The clubs are too small

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and too dear.”297 Whereas, according to the lifestyle magazine, in the West End, teenagers wanted to be adults, the Wimbledon Palais crowd was less precocious. Nobody really danced, and people gathered in front of the bandstand, from which the DJ led various games.298 In addition to ballrooms and dance halls, modern clubs, such as Noreik, which opened in 1964, could be found in districts away from the West End, often occupying existing local leisure premises, and hosting live shows in an effort to establish a wider clientele.299 A careful study of their locations suggests that suburban clubs preferred to be located on the main artery of a neighbourhood, and emulated West End style in order to benefit from the success of west London clubs.300 Young people were newly mobile in the mid-1960s, and—as the voices of kids in teen magazines such as Jackie illustrate—travelled to surrounding towns such as Windsor, to visit the Ricky Tick, which advertised rhythm and blues nights with posters pinned up all over London.301 Georgie Fame was a big fan of the Ricky Tick and, when the proposed extension of the M4 motorway threatened the club, warned in a Fabulous interview in 1966 that people would see him “with [his] protest banner!”302 Local newspapers stressed that when local venues had a citywide reputation, rival teenage gangs became a problem.303 In April 1962, for example, the Guardian reported on a fight between the “Muzzies” and the “Finchley Mob”, at a dance in North Finchley.304 Every week, the press wrote about riots at local dance halls.305 In court, the question arose as to whether dance halls were public spaces. When a group of youths caused trouble at the annual dance of the Radstock and District Darts League in May 1964, they defended themselves by stating that “it was a necessary ingredient of the offence of an affray that it should take place in a public space”.306 The judge argued that the dance was public because “a substantial part of the public had access to it”.307 The court of appeal, however, decided that “an affray did not have to be in a public place” and dismissed the appeal.308 The Goldhawk Social Club in Shepherd’s Bush309 was, according to contemporary witnesses, known for conflicts between local Mods and those from Mile End.310 When subcultural tribes began to emerge in the late 1950s, Ballrooms began to ban members of “dangerous” youth cultures.311 The Manchester Guardian warned in 1957 that conflicts became so frequent and widespread that local police forces asked local councils to restrict entertainment licences to six days a week.312 Similar tactics were used in the US.313 In the mid-1950s, the House of Commons addressed

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rising arrests among under-eighteens, with many MPs believing that fighting was the result of easy access to alcohol.314 Managers claimed that the trouble caused by beat groups kept customers away from ballrooms and dance halls.315 For the first generation of Mods too, fighting had brought about the end of the Lyceum as a focus for Mod culture.316 In both the suburbs and the West End, said the blues researcher Paul Oliver, black music dominated the dance-floors until the late 1960s.317 Clubs had so far stood in tradition with the many jazz clubs in the US, which had attracted white urban middle-class aficionados as early as the 1950s.318 They facilitated race relations, as, according to Anthony Marks, young people looked for “something exotic and disruptive, something that separated them culturally from their parents”.319 Other scholars figured out that by the mid-1960s, the influence of black music fostered direct connections between white and black musicians, often emerging from the haze of London’s nightlife.320 Motown and Stax releases in particular, alongside sounds from former colonies, brought white kids, musicians, and Britain’s black offspring together.321 For those new communicative channels between black and white youths, it was important that many Jamaicans shared the passion for American rhythm and blues.322 Already by the mid-1960s, West Indian pop music was well established in London’s club scene.323 The Marquee, for example, began holding blue beat nights on Tuesdays, hosted by Siggy Jackson. For Jackson, the hype began in mid-1963, and by early 1964, 120,000 copies of Prince Buster’s “Madness” single had been sold.324 Before long, Ready Steady Go! invited Prince Buster to perform, and even DJ Guy Stevens, who was not a blue beat fan, now played the music. Several clubs in Soho had become contact zones, used by Mods, homosexuals, and West Indians.325 Some contemporary witnesses even say that many youth cultures were free from “any element of racism”326 because of their fondness for black music.327 Generally speaking, the popularity of black music reflected a new social climate among young people, where, according to the former Mod Nigel Mann, “black and white generally got on well together, intermingled”.328 To make get-togethers possible, it was important to attract white working-class teenagers, GIs, black immigrants, and their children. The end of the Musicians’ Union ban in 1956, which had lasted nearly twenty years, meant that black American musicians began to arrive in London.329 Jazz was also played by white musicians in Britain, making it easier for working-class youths to consume black culture. This was particularly the case for Jewish kids, who, according to Helen Shapiro,

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favoured modern jazz because of an imagined shared experience with black people.330 While white youths enjoyed watching black musicians perform, it was a strange experience for black American artists to play in front of a predominantly white audience, although the owner of the 100 Club, Roger Horton, remembers that British bookers, unlike those in the US, were not afraid to work with black musicians.331 However, there had been concern in the late 1950s that black musicians could face discrimination in Britain.332 Conversely, white British jazz musicians were sometimes well aware of the ongoing racial conflict in America.333 Racial tensions had an impact on the relationship between black musicians and white fans, as well as on progressive artists like Dankworth, who refused to play in countries with racist laws such as South Africa. Some jazz fans placed such value on authenticity when consuming black music that they heckled when white musicians played jazz on stage. The indigenous rhythm and blues artists in 1960s London helped to change the perception of black culture among working-class youth.334 Intellectuals such as Leroi Jones, however, objected to the appropriation of black culture, and on considering the difference between the Beatles, the Stones, and the hated Minstrels, Jones drew the conclusion that the “Minstrels never convinced anybody they were black, either”.335 British teenagers shared this scepticism, remarking that the songs of white rhythm and blues bands didn’t involve any blues. Nevertheless, these groups had claimed black music, in the process made it white and dissociated the music from historical origins such as the experience of slavery. Many scholars underline the important contribution of music clubs to race relations and to Britain’s multiracial self-image.336 A closer look, however, reveals that few clubs had a mixed customer base.337 The lives of black people were often concentrated within migrant neighbourhoods, and often, according to Carl Gayle—an influential black reggae journalist in Britain—blacks feared to leave their neighbourhoods such as Brixton because of violent racism.338 Many jazz clubs in the 1950s also did not welcome black people. Even if they did not officially ban black customers,339 most had a white clientele, and all too often, the only black people youngsters met at clubs were the bouncers on the door.340 For some, the Flamingo was “the only place that did cater for this burgeoning black population”.341 Owner Jeff Kruger was open-minded in this sense because he had family in the US, and connections to the Air Force base in Ruislip, and sought to attract servicemen to the club by booking Georgie Fame.342

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With a unique mix of rhythm and blues, ska, soul, jazz, and live acts from the US and the West Indies,343 the Flamingo quickly acquired a reputation as a black club, though it also attracted white working-class teenagers in the early 1960s.344 In other parts of Britain, too, venues in black areas such as Moss Side, Manchester, or the Beacon Club in Liverpool catered for local black people but also appealed to a small number of young white customers.345 At the Flamingo in the early 1960s, Jeff Kruger remembers, the early jazz sessions were popular with Mods, whereas those attending all-nighters were predominantly black.346 It took years for real integration to occur, and a former fan of the Flamingo writes that even then, its effects were limited.347 One reason was racism, as discrimination and violence persisted throughout the decade. At some dance halls, for example, white teenagers expected their black counterparts to allow them precedence.348 These attitudes were often supported by local residents, who were more concerned about trouble-making than racism. During the 1940s and 1950s,349 there had been instances of American soldiers attacking black people in London for engaging with white women in black clubs.350 Still in the 1960s, Val Wilmer remembers, “it was very difficult if a white woman walked down the street with a black man”.351 Race relations at this time, said Simon Jones, were shaped by “fundamental contradictions” which “by the end of the decade had increasingly begun to place those who identified with black culture in a profoundly ambiguous position”.352 For contemporaries, colour bars were one of the great contradictions of the early 1960s, the irony being that “thousands of white teenagers were dancing to a ‘black’ recording [while] the UK’s black teenagers were ‘shown the door’”.353 The British government was keen to point out that compared to America, racial barriers were few in the UK. Indeed, club owners allowed black GIs entry, often despite the loud protests of white American servicemen, but colour bars were also implemented in various clubs. When the DJ Count Suckle began holding dance nights at the Roaring Twenties in 1961, the club was mainly attended by Jewish teenagers from the Finchley Road area. The owners operated a no-admittance policy for black people, but Suckle made it clear that he would leave if black youths were not allowed. When the door policy changed, the Jewish regulars moved on to other West End clubs. In November 1963, people protested against the colour bar at the Whisky A Go Go in Wardour Street.354 In June 1958, the Scala Ballroom in Wolverhampton had to renew its licence, prompting

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press coverage of its colour bar. The Musicians’ Union boycotted the Scala, at a time when Mecca had also introduced partial colour bars in three of its twenty-seven dance halls.355 C.  L. Heimann, chairman of Mecca, defended the policy, stating that there was no colour bar, just the requirement that young men should arrive with a girl. The dispute prompted a debate in the House of Commons.356 Sensation-seeking newspapers were happy to be able to let their readers know that young club-goers carried weapons in ballrooms, ostensibly for the purpose of protection against black aggressors.357 Passive racism, however, was far more common than direct attacks.358 Horror stories from the US, published in the papers, seemed to legitimise panic about black people in nightclubs.359 In reaction to such discrimination, black Londoners began to open their own clubs. Many were soon in media stigmatised by fighting, drug-dealing, and raids.360 Exclusion from nightlife, according to research today, meant that black communities adopted their own heroes, who had started their careers playing music at private blues parties and improvised basement clubs before moving on to commercial venues.361 Trouble broke out not only between black and white club-goers but sometimes also between members of different black communities.362 In the late 1960s, DJs like Coxon and Duke Reid represented the south, while Count Shelly, with his Sound System, was affiliated with north London. In clubs like the Ram Jam, there were competitions between dancers, and fights broke out as a result. Carl Gayle remembers that the north-south divide impacted the black music scene,363 and together with the return of Rastafarianism, led to an isolation of the black music scene in the early 1970s.364 Some black clubs in London in the 1960s gained a reputation not just for being “hip” or “upmarket” but for appealing to a mixed clientele. The El Partido in Lewisham, for example, played a mix of ska, blue beat, and American soul, and was frequented by both young Jamaicans and local Mods. Young women in Britain had historically been involved in encouraging integration,365 and this continued in the 1960s. Sandra, DJ at the Scene, the Mod scene face Mickey Tenner remembers, had a black boyfriend, and contemporaries assumed that this connection provided her with a source of good music.366 According to the former Mod Rob Nicholls, in north London, black men met their white girlfriends in a club in Haringey,367 prompting disapproval among white customers. For a long time, according to contemporary witnesses, “integration was not an option and it was very much a case of ‘them and us’”.368 Proponents of

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racism feared the degeneration of the “white race” through contact between black men and white women.369 Stereotypes which presented black men as hypersexual and exotic had persisted since the previous century.370 Although black culture had influenced white working-class Londoners for many years, the racial climate only really began to change in the second half of the 1960s. An interviewed teenager said in 1964, “At the moment we’re hero-worshipping the Spades […]. The more sophisticated teenagers can go to Spade clubs in the West End.”371 For some kids, “going out with a Spade [was now] something to be proud of”.372 The dancing and look of black youths held an appeal for Mods.373 Scholars informed in 1966 that dancing was an important indicator for analysing “how immigrants affect the host community”.374 The imitation and adoption of such dances hybridised European dancing and freed young people from the straitjacket of an imagined European culture. Even officials addressed these changes. The LCC Children’s department noted in 1964 that a “multiracial youth culture” was emerging, after sending a group of employees into the “club world” of London’s West End.375 There were concerns over not just sexuality but also class, and observers noted that the urge to mix with those from a different background seemed “particularly strong for young people from poor or unexciting backgrounds”.376 Some contemporaries felt that the social climate around integration had changed by 1966,377 illustrated by the Flamingo’s all-nighters.378 Les Back notes that “the popularity of black music during the 1950s and 1960s meant that black forms were not confined to autonomous black spaces”.379 This development was stimulated by the emergence of multiracial, mixed, and integrated groups, which stemmed from cultural exchange and friendship.380 Non-Londoners travelled to mingle with black customers at the Ram Jam,381 and Jim Cox, a former Skinhead from Hackney, remembers that in black clubs such as the Four Aces he “never had any trouble”.382 Simon Jones has already argued that Skinhead culture in the late 1960s had popularised Jamaican music in London’s working-class districts and new-town suburbs and “evolved in close proximity to the black community”.383 Although rivalries were not uncommon, especially in terms of sexual relationships with girls, contemporary voices illustrate to what extent exchange took place through direct contact.384 The Middle Park Mob, a gang of Skinheads from a council estate, established connections with some Jamaican teenagers from Brixton with whom they frequented

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the White Swan Pub in Crystal Palace.385 By 1967, according to Carl Gayle, you “couldn’t go to a black house party without finding a gang of skinheads”.386 Mods attended privately organised blues parties, too,387 although some had to fend off negative comments from their peer group.388 To visit a black blues party, it was necessary to have the right contacts.389 Problems tended to arise not between white and black guests,390 but between party guests and neighbours who wanted to enjoy their evenings and rest at night.391 In Stoke Newington, there were on average six complaints about such parties every Saturday night.392 The police argued that the law did not allow them to enter private flats. Immigrant leaders worried that before long, local residents might take matters into their own hands. The chairman of the North London West Indian Association stated that while it was legitimate to have a party with twenty or thirty friends, commercial events held in private houses would not be tolerated.

Youth Clubs and Modern Popular Culture Even though young working-class Londoners spent much of their free time in unsupervised, commercial night-time hangouts, they still took advantage of youth programmes provided by the government, civil society, or the Church.393 The first Boys’ Club opened in London in 1872,394 and by 1887, a federation had been set up.395 In many working-class areas of London such as Tower Hamlets at this time, Sunday Schools, Ragged Schools, and various evangelical institutions provided leisure activities for young residents which often complemented more serious services such as learning reading and writing.396 The Education Act 1918 integrated youth services into municipal structures, according to responsibility for youth work to local and national government. In Victorian and inter-war times, services catered for underprivileged youths and aimed to integrate them into the education system.397 During the Second World War, wrote the Daily Mirror in their Spotlight on Youth, published in 1959, local youth committees formalised youth work by bringing together voluntary and statutory organisations under one roof.398 The war called for the youth service to extend its provision beyond the underprivileged to the wider population, thus helping to ensure a supply of healthy young men, mentally and physically ready to fight. After the war, local authorities were convinced that rapid social, cultural, and economic change would demand the modernisation of youth services,

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although not everyone agreed.399 The Youth Advisory Council, affiliated with the Minister of Education, communicated that opportunities must be provided for young people on a local basis, which were different in its nature from school or work.400 In Britain, the LCC was one of the first councils to push for modernisation.401 Sir William Houghton, for example, who was the Education Officer of the LCC in the late 1950s, pushed his office to survey the youth service in order to find ways for its reorganisation and improvement.402 London was in a special situation because here, commercial leisure explicitly catered for young people in the 1950s, whereas youth clubs often represented the only provision for working-­ class kids in rural areas. In London, however, they could have been important social spaces too. Generally speaking, they were successful when becoming a framework for local working-class youth culture.403 Peter Willmott figured out that in Bethnal Green in the late 1950s, two-fifths of local boys were club members, and nine out of ten had once been a member.404 According to T.  R. Fyvel, Teddy Boys often attended youth clubs, which mainly targeted teenagers not affiliated with youth services, and tolerated those who were in contact with the law.405 Even Skinheads in the late 1960s still visited youth clubs, being frequently subject to bans from other premises.406 Various sources also illustrate that kids often remained members of clubs when they moved away from an area.407 In comparison with youth clubs in the immediate post-war years, however, teenagers in the 1960s no longer visited their club every night. Now, they popped in briefly before moving on to another leisure venue.408 The self-image of youth clubs as working-class institutions persisted throughout the 1950s and 1960s. The youth magazine Challenge reported in 1964–65 that some youth leaders were concerned that youth services did not do enough for grammar-school children.409 Historically, the fathers of the youth service had been “public school men with wealthy backgrounds” who had wanted to civilise the country’s working class by influencing their children.410 Because poverty no longer dictated up-growing, political parties sometimes neglected to study the relevance of class within youth work. Sociological and psychological research, however, produced evidence that social class was still a factor in identity among children and teenagers.411 For Fyvel, the crisis of the youth service in the late 1950s was caused by neoliberal policies which disproportionately affected the working classes.412

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As youth work had traditionally focused on working-class youth suffering from poor living conditions, urban centres were always at its core. Poverty was still regarded as an urban phenomenon and urban life was seen as responsible for the fragmentation of teenage interests.413 Thus, the youth services often needed to engage with problems engendered by an urban setting.414 “It should be the moral duty of the service”, argued the Youth Review, “to help in finding accommodation.”415 Additionally, youth services were in the eyes of local newspapers tasked with addressing other specific issues, such as the lack of outdoor recreational facilities.416 In areas with less municipal manpower, said the NAYC in 1970, youth clubs were often open for only one night per week. Children, teenagers, and young adults living in the countryside might attend a single club, while in cities, clubs catered for different tastes and age groups.417 Nonetheless, youth clubs in urban centres were also intertwined with their local community.418 Territorial conflicts resulted in “neighbourhood only” nights in an effort to appease residents who wanted to close clubs entirely.419 Taking scholars seriously who stressed that urban youth clubs traditionally worked in deprived urban neighbourhoods,420 youth services shifted into focus again, when teenagers moved with their families to new towns,421 where services for young people often did not exist but youth workers involved in creating programmes later on benefited from flexible and modern municipal structures.422 According to youth work experts, modern youth work concepts first required access to modern facilities, so that the Albemarle Report paid special attention to physical modernisation.423 The demographic trend also called for increased expenditure. Building schemes provided money for voluntary youth organisations, with an emphasis on modular prefabricated buildings.424 Local authorities were ultimately responsible for providing access to youth services, and thus controlled facilities. In the aftermath of the Albemarle Report, a national funding programme allowed youth services to submit applications to upgrade, renovate, or modernise their premises.425 Competition between voluntary and statutory organisations had an impact on funding schemes, and local youth committees as well as the LYC had to strike a balance in their handling of applications. Voluntary run clubs, for example, were suspicious of priority lists prepared by local education committees, fearing that such lists would lower their chances of gaining an award, although, in truth, according to Challenge, they were treated equally.426 Often, lower-cost applications stood a better chance of

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approval, so voluntary workers organised smaller tasks themselves.427 Smaller projects were regularly financed using funds from different sources, such as official institutions or donations from the local community, or as the result of collaborations between local youth councils and parishes.428 Financial support was also provided by trusts and charity funds.429 Money alone, however, could not guarantee that facilities would meet the approval of working-class youth.430 In big cities, the provision of funding was insufficient to address the lack of space.431 Local youth organisations developed their own strategies to deal with this.432 In some boroughs, youth clubs could only organise outdoor activities until they found indoor premises.433 Lack of finance led to clubs renting old buildings, which often needed improvement. Where land on which a youth club had previously operated was sold for development, the new building scheme sometimes incorporated the provision of suitable premises.434 Boroughs and government departments also at times offered inadequate facilities such as air-­ raid shelters.435 Further, it was not unusual for plans, wrote local newspapers, to be met with hostility from residents who feared disturbances and whose protests were sometimes supported by planning departments.436 Thus, LCC architects did their best to design youth clubs in a way that would minimise noise.437 Competition with commercial entertainment meant that youth workers preferred facilities to be close to shopping centres.438 Generally, the location of a new youth club depended on the social structure of an urban area, which itself could be subject to change.439 The Daily Mirror complained in 1959 that youth services were not keeping pace with urban change, and must adapt the standards of the many Londoners who now lived in “modern council flats and [worked] in modern factories”.440 Some youth institutions were so up-to-date that they planned their programmes to cater for young men and women who worked in Central London but did not live there.441 Further, the youth club organisers as well as architects and planning departments stressed that interior and floor plans of clubs must keep pace with changing needs and preferences. The girls’ club leader Pearl Jephcott, for example, remarked in 1943 that during wartime, youth clubs were content to “express the culture of a local community”442 and were mainly used for physical activities. The Albemarle Report (1960), in contrast, asked for the incorporation of new cultural, aesthetic, and social preferences as “no club can expect to develop its full potential in an

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unsympathetic building” and by ignoring the surrounding built neighbourhood.443 The “standard green and brown paint”, for example, so an account of the SCNVYO in 1966, must be replaced by “gay wallpapers, modern fabrics and bright ‘with-it’ décor”444 and the club premises should be “light and airy, essentially functional”.445 Reports on as well as plans for new youth club buildings illustrate that responsible architects sought to incorporate versatility into their plans. Flexibility was essential, as teenage needs were fickle, and buildings should be designed to accommodate established teenage behaviours.446 New clubs were built around a central space, which was important for social activities.447 Members were also, by the mid-1960s, encouraged to decide for themselves how best to use facilities.448 Workshops, beauty rooms, and music libraries were incorporated, to stimulate social interaction, and the inclusion of coffee bars reflected the shift from physical to social activities.449 A development group in the Architects and Building Branch of the Ministry of Education was set up to study requirements and therefore also looked abroad.450 Modular and prefabricated buildings should suit a variety of different building sites and requirements,451 and this is because different age groups, interests, and preferences characterised youth club life.452 Generally speaking, spaces were planned to allow a variety of activities rather than having separate rooms for each activity. Many plans incorporated Sir Henry Wotton’s formula of “commodity, firmness, and delight”, in addition to compactness, versatility, and balance.453 Alongside the need for unobtrusive supervision, the layout should at the same time encourage self-governance among club members.454 “Whilst the environment should be friendly and relaxed,” according to architects, “it must also be gay and should stimulate curiosity.”455 Coffee bars and seating areas were located close to the entrance, to accommodate the teenage propensity for “seeing and being seen”.456 Background music should create a relaxed atmosphere. Designated areas were incorporated for dancing, while windows allowed passing youngsters to see inside. Similar recommendations were made for the renovation of existing premises. An evaluation model was set up within the youth service structures to gauge the condition of buildings.457 Many clubs wanted to replace their outdated canteens with coffee bars that were open to non-­members.458 Often, however, the responsible local club committees were slow in initiating modernisation. The LYC suggested that youth-club leaders work continually to make improvements with regard to certain considerations,

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such as the adequacy of the accommodation, the condition of the premises, the organisation’s tenure of the premises, the nature of the surrounding property, and any factor which may affect the development of the area.459 Modernisation was largely an attempt to halt the decline in youth-club membership and bring youngsters back into contact with youth services.460 Results of a survey of Westhill College in the early 1970s, however, illustrate that if membership was the indicator of a successful youth service, modernisation efforts had failed.461 Numbers had decreased in every age group and for all types of clubs, although the least engaged group consisted of teenagers over sixteen, who, if members, preferred mixed-sex clubs.462 Declining membership rates seemed to point to a new social and cultural freedom, which, it was suggested, might be harnessed by youth services. The Stepney Youth Committee, for example, felt in 1963 that the dangers of promiscuity, pornographic material, and drugs necessitated a well-functioning youth service in the country.463 The LYC considered by the end of the decade the effects of self-consciousness,464 declining parental and institutional supervision, and leisure culture, alongside new forms of physical mobility and the growth in individual freedom.465 Youth-club leaders agreed. J. P. Leighton, for example, emphasised at a youth leader conference in Ilford in early 1963 that earlier adolescence and mental adulthood meant that solutions must be found for the disorientation caused by the instability of the moral system, technological innovation, and the emergence of the welfare state.466 The Pilgrim Trust stressed that such developments called into question existing youth-work concepts but that there was no chance to stop such developments.467 Reasons suggested for the failure of the service were manifold and easily changed over the decade. In 1959, the Daily Mirror blamed the absence of financial support and imaginative leadership, as well as a lack of community interest in youth services, which suffered from poor organisation, outdated equipment, and loss of purpose.468 Similar to the education system in Victorian times, youth clubs would have had little status or money, low standards of efficiency, and those running them were afforded minimal formal training.469 Traditions, wrote a Times supplement in the same year, often hampered change.470 Some observers declared it a surprise that “so few young people drift into crime” when there was no provision for them apart from badly equipped clubs.471 Criticism after the war focused on old-fashioned concepts such as member-only clubs, or religious

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fanaticism in clubs run by the Church.472 Even though Church-run youth clubs self-critically examined how they could cater for the children of the “nuclear age”,473 critics remarked that decisions were made by officials who often had nothing to do with the daily business.474 Seeing their task as ensuring the “future of Britain as a progressive, civilised nation”475 by working with working-class youngsters, leading youth committees must agree that things had moved on from “Victorian London”, but too often focused on the need for access to good equipment rather than updating programmes.476 Over and above self-reflection on the part of organisations, the Albemarle Report was a government statement in support of modernisation.477 In the view of the working committee, modernisation meant experimentation, meaning that first and foremost, clubs must get rid of their rigid membership rules which restricted club life.478 Second, leisure preferences must be researched. Third, professional youth workers should train volunteers. Fourth, the service should affect the integration of popular culture. Fifth, and finally, clubs should incorporate concepts of self-­ government, self-programming, and self-help.479 Such recommendations came from experts, using data from surveys on youth-club usage and leisure facilities.480 In response, local authorities founded working parties,481 and the Ministry of Education agreed to evaluate the condition of leisure facilities,482 regarding the relationship between the neighbourhood and its youth services.483 Not all youth committees were willing to see problems. Many clubs still viewed themselves as “educational facilities” in which youths could “learn to work together” and in the process improve the local community.484 Their programmes revolved around physical activities and arts and crafts courses, as well as life skills, which were taught as part of an effort to prepare youngsters for adulthood and community responsibility. Traditional youth clubs visited cinemas and theatres, held indoor games, were involved in inter-club activities, and organised holidays, both abroad and in Britain.485 Teenagers, a youth leader from London’s East End remarked in 1953, were encouraged to discuss political and religious topics by old-­ fashioned youth leaders,486 who—according to the youth work magazine Challenge ten years later—criticised modern youth work for neglecting to deal with the “real” world.487 A closer look, however, suggests that pop events often held the highest appeal.488 Dances, for example, were normally the only times when clubs achieved full attendance.489 For progressive youth leaders, modernisation

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meant the integration of commercial forms of entertainment,490 and information on it, published by organisations such as the NAYC, circulated.491 Publications dealt with issues arising in everyday youth work,492 and alongside training programmes were an important source of inspiration.493 Inspired by the Albemarle Report, they regularly called for a “philosophical reorientation”, modern facilities, and more professional youth workers.494 To compete with the commercial teenage market, youth leaders were aware that they had to campaign as though they were sales managers.495 Promotional films aimed at young people were soon shown in cinemas496 to try to dispel the old-fashioned image of youth clubs.497 In 1968, the NABC even assembled its own marketing committee.498 Some clubs modernised their programmes sooner than others. A close look reveals that changes tended to be gradual rather than abrupt.499 New approaches and programmes varied and depended on individual club leaders.500 Some clubs saw the basis for their success in having “no compulsory activities and members needn’t do what they don’t want to do”501 or in treating youngsters as individuals and not as a homogenous group.502 Generally, it was thought that self-discipline was more important than discipline,503 and the fragmentation of society was reflected in divergence among youth clubs, despite their common purpose, which was essentially to keep teenagers “off the streets”.504 Many projects emphasised the importance of treating young people as individuals but ultimately still clustered teenagers in groups on the basis of their problems. The “can copes”, for example, according to George W. Goetschius and M. Joan Tash, who documented the experimental coffee stall youth work project in London, were “able and willing to use the resources”,505 while the “simply disorganised” group “appeared to be heading for serious difficulties”.506 The main indicators for clustering were family situation, school, work, friends, recreation, and service, as these categories defined the relationship between the individual and his or her social, cultural, and physical environment. In this respect, the original “civilising” ethos persisted. While the organiser of the Bristol Federation of Boys’ Clubs was convinced in 1968 that clubs had changed “since the time they were started as moral rescue agencies in the slums of our great cities”,507 the remit of youth clubs was still to ensure social peace.508 In response to disturbances with media attention such as the “seaside town riots”,509 organisations organised weekend-long events in an attempt to keep young people away from

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trouble.510 Still in the late 1960s, according to the influential weekly social science magazine New Society, modernisation was seen as one answer to an “increase in juvenile delinquency”.511 Therefore, according to youth workers, it was important to pay respect to values in a fastchanging modern world that were shifting—also because of economic reasons and new forms of work—from discipline to self-organisation and responsibility.512 Using arts and crafts, for example, became a strategy to encourage self-discipline, morality, teamwork and solidarity, and youth clubs—in contrast to commercial leisure businesses—were often proud to have a reputation for nurturing “values”.513 For the task of modernising youth services, enthusiasm alone was not enough, wrote Challenge in spring 1968.514 The NABC worked with universities and training colleges to improve the skills of its youth leaders. Professionalisation of the service reflected the standardisation of professions in society in general. Associations now regarded youth work as a job requiring continuous training,515 which, of course, provoked conflict between different generations of youth workers.516 Professionalisation also went hand in hand with transnational exchange.517 Delegations visited youth workers in other countries, and youth-worker magazines reported on clubs in Europe, Russia, and America. Many club leaders knew that challenges often had a transnational dimension.518 When the concept of supervision was introduced to social work in Britain, the youth service referred to the experience of North America, where it had been introduced earlier.519 The work of the New York City Youth Board also had an impact on the manner in which unattached youths were managed in Britain.520 Reports on foreign youths and youth work abroad highlighted similarities as well as differences, which were sometimes the consequence of different political systems. Some scholars even proposed that youth movements had their roots in transnational entanglements and pointed out that Baden Powell’s mixing of “ceremonials from primitive societies […] with late-Victorian morality” had informed the core principles of the scout movement.521 Expanding overseas contacts characterised youth work in the 1960s, particularly within the countries of the Commonwealth.522 Exchange was by no means one directional.523 Club members were also regularly informed about members’ and youth leaders’ trips abroad.524 Stars such as Frankie Vaughan, a well-known supporter of youth services, shared insights on the teenage culture of countries he had visited for live shows.525 Clubs also supported international charity events, such as the 1959–60 World Refugee Year, during which some clubs

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collected money in order to open boys’ and girls’ clubs in Hong Kong for refugee children.526 Research done by a variety of actors helped facilitate the understanding of transnational notions of youth culture.527 Surveys were carried out in urban as well as rural areas,528 many of them prior to the publication of the Albemarle Report.529 According to Pearl Jephcott, “less physical effort [was now] demanded by the day’s work”.530 Furthermore, leisure was no longer “confined to a larger daily and yearly dose”, but instead permeated “the whole span of life”.531 Free time was shaped by new markets set up by commercial enterprises. Jephcott also claimed to have found that working-­ class traditions determined leisure preferences.532 Doing nothing, for example, was legitimised due to traditionalised working-class practices. Already in the early 1950s, two social workers stated that working-class youngsters were most vulnerable to being rejected by youth clubs on the basis of their stigmatised behaviour.533 Within the youth services, it was quickly established, however, that unattachment affected not only those labelled as delinquent but unproblematic teenagers too.534 By the mid-­1960s, unattachment was no longer considered to be a symptom of a destructive youth culture.535 Youth magazines openly discussed that unattachment occurred for various reasons, and often, Heather Lloyd said in a Youth Review issue 1964, not enough attention was given to structural components such as gender differences.536 Terms such as “unattached” and “unclubbable” no longer painted an adequate picture of young people.537 Nevertheless, unattachment carried negative connotations, as it was feared that youths who were not under supervision would gravitate towards the immoral world of commercial leisure. As unattachment was linked to social disturbance, experimental youth projects in the 1950s sought to investigate why youths did not attend clubs, and how to bring them back.538 One of the first projects had begun in the late 1940s, but substantial funding only became available in the 1960s.539 Projects took place in so-called deprived neighbourhoods and established contact with unattached youths by emulating commercial leisure culture.540 Some projects rejected the more traditional concepts of youth work, while others understood their role as being an extension of the youth club.541 Their task was to engage with teenagers in their physical environments and thus many began by mapping entertainment facilities. Some youth workers even took jobs at dance halls or coffee bars, in order to study local youth scenes.542 The real issue of work was the establishment

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of long-term connections,543 and thus it was helpful to build an affiliation with the local community.544 The majority of experimental youth projects came to support the idea of “doing-nothing” programmes. Such provision was especially important for older age groups. Youth clubs tended to separate under-fifteens from over-fifteens, as the older group had already left school,545 and many had also begun to engage with the opposite sex. The last year of school, wrote the Times in 1958, was considered dangerous by youth workers because at this stage teenagers began to drift away from youth services while intensifying their relationship with commercial forms of leisure.546 Consequently, the role of youth clubs was to ease the transition from school into work, and in the process, prepare youngsters for their professional careers. Therefore, the service produced special publications which examined how teenagers could ready themselves for employment within booming industries.547 The needs of different age groups, of course, fluctuated over time.548A government report by the end of the decade even concluded that segregation by age groups was no longer appropriate.549 Leaving the club was historically considered a mark of maturity,550 but during the 1960s youth services made efforts to intensify connections with older teenagers and to promote the extension of adolescence, in response to the increase in the number of young people remaining in the education system.551 The service also expanded its remit in order to deal with the problems of older and ex-members, such as unemployment. Special evenings, for example, were organised for over-seventeens, along with specific formats to cater for ex-members, as youth leaders felt that younger members would benefit from the presence of older teenagers.552 Some clubs rented commercial venues, put on large-scale community events, or even applied for a licence to sell alcohol.553 Besides unappealing programmes, gender restrictions could make clubs unpopular. Rigid policies did not allow for meeting members of the opposite sex, and this was, according to Peter Willmott, off-putting particularly for older teenagers.554 Similar to other aspects of modernisation, the debate over mixed-sex clubs was not entirely new. During the 1960s, however, mixed clubs became the dominant format.555 The number of separate clubs diminished over the course of the decade, a process that was accelerated after 1967556 with the support of institutions such as the Pilgrim Trust, which declared that “in the age of freedom of association […] it is no longer desirable […] that sums of money should continue to be spent

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on the provision of clubs for one sex only”.557 When moving premises, youth clubs often took the opportunity to amalgamate their sections.558 Some called for an immediate end to segregation,559 while other clubs partially opened their doors to both sexes.560 One group even refused the pressure to admit girls, whose interests they considered unsuited to the club environment, arguing that their presence would cause existing members to leave.561 In 1967, the NAYC reported that girls were still not really using services,562 perhaps because most club leaders were males. The success of mixed clubs was in part thanks to better and more specialised training provided for volunteers, organisations, and institutions.563 Further, leisure needs of girls were by the mid-1960s explicitly studied even if Pearl Jephcott had already in 1942 pleaded for an expansion of the service for girls.564 Research figured out that the absence of girls was caused by the absence of female youth leaders.565 Leaders were often trained only in the needs of boys, making girls second-class members.566 Some youth workers blamed the failure of integration on the tendency of girls to interact among themselves, which was, of course, ultimately an excuse for neglecting to cater for their leisure needs. A closer look illustrates that the architecture of premises played a vital role in integration. In the early stages of mixed clubs, boys and girls came together for certain activities but were separated in respect of “gendered interests”.567 While opportunities for boys and girls to see one another were welcomed, sexual contact was often demonised, in part due to concerns around venereal diseases.568 Physical contact was seen as an increasing social health problem, so physical activities continued to be segregated. Church youth clubs still saw their mission in teaching Christian courtship, with its emphasis on the idea that “love is more than sex”,569 although the new visibility of sexuality in media paved the way for new approaches to sex education. In many clubs, however, sex education was prudish.570 Brighton’s Evening Argus revealed that many youth leaders had old-­ fashioned attitudes towards gender roles, based around traditional norms of femininity and masculinity.571 In the mid-1960s, Lord Willis felt that the idea “marriage is the price that a man has to pay for sex, and sex is the price that a woman has to pay for marriage”, “hasn’t gone yet” but hoped that it is on its way to disappear.572 Authoritarian leadership structures also changed gradually rather than abruptly. In the 1960s, youth clubs introduced the idea of self-organised groups catering for specific interests, which helped to attract unattached youths. Traditionally, decision-making had been the preserve of club

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leaders, management committees, and institutions that financed clubs. During the 1960s, ordinary members became involved in decision-making, designed club constitutions or payment models, and arranged club programmes. Youth leaders encouraged members to decorate premises and therewith to strengthen the link between facilities and teenagers.573 Through self-governance, members also learned governance principles, and although smaller clubs were less keen, teenagers preferred those which were democratically run.574 Self-governance, however, could have been a challenge for both: youth workers and members. Some youth leaders felt that teenagers were “immature and unfitted to take much responsibility”, while others argued that “DIY” culture and self-governance was a neoliberal strategy, and highlighted the “heavy responsibility to the public to run clubs properly”.575 The use of popular culture went hand in hand with self-governance strategies. In the 1960s, popular culture had become an integral part of club life,576 and newspapers considered what activities might be suitable for Mods.577 The article finally recommended using “everything that […] is interesting enough”.578 In 1956, the “Growing Up in London” exhibition still illustrated the alternatives to Teddy Boy culture,579 but by the mid-1960s, independent youth culture had already infiltrated club life. Club magazines focused on pop, with covers featuring Cilla Black or the Beatles.580 Members discussed the intersection of pop with important incidents,581 and took part in annual events such as the AJY Fashion Competition,582 with such occasions helping to raise money for clubs.583 Pop stars became involved in youth club life as a way of connecting with their working-class fan-base.584 In 1964, for example, boys from the Haringey club were invited to visit the pirate radio station Radio Caroline,585 where they were allowed to interview pop stars.586 Warren Gold, a Carnaby Street businessman, visited his former youth club in April 1967 and talked with teenagers about fashion and youth culture.587 Frankie Vaughan supported youth work in a deprived Glasgow suburb.588 Tommy Steele founded Youth Ventures, supported by the Duke of Edinburgh and the Nuffield Foundation. The company provided premises for use by disenchanted youths. Venues were commercial and charged commercial prices, as Steele understood that kids did not want charity.589 Youth workers updated themselves on new youth-cultural developments and considered their potential for use in everyday youth work. Even for Christian youth clubs, popular culture had become relevant. Cool vicars organised beat sessions, and Christian pop groups were founded to

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spread the word of God.590 Experts warned that youth services would lose out to the competition unless they embraced popular culture.591 Particularly in large towns, the influence of youth clubs was rivalled.592 Initiatives allowed commercial businesses to work alongside youth leaders.593 The latter ones began to use pop to teach values they expected to be of relevance for modern times, and as such, pop began to be seen as no less important than “traditional education”. Even though pop culture had become part of youth work, many club organisers and financiers as well as leaders distinguished between “good” (valuable) and “bad” (valueless) pop cultural products. Services discouraged the concept of “paying for fun”, as this fostered the notion that “what I want I can pay for”. Values such as spending money wisely were still an integral part of youth work. Clubs in the mid-1960s, according to youth work expert J. P. Leighton, had to deal with the paradox that while mass culture gave individuals power and responsibility, “large-scale economic and social organisation, the extension of state control, and the development of mass media of communication […] largely neutralized the individual’s capacity to use those opportunities”.594 Thus, it was unclear whether commercial leisure was a useful ally for youth clubs.595 Ray Gosling felt that new leisure institutions were “commercialised, but […] still expressions of something very much alive”,596 and that clubs should adopt the successful aspects of commercial entertainment and use them instrumentally to address issues not touched upon by commercial leisure. Representatives of youth club associations agreed that it was important to keep pace with trends, but felt that middle-aged club leaders would lose respect by trying to appear “with it”.597 Others thought that pop was valueless, and that youth work should have nothing to do with such things.598 Many youth leaders still saw their task in offering things the commercial world did not offer, by taking “a real interest” in people.599 Youth services, however, neglected to ask why people enjoyed the passivity of doing. For many kids, passivity was the opposite of work, although a closer look reveals that work and pleasure were not entirely distinct. Rhythms of entertainment were often identical to rhythms of work. This is obvious for the ritual and monotony of the gambling machine. A survey on free time published in New Society in April 1965 indicates that doing nothing contrasted with the trend towards “more active” leisure in Britain.600 Doing nothing was also a reaction to the structure and order

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young people experienced at work: a fetish of productivity in modern capitalism which colonised free time. To keep pace with consumer and entertainment culture, youth associations published pamphlets which explored music and films in order to understand developments such as the fragmentation of tastes.601 Long before pop exploded, organisations such as the Standing Conference of Music Committees (SCMS) encouraged youth workers to develop young people’s interest in music.602 During the post-war years, Britain faced a democratisation of music-making in which youth clubs played an important role.603 Record sessions were a widespread tool to facilitate learning about different musical genres. Youth music committees also recommended holding live sessions in order to appeal to youngsters.604 Many youth clubs used pop to awaken young people’s interest in more sophisticated styles or in learning instruments and therefore provided access to instruments and practice rooms. On the other hand, music organisations criticised the omnipresence of background music, because passive consumption would make it difficult to train teenagers to listen to music.605 This reluctant attitude, however, could not stop that the jukebox, which conquered the clubs from the late 1950s onwards,606 had become the centre of club life and a great attraction,607 except for when it was not working. The question of whether a jukebox was a useful asset divided youth workers in the early 1960s.608 Some argued that the jukebox brought young people into clubs. Others argued that its presence disrupted the club programme or that renting was too expensive. To old-fashioned club leaders in particular, the jukebox was a symbol of everything that was “cheap, nasty, brash and vulgar in the modern age”.609 Recorded music also fostered dancing in youth clubs. Already during the war, the Central Council of Physical Recreation had declared that ballroom dancing was important for youth services because dancing was a national tradition.610 While traditional dancing was welcomed, the council disapproved of informal and modern dancing and wanted clubs to be a “counter-attraction to the dance halls”, teaching “dancing as an art and not merely as an amusement or a social occasion”.611 Dancing was welcome because it allowed for physical education, mental stimulus, and socialisation. In contrast to traditional dancing, characterised by moderate contact between the sexes, styles such as the jitterbug, associated with “black” popular culture, were seen as being driven by sexuality.612 Thus, young people who danced the jitterbug in free dance classes should be treated “as a joke”.613 For the Central Council of Physical Recreation,

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modern dancing had no value, whereas on the other hand dances such as ballet were “too specialised and rigorous”. Folk and community dancing were preferred, used to “break down inhibitions and self-­consciousness”,614 although such strategies did not hamper the popularity of modern dancing.615 Along with music and dancing, arts and crafts were a common feature of club programmes. Since the focus had moved from traditional forms to those inspired by pop culture, art students acted as volunteers, introducing modern materials and equipment.616 Pamphlets published by youth organisations illustrate that advances in media and technology prompted the introduction of activities such as film-making.617 Pop culture set the tone in drama classes, too, which had traditionally been used to foster personal development and self-confidence. In the Newhaven Boys’ Club’s production of James Bond in 1965, for example, the club used modern techniques and had no official script.618 Dealing with modern techniques also meant responding to the growth of motorised transport.619 It was a widespread assumption that urban life demanded road safety education to prepare young city dwellers in particular for the dangers of increasing traffic, given the dominance of cars and motorcycles in post-war cities. The Albemarle Report suggested that clubs run workshops for fixing and modifying scooters and motorbikes, in which teenagers could acquire the relevant skills.620 Such concessions to popular culture were also aimed at fostering the participation of black minority groups in youth services. In the aftermath of the Notting Hill Riots, the Guardian wrote that people felt that the youth service was Britain’s best chance of overcoming racial tensions.621 Services were surveyed when the early 1960s became the mid-1960s and special grants provided to promote integration.622 Efforts were accelerated during the 1960s, but were not always successful.623 Often, surveys were the first step in a critical examination of the relationship between race and the youth service. Youth committees, for example, reviewed membership data to see if more was needed to be done.624 Inspectors from the Ministry of Education called for new integration strategies625 and instructed services in areas with migrant communities to ensure that provision was made for black teenagers.626 In 1963, the LYC intensified its efforts and asked local youth committees to survey the numbers of black teenagers participating in local activities. Responses and efforts as well as reactions to the measurements, of course, differed from each other. Hackney Council criticised the term

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“colour problem” for its suggestion that such problems were the fault of the minority group.627 Black members, according to the Hackney youth committee, had “no difficulties in mixing”, and the main issue was simply the number of black youths involved in services.628 This, however, was thought to be driven by demography rather than a failure of youth work. Hackney at this time, in truth, had no black youth leaders and just lay pastors who were “active in religious groups”.629 Another issue was that social services for the black community in the area concentrated mainly on housing problems, and did “not take any positive action for young people”.630 In Islington, few clubs were run by immigrants for immigrants around 1963, while in Lambeth, no services explicitly catered for minority groups.631 In Notting Hill, six clubs served black teenagers.632 Experts described a general hostility towards West Indians.633 In Paddington, youth leaders were concerned about the integration of black teenagers and were convinced that such measures “would not work”.634 Deptford Council reported that “the majority do not attend youth clubs although encouraged to do so by the local clergy”.635 For the LCSS, there was in general no colour bar but “little evidence of actual encouragement to join”.636 Youth workers agreed and called for a proactive approach.637 The Immigrants’ Advisory Committee of the LCC, in contrast, went so far as to compare the situation in Britain with racial tensions in Italy and Germany in the 1930s.638 In reaction to the difficult standing of black youths in the youth services in London as well as in response to media coverages, working parties and governmental committees were founded.639 Integration efforts often targeted black Londoners because of their involvement in the post-war race riots. Further, Asian communities only expanded significantly in the second half of the 1960s. According to the SCNVYO, “migrant groups had their own problems with the existing youth service, [but] the biggest issues existed between the youth service and black minority groups”.640 It was expected that the greatest contribution to integration came from uniformed youth organisations. Spokesmen were proud that “there [was] no colour bar” in the Boys’ Brigade,641 and race relations experts attributed the success of uniformed groups to the notion that the immigrant youth was “told exactly what is expected of him and this gives him confidence and belonging”.642 Youth work experts were convinced that the Boys’ Brigade and the Boy Scouts, thanks to their religious foundations, were receptive to black families, although in 1959 an official asked why his organisation has so “few […] coloured members”.643 Nevertheless, it was expected—also on the basis of racist stereotypes—that

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the “appeal of parades, brass bands, uniform and discipline” was compatible with the West Indian approach to education. The old-fashioned character of these groups, so the assumption, would found favour with West Indian parents, who were keen for their offspring to participate in wholesome activities.644 People involved in youth services were divided on the question of who and what was responsible for low participation among immigrants. Some blamed prejudice on the part of management committees, as well as among youth leaders and members.645 Reports of discriminatory behaviour were said to be “often passed on by adults who are sensitive about hostility”.646 The LYC claimed to have observed that British girls were accepting of people’s differences, whereas boys perceived black teenagers as rivals.647 On top of this, experts knew that racism among parents presented a barrier to integration. At the annual Southwest Region Leaders’ Conference in 1969, attendees held poor housing responsible for low numbers of black members, along with prejudice within the education system.648 Politics too could have had an impact on the participation of black youths. “Before Enoch Powell spoke,” said a headmaster of a school in south London in April 1969, adding that since the speech, kids “learned to hate one another and they no longer walk together”.649 Migrant communities themselves were regularly subject to criticism. Some youth committees believed that parental attitudes could hamper integration.650 Often, according to the LYC, West Indian parents advised their children not to mix because of their own experiences of racism. Further, they would have seen indigenous working-class youngsters as being dirty, untrustworthy, and unsuitable companions for their offspring.651 Parents would have been also stricter than their white counterparts, particularly in respect of their daughters, said the LYC in a meeting in early July 1963.652 Additionally, the Department of Education and Science considered “living on the margin of two cultures” and “dual authority” to be factors in their difficult relationship with youth services.653 Youth workers blamed the failure to address the needs of black youth on a lack of funding.654 Others went so far as to say that isolation was a natural consequence of migration and that it is the task of youth clubs anyway to “deal with the mainstream […], not the minority groups”.655 One important reason for racial discord was that youth leaders did not treat black youths as individuals but as representatives of a foreign culture. Many clubs were blind to the common issues faced by teenagers living within migrant or post-migrant communities,656 which meant that youth

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clubs only appealed to black youths when they were run by and explicitly catered for kids in society often misleadingly labelled as “immigrants”.657 Such clubs were heavily attended by local youths whom youth leaders with a migration background knew from street work.658 The lack of funding, however, meant that many had issues in finding accommodation and must use inadequate facilities.659 Similar to their counterparts, black youth clubs often failed to attract “European boys and girls”.660 At the same time, these clubs encountered their own unique issues. Racist policing put pressure on black youth clubs and, according to a “Police/Immigrant Relations” report for Islington in 1972, had been known to result in their closure.661 In comparison to other youth services, black youth groups regularly preferred an informal setting which black youth leaders saw as integral to black culture, and to the subcultural setting which separated black Londoners from mainstream society.662 Youth associations were founded within migrant and later on post-migrant communities, who realised that not enough was being done for their offspring.663 Such associations, however, often focused on educational support and did not provide for leisure interests. The forerunners of these associations were umbrella organisations of already well-established urban sub-communities. The AJY, for example, operated via international Jewish youth networks and the Maccabi movement. Similar to mainstream youth services, British Jewish youth organisations in the 1960s came under pressure from the ever-growing commercial leisure market, and likewise suffered from a lack of volunteers. For many, Jewish clubs had similar connotations to those run by the Church.664 Some clubs focused on Jewish education as their unique selling point and prioritised the teaching of Jewish culture over integration. In general, however, clubs dealt with the same social and spatial changes in London as others. “Post-war dispersal” similarly led to the founding of new clubs.665 666 Officials of the youth service announced in the late 1960s that efforts towards integration were paying off. Although the Hunt Committee still highlighted problems, the NAYC was convinced that training would address these. Almost all organisations, reported the SCNVYO in 1966, would have been able to improve racial integration in recent years.667 For further steps, said the Standing Committee of National Voluntary Youth Organisations, youth leaders should (1) “encourage immigrants to feel at

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home in their groups”; (2) “recognise that issues pertaining to unattached youth have similarities with those of immigrant teenagers”668 (3) “provide for immigrants by using the benefits of a more affluent society”; (4) “integrate adult immigrants”; (5) “use the success of uniformed organisations to break down barriers in the latter phases”; and, finally, (6) “take up the integrational power provided by visiting students”.669 In structural terms, the SCNVYO recommended that youth clubs encourage black and other kids from migrant and post-migrant communities to stay on beyond school-leaving age, as statistics showed that this supported integration.670 One major problem was that people of colour who had been born in Britain were still seen as immigrants, although their expectations, life experiences, and skills differed markedly.671 The Inner London Education Authority soon regarded the term “immigrant” as being misleading as many youngsters had already settled in the country or had even been born in Britain.672 This can be illustrated, so the ILEA, by the fact that black British-born teenagers often mixed extremely well with their white British counterparts, as opposed to “West Indian newcomers arriving here in their middle teens”.673 Such discussions indicate that some players had begun to treat teenagers of colour as individuals, not just affiliated with sub-communities but also with life stages and gender-related behaviours.674 The difficulties encountered by those arriving in cities from a rural setting were addressed by scholars and youth workers with a high awareness level, as well as the specific needs of girls, whose relationship with youth services was hampered by social restrictions as well as engagement in domestic work.675 It was, for example, stressed that attracting Asian girls was a challenge for Indian-run youth clubs, but was aided by the integration of older women. Asian girls would have been also felt insecure about attending because of the dominance of boys and in addition were tired after work and often had to help at home. Additionally, scholars stressed on multiracial youth work in 1969 that it suffered from a lack of both weekend sessions and special programmes.676 Other reports noted an “increasing reluctance of local parents to accept social mixing, particularly between the sexes, as their children grow older”, while some immigrant parents felt “that certain clubs and groups are undesirable”.677 Mixing and integration had become key terms in discussions on the modernisation of youth services by the mid-1960s. Information material prepared staff for the difficulties that arose when black teenagers wanted to attend clubs.678 While it was hoped that strategies such as the

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integration of club members into club committees, or a focus on common interests, particularly with regard to popular culture, might improve the climate,679 youth workers were aware that racism was a complex social phenomenon. Often, it was no surprise when youths called members of the black community names such as “dirty niggers” and at the same time welcomed their offspring at the local boxing gym.680 To help identify the right strategy for fighting racism in youth clubs, British youth services looked abroad and studied how schemes in the US managed integration.681 Success or failure, however, was not guaranteed by schemes but by individuals. Some club leaders took an interest in the lives of black youths and went to local cafés specifically to invite black and Asian teens.682 In response to the animosity of members, they argued that skin colour did not matter, and in doing so aided the transition to a multiracial society in which people were seen as individuals rather than representatives of race. Inter-club activities helped facilitate exchange when there was an imbalance in the membership structure.683 Experts who were invited into youth clubs to look at racism and racial integration684 found that the efforts of youth workers had paid off. Youngsters from Stepney now saw their neighbourhood as being “like the British Commonwealth” and felt that new generational attitudes would replace the prejudices of their parents.685 In boroughs where residents had roots in Africa, India, Greece, and Poland as well as England, youth workers had to serve the needs of a variety of communities. The ethnic composition of areas, of course, was never stable. In the neighbourhood of the Railton Community Centre, for example, the “flight to the suburbs” had diminished the number of English residents so significantly that the centre found itself located in one of the last white working-class enclaves in Brixton.686 Its club leader tried to prevent his youth centre from becoming dominated by white working-class teenagers by catering for the needs of local black youngsters. He also decided to accept even those who had been excluded from other clubs because of their reputation. After receiving panicked phone calls from nearby youth clubs warning that a dangerous gang was on its way to Brixton, John Stott, the leader of the Railton youth club, decided to open his doors to them. Over a couple of weeks, the Gypsies settled in, and while some of the “original members […] went to other clubs”, many others became friends with the gang.687 Other parts of Britain, too, announced that they had their own mixed-­ race clubs.688 Some multiracial clubs in London decided to export their

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ethos to surrounding areas and visited places such as the Cotswolds. In Nottingham, the Redford Youth Centre was located in a working-class neighbourhood, which had been the setting for Alan Sillitoe’s novel, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. The arrival of West Indians in Redford provoked conflict and animosity. Problems had come to a head after a black boy hit a white girl, and parents forbade their children from attending as long as blacks were welcomed.689 The youth leader was able to avoid splitting by insisting that West Indian and English members remain segregated during club activities. In Brixton, too, the Guardian wrote in 1969, the situation often looked similar.690 The youth leader in Nottingham did not see segregation as a problem at all, as he felt it reflected natural differences. He criticised the formal concept of integration691 and explained his approach using various stereotypes.692 As integration had in reality faced a huge variety of challenges, and black youths nevertheless needed somewhere to go, youth experts began to regard separate youth clubs that catered exclusively for minority groups as a second-best option. The Hunt Report, published in 1967, paved the way for a central discussion about integration policy in youth work. The committee working for the government denied that young people had no interest in mixing, and called for the integration of black and Asian youngsters using schemes designed for unattached youth.693 At the same time, however, the report argued that teenagers should have the right to choose with whom they wanted to spend their free time.694 All-immigrant clubs were no longer seen as a hindrance to integration, in part because youth workers emphasised that such clubs were “the only way to meet the needs of the young people concerned”.695 The term integration itself came under fire. Although it had previously been interpreted as meaning assimilation into a “British” way of life, the word now had a different meaning. Culture was no longer seen as a deterministic and static factor. The Hunt Committee supported the policy of Home Secretary Roy Jenkins, who felt that “integration” is finally a “loose word”. Philip Mason, director of the Institute of Race Relations, complained that terms used in race relations policy were not clearly defined, and supported the shift towards abandoning the idea that full assimilation was necessary for integration, as Britain no longer had a homogenous culture anyway.696 For too many youth leaders, though, “integration means mixing whether or not they want to mix, and when they say ‘they don’t want to integrate’ they really mean they don’t want to mix”.697 Previously experts

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had argued that clubs catering for a group defined by race were acting against the law. This was somewhat ironic, given that the majority of clubs in practice catered only for English members. Youth workers and politicians were divided over the value of separate clubs.698 For some, British society was not ready for integration, and separate clubs represented the only chance for West Indian youngsters to be treated equally, by giving them their own place to go. Thus separate clubs were assigned the status of a “forced second choice”,699 as the Hunt Committee accepted that multiracial clubs were more of a dream than a realistic proposition. The committee did not support the idea of “segregated societies, because this implies that the immigrants should be kept and maintained as separate entities”. Moreover, the Hunt Report rejected integration as a short-term goal and concentrated on its long-term potential, agreeing that it could succeed once both sides were ready. In preparation for a multiracial society, it was thought that black and Asian teenagers needed to develop a sense of their own community as something within the context of which they were able to make a distinctive contribution to the social and cultural life of the city. Hospitality to their own community could then be expanded to incorporate hospitality towards the host society. Legitimisation and criticism came from different angles. Some experts remarked on the need for West Indian girls to relax among friends of their own community following their experience of racism.700 Others linked the concept of separate youth clubs with the wider fragmentation of British society.701 Another group felt that different neighbourhood settings required their own integration policies. P. M. Dines suggested that multiculturalism placed too much emphasis on skin colour, binding young people to the cultures of their parents.702 Some considered separate youth clubs to be helpful as long as their members participated in inter-club activities.703 The chairman of the  Yorkshire Keighley International Friendship Committee fully rejected the concept of separate clubs, saying this implies “that racial groups should live in separate communities” and by so doing opens the door for “apartheid”.704 In terms of policy-making, the Hunt Report paved the way for separate youth clubs. In reality, however, separate clubs encountered difficulties in applying for funding.705 The West Indian League Youth Service (WILYS) wrote to Prime Minister Harold Wilson on 12 March 1969, asking for financial support,706 stating that in his view, separate clubs were necessary to ensure integration in the longer term.

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The Home Office expressed its unease that the club was primarily for West Indian teenagers. The letter stated that the government was “opposed to clubs which discriminate on grounds of race and colour; and it is contrary to Government policy to assist such clubs from public funds”.707 Equally, however, the letter’s signatory was aware that black people were confronted with discrimination every day. He referred to the Hunt Report and stated, that on the basis of the report, the WILYS seemed too eager to accept what the Hunt Committee had called “an evasive, second-best solution”.708 An internal exchange of letters followed between the Home Office and the Department of Education and Science, discussing the pros and cons of racially mixed and separate youth clubs. Pros and cons had been normally discussed under the umbrella of the question how the urban society should look like in the near future. The vision of a post-Victorian future, was, of course, contested and the question what it meant to live in a post-Victorian city, so the argument of the final chapter, had not just been raised by parliaments, newsmakers, education specialists, and other representatives but also in a variety of urban places which had been catered to or which had been dominated by London’s working-class youth. Coffee bars, night time as well as youth clubs gave young urban citizens the space to ask how the post-Victorian future of their city should look like and brought teens into the situation to make sense out of social, cultural, and demographic change. In music venues, coffee bars, and youth clubs, London’s youth must deal with a fast emerging multicultural society and were able to break out of a variety of moral shackles which regulated the up-growing of previous generations. London and its leisure venues were not just empty containers without agency in which young people could navigate between the Victorian past and the post-Victorian future but themselves pushed young people to formulate answers on Britain’s self-narrative and its position within the fast-­ changing post-war world.

Notes 1. Gardiner, Wartime: Britain, 1939–1945. For the dance hall as a morale boost, see Frank Mee, “The Dance Hall, Wartime Escape,” in: WW2 People’s War: An archive of World War Two memories—written by the public, gathered by the BBC, 23 April 2004.

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2. Harper and Porter, British Cinema of the 1950s, 243–264. For cinemas as social space, see O’Leary, Youth and Popular Culture in 1950s Ireland, 103–106; Holmes, British Television and Film Culture in the 1950s, 102 f. 3. For riots in Germany, see Poiger, Jazz, Rock and Rebels, 89  f. For Denmark, see Michelsen, “Above all, it’s because he’s English …,” 500. 4. “Rock’n’Roll Scenes: Press Blamed,” The Manchester Guardian, 19 September 1956. 5. “Now Those Cinema Rowdies Can Be Charged,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 7 April 1961. 6. Berkoff, Free Association, 13. 7. Street-Porter, Baggage, 206. 8. See Spraos, The Decline of the Cinema; Laing, Representations of Working Class Life, 109–111. 9. Feldman, “We Are The Mods”, 104. 10. Osgerby, “One For the Money, Two For the Show”, 275. 11. Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 31. 12. “‘Aimless Café Society’ of Juveniles,” The Times, 9 December 1958. 13. Mays, “Teen-Age Culture in Contemporary Britain and Europe,” 103 f. 14. Osgerby, “One For the Money, Two For the Show”, 143. For more on coffee bar culture and policing, see Jackson, “The Coffee Club Menace,” 293 f. 15. “Hooliganism worries Council. Police difficulties,” Hackney Gazette, 6 October 1964. See also ITV documentary Living for Kicks (1960). 16. See Osgerby, “One For the Money, Two For the Show”, 100–102. 17. “Coffee bars ‘should be regulated’,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 29 December 1961. 18. “Coffee bars—no action,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 23 March 1962. 19. “Boy was purple hearts go-between,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 14 February 1964. 20. “Youths fined after cafe incident,” Hackney Gazette, 27 October 1964. 21. See also “A noisy noise annoys,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 22 December 1961; “Cafe juke box ‘nuisance’”, Hackney Gazette, 15 January 1960. 22. See Horn, Juke Box Britain; Hebdige, Subculture, 50. 23. “Jukeboxes: An asset or a menace?,” Challenge, Winter 1961/62. 24. “The Top Twenty Come to the Public Bar,” The Manchester Guardian, 30 November 1956; “Juke Box in a Church,” The Manchester Guardian, 9 September 1952. 25. John Simons, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, 6. 26. See Horn, Juke Box Britain. 27. “A Cup of Coffee, A Book of Verse—And Thou,” The Manchester Guardian, 24 November 1956. 28. Kellett, Fathers and Sons, 29 f.

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29. Scala, Diary of a Teddy Boy; Dixon, Bobby on the Beat, 151. 30. Two examples were The Golden Dis (1958) and The Tommy Steele Story (1957). See Donnelly, Pop Music in British Cinema, 5. 31. Kellett, Fathers and Sons, 29. 32. Lloyd Johnson, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 217. 33. John Simons, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, 6. 34. Morse, The Unattached, 76; Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 31. 35. Brighton and Hove Herald, 5 July 1958. 36. Inwood, Historic London, 54; Fyvel, Insecure Offenders, 23 f. 37. Clements, Youth Cultures in the Mixed Economy of the Welfare, 23. 38. Nathaus, “‘All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go’?,” 43. 39. John Leo Waters, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, 39. 40. Goetschius and Tash, The Report of the London Y.W.C.A.  Coffee Stall Project, 44. 41. Willmott, Adolescent boys of East London, 31 f. See also Feldman, “We are the Mods,” 84. 42. See Fyvel, The Insecure Offenders, 97 f. 43. Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 31; Fyvel, Insecure Offenders, 96. 44. “Coffee Bar romance,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 20 February 1959. 45. Goetschius and Tash, The Report of the London Y.W.C.A.  Coffee Stall Project, 44. 46. Fyvel, The Insecure Offenders, 100. 47. See Pincus, “‘Coffee Politicians Does Create’”; Habermas, The structural transformation of the public sphere; Melton, The Rise of the Public in Enlightenment Europe. 48. See Richardson, London & Its People, 331. 49. For Lyons in London, see Oddy, From Plain Fare to Fusion Food, 106; Graham, Gone To The Shops, 102; Shaw et al., “Creating New Spaces of Food Consumption,” 93. 50. See Sennett, The Fall of Public Man. 51. In America, coffee was rationed from 1942 onwards. For the growth of coffee consumption, see also Ellis, The Coffee-House, 225; Burnett, Liquid Pleasures, 72. 52. Horn, Juke Box Britain, 180; Bradley, “Rational Recreation in the Age of Affluence,” 76. For Peter Hennessy’s comment on Hoggart’s idea that milk bars personified modern British youth culture in the early 1950s, see Hennessy, Having it So Good, 15. For Hoggart, the juke box boys, and British Anti-Americanism, see Moran, “Milk Bars, Starbucks, and the Use of Literacy”. 53. Bramah, Tea & Coffee, 68; Clayton, London Coffee Houses, 147. For the precise history of espresso, see Anthony Wild, Coffee, 271–284. 54. Ellis, The Coffee-House, 228.

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55. See Burnett, England Eats Out. 56. Terence Conran, in: Gardiner, From the bomb to the Beatles, 7. 57. See Pendergrast, Uncommon Grounds. 58. “London Drinks Coffee,” The American Mercury 83, 1956. 59. Partington, “The London Coffee Bar of the 1950s,” 3. 60. See Lyons, America in the British Imagination, 31; Rappaport, A Thirst for Empire, 384. 61. Look at Life short film Coffee Bar (1959). 62. Ellis, The Coffee House; Clayton, London’s Coffee Houses, 148; Humphries and Taylor, The making of modern London, 33. 63. See Partington, “The London Coffee Bar of the 1950s”, 1. 64. See Brocken, Other Voices, 31; Osgerby, “The Young Ones,” 14. 65. Moran, “Milk Bars, Starbucks and The Uses of Literacy,” 556; Lentz, The Influential Factor, 19. 66. Ellis, The Coffee-House, 244. 67. Parham, Food and Urbanism, 190–197. 68. Mays, “Teen-Age Culture in Contemporary Britain and Europe,” 26. 69. “The Coffee-bar Crusaders,” Challenge, Spring 1960. 70. Jackson and Bartie, Policing youth, 194. 71. See “Draft Copy Evaluation of First Three Work of ‘Portobello Project’”, 1. 72. “Coffee bars for ‘teen-agers’”, The Times, 22 March 1958. 73. Skiffle was welcome in youth clubs because the music was seen as “politically correct” in contrast to the “jungle music” of rock ‘n’ roll. See Brocken, The British Folk Revival, 74. 74. “Labour coffee bars for youth,” The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post, 13 April 1960. 75. Sandbrook, Never had it so good, 133. 76. Johnny Powell, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 68; Booker, Neophiliacs, 39. 77. For politicisation of coffee bar life, see Ellis, The Coffee-House, 238, 240–44. 78. “Pact to kill Shah ‘began in London coffee bar’,” The Guardian, 9 May 1965. 79. Scala, Diary of a Teddy Boy, 29 f. 80. See Quant, Mary Quant, chapter “The Floating Crap Game”; Miles, London Calling, chapter “The Big Beat”. See also Longrigg, A High-­ Pitched Buzz. 81. See “So we went out to reach them in the coffee bars,” Youth Review, Autumn 1972, 9. 82. Willmott, Adolescent boys of East London, 31 f. 83. See Fyvel, The Insecure Offenders, 98. 84. Osgerby, “One For the Money, Two For the Show”, 145.

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85. Paul Reilly, “London coffee bars,” Architecture and Building, March 1955, 85. 86. See Fyvel, Insecure Offenders, 98. 87. “Coffee comes to Town,” The Guardian, 6 April 1956. 88. Fyvel, The Insecure Offenders, 100 f. 89. John Pearson, “Revolution Espresso,” The Listener, 5 January 1956, 10. For locality in youth culture, see also Fowler, Youth Culture in Modern Britain, 30–58. 90. Osgerby, “One For the Money, Two For the Show”, 194. 91. Panayi, Spicing up Britain, 162. 92. See Bramah and Bramah, Coffee Makers. 93. Berkoff, Free Association, 13. 94. Panayi, Spicing up Britain, 157. 95. King, “Italian Migration to Britain,” 176. 96. Girelli, Beauty and the Beast, 48. 97. Berkoff, Free Association, 13. 98. Fyvel, The Insecure Offenders, 98–100. 99. Martha Gelhorn, “So Awful To Be Young—Or, Morning to Midnight in Espresso Bars,” Encounter 6:5 (1956). 100. See Partington, “The London Coffee Bar of the 1950s,” 3. 101. See Hardyment, Slices of Life, 80. 102. S. Gardiner, “Coffee bars,” Architectural Review, September 1955, 168. 103. See Barry, Tales from Soho. 104. Short documentary on Crazy Cafe, Hayes, Kent, British Pathé (1959). 105. Documentary on the El Cubano coffee house in Kensington, British Pathé (1955). 106. See also Clayton, London’s Coffee Houses, 150. 107. See “A Cup of Coffee, A Book of Verse—And Thou,” The Manchester Guardian, 24 November 1956. 108. John Pearson, “Revolution Espresso,” The Listener, 5 January 1956, 10. 109. Roberts, Leisure in Contemporary Society, 135. For Wimpy bars, see Burnett, England Eats Out. 110. Scala, Diary of a Teddy Boy, 29. See also Gildart, Images of England Through Popular Music, 72. For Bristol, see Brown, Booted and Suited, 18. 111. “So we went out to reach them in the coffee bars”. For mixing and coffee bars, see “Coffee Bar Skiffles,” The Manchester Guardian, 21 October 1956. 112. Ellis, The Coffee-House, 233 f. 113. Fyvel, The Insecure Offenders, 102 f. 114. “Cup of Coffee, A Book of Verse—And Thou”. 115. Eric Wainwright, “Coffee Bar Capers,” Daily Mirror, 18 November 1959.

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116. See “1950s London Coffee Shop, Rock n Roll Calypso,” released by The Kinolibrary on: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=4_yx4jujCZ0 (accessed on 23 February 2018). 117. Haslam, Life after Dark; Thornton, Club Cultures; Burrows, From CBGB to the Roundhouse; Allen, London Gig Venues. For the geography of London’s nightlife, see Wooldridge, Rock ‘n’ Roll London. 118. “A whole scene swinging … that’s London’s brash new clubland,” The Daily Telegraph, 13 May 1966. 119. Many of these places were promoted by magazines like Men Only or London Life. See “Night-Life,” London Life, 30 October—5 November 1966; “Party Time,” London Life, 28 May 1966; “After Bunny-Day … Will London ever be the same again?,” London Life, 2 July 1966. 120. See “This way to the speakeasy,” New Musical Express, on sale Friday, week ending 20 May 1967; “Piccadilly Playground of the Stars,” “At the Revolution in London,” New Musical Express, on sale Friday, week ending 3 August 1968. 121. Wolfe, “The Girl of the Year 1964”. 122. “NO EASY MONEY in discotheques,” The Sunday Telegraph, 30 June 1968. 123. Brain Crane, in: Anderson, Mods, 84. 124. Pete Sinacola, in: Anderson, Mods, 84. 125. John Leo Waters, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 144. 126. Street-Porter, Baggage, 132. 127. Deighton, London Dossier, 174 f. 128. Pat Farrell, in: Anderson, Mods, 164. 129. “All Night Long. The Way You Live,” Boyfriend, 5 January 1963. 130. See Geary, “British Working Class Culture”; Nott, Going to the Palais; Beaven, Leisure, Citizenship and Working-class Men in Britain, 173  f.; Abra, Dancing in the English Style, 44–105; August, The British Working Class, 51–67, 127–145; Tebbutt, Being Boys. 131. Hamblett and Deverson, Generation X, 2. 132. Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 41. 133. Rob Nicholls, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 65. 134. “Can You Invent A New Dance?,” Mod’s Monthly, March 1964. 135. Geoff Green, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 63. 136. “Why Have We Revived Jive?,” Pop Weekly, Week Ending 8 February 1964. 137. See Dena Sprigens, in: Anderson, Mods, 43. 138. “Why are Mods so much in the News?,” Mod’s Monthly, March 1964. For a counter-reaction, see “Peppi’s Pop Dance Page,” Boyfriend, 9 May 1964. For the rising popularity of blue beat, see Hamblett and Deverson, Generation X, 15.

390 

F. FUHG

139. Brewster and Broughton, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, 70; Brewster and Broughton, The Record Players, 25–37; Earl and Sell, The Theatres Trust Guide, 123 f. 140. Barnes, Mods, 123; Inglis, Popular Music and Television, 79. 141. Pat Farrell, in: Anderson, Mods, 152; Ann Sullivan, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 73 f. 142. Rylatt and Scott, “The North Shall Dance Again,” 70. 143. “Can You Invent A New Dance?” 144. Hamblett and Deverson, Generation X, 12. 145. Bielawski, A Celebration of Black History through Music, 23. For more on the Twist see Sagolla, Rock ‘n’ Roll Dances, 77–98. 146. “As Twist hits the chart top Chubby Checker and Joey Dee reveal how they started to do it—and why!,” New Musical Express, 23 February 1962. See also Cole, Sh-Boom. 147. Rees and Crampton, Rock Movers & Shakers, 48. For Checker’s copying, see Rosenberg, Rock and Roll and the American Landscape, 51. 148. Giordano, Social Dancing in America, 179. 149. For more information, see Johnson et al., Peppermint Twist. 150. John Leyton, “The Twist,” Boyfriend, 27 January 1962. See also Taylor, Let’s Twist Again. 151. See Booker, Neophiliacs, 47. 152. Lyons, America in the British Imagination, 22; Brewster, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, 68. 153. Jeff Dexter, in: Anderson, Mods, 24. 154. “The Pied Piper of Twist,” Boyfriend, 3 February 1962. 155. Marigold Harmsworth, “They’re going to twist all night,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 16 February 1962. 156. “Twist! Question-time with the originator Chubby Checker,” New Musical Express, 26 January 1962. 157. “Now Frankie Vaughan does tearaway twist!,” New Musical Express, 26 January 1962. Cliff Richard, in contrast, already said in February 1964 that the twist was fading away. See “J stands for … all that Jazz,” Jackie, 29 February 1964. 158. “Introducing Kim Fowley, who has brought the cult of ‘freaking out’ to shake London,” London Life, 13 August 1966. 159. “Soviet is seeking a twist antidote; so far, 50 dances, including the ‘Slag Heap,’ failed,” The New  York Times, 5 April 1964; Tsipursky, Socialist Fun, 171. 160. “Ideology in the Ballroom,” The Guardian, 7 December 1959. 161. Rust, Dance in Society, 131. 162. Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 56.

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163. Henderson, Making the Scene, 96; Hendricks, Popular Fads and Crazes, 376 f. 164. Brooke, “Bodies, Sexuality and the ‘modernization’ of the British Working Classes,” 118. 165. Hamblett and Deverson, Generation X, 119. 166. “Boys Too Shy at Twinning Dance. French girls disappointed,” Hackney Gazette, 25 July 1969. 167. Rob Nicholls, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 65. 168. “Introducing Kim Fowley, who has brought the cult of ‘freaking out’ to shake London”. 169. Harry Shapiro, “‘London’s Speeding’,” 73. See also Shapiro, Waiting for the Man. 170. Patrick Uden, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 75. 171. British Medical Association, The Misuse of Drugs, 47. 172. P. H. Connell, “What To Do About Pep Pills,” New Society, 20 February 1964. For clinical studies see A. D. Macdonald, “Dependence on drugs,” New Scientist, 7 May 1964; P. H. Connell, “Amphetamine Misuse: The Present Position with regard to Misuse of Amphetamine and Amphetamine Barbiturate Mixtures,” British Journal for Addiction 60 (1964), 9–27. 173. Church of England Council for Social Aid, Drug-Dependence in Britain: Church of England Council for Social Aid, Drug-Dependence in Britain, 8. 174. Alexander Trocchi, “Why Drugs?,” New Society, 20 May 1965. 175. Arnold Linken, “The Young Drug-Takers,” The Sunday Times Magazine, 27 January 1963. 176. Childs and Storry, “Drug Culture,” 161. 177. Linken, “The Young Drug-Takers”. 178. See “The age of identity,” Daily Mirror, 3 September 1969. 179. See Connell, “What To Do About Pep Pills”. For a statistical evaluation, see Zacune and Hensman, Drugs, Alcohol and Tobacco, 109–118. 180. Geoffrey Smith, “The Drug Scene in Hackney,” Hackney Gazette, 20 February 1970. 181. See United Nations, Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961. 182. Church of England Council for Social Aid, Drug-Dependence in Britain, 7. 183. London Youth Committee, decision taken at a meeting held on Monday 1 June 1964, LMA EO/HFE/1/258. 184. Shoreditch Borough Youth Committee, Annual Report to 31 August 1964, LMA EO/HFE/2/282; “Stepney Worried About Young ‘Junkies’”, Hackney Gazette, 23 March 1967. 185. Smith, “The Drug Scene in Hackney”. 186. Church of England Council for Social Aid, Drug-Dependence in Britain, 7.

392 

F. FUHG

187. Sheila Yeger, “Weekend Junkies,” New Society, 19 February 1970. 188. Michael Hamlyn, “Parents urge war on ‘pep pill barons’,” The Sunday Times, 26 January 1964. For such cases see “Witness denies living in ‘dream world’,” The Guardian, 7 January 1960; “Three for Trial on Drugs Charges,” Hackney Gazette, 21 March 1967. 189. Michael Hamlyn, “Parents urge war on ‘pep pill barons’,” The Sunday Times, 26 January 1964. 190. “Drugs and Weapons Found in Raid on Club,” Hackney Gazette, 25 May 1965; “Sixty Police in Drug Swoop on Soho Club,” Daily Mirror, 1 February 1965. 191. Pete Sinacola, in: Anderson, Mods, 163. 192. “Teenagers and drugs: council seek more power over clubs,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 18 March 1966. 193. Church of England Council for Social Aid, Drug-Dependence in Britain, 13. 194. Ibid. 195. See Colin MacInnes, “Out of the Way. The problem,” New Society, 2 March 1967. 196. Ian R. Hebditch, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 75. For the average price of pep pills, see Linken, “The Young Drug-Takers”. 197. See Connell, “What To Do About Pep Pills”. For more information see Yates, “A Brief History of British Drug Policy”; Barton, Illicit Drugs, 39–52. 198. See “384 Teenagers in Soho Room,” The Times, 18 February 1965; “Six held in 2.30 a.m. raid on teenage pop club,” Daily Mail, 24 April 1967; “Police found Hemp in Club,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 20 March 1959. 199. Pete Sinacola, in: Anderson, Mods, 163. See also Rasmussen, On Speed, 239; Coleman, Addicts and Addiction, 24. 200. Linken, “The Young Drug-Takers”. 201. Nigel Fountain, “The Telephone Mob,” New Society, 18 January 1968. 202. For the history of amphetamine prescription, see Fleming, “Experimental amphetamine maintenance prescribing,” 133 f.; Zacune and Hensman, Drugs, Alcohol and Tobacco in Britain, 110 f. 203. See “Stepney Worried About Young ‘Junkies’”, Hackney Gazette, 23 March 1967. 204. Haslam, Life after Dark, 142; Durlacher and Joseph, Speed, 45; Beeler, Dance, Drugs and Escape, 120. 205. “Britain: Alcohol Use and Policy,” in: Korsmeyer and Kranzler, Encyclopedia of Drugs, Alcohol & Addictive Behavior, 248. 206. Bakalar et al., The Speed Culture, 18 f.; Rasmussen, On Speed, 63 f.

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207. Yeger, “Weekend Junkies”. The same point was already made by the Church of England in 1967. See Church of England Council for Social Aid, Drug-Dependence in Britain, 7. 208. “Increase in clubs a ‘serious evil’,” Westminster & Pimlico News, December 1960. 209. Ibid. 210. “Residents object to ‘teenage’ club,” The Times, 7 January 1967. 211. “Ad-Lib Club MUST cut down noise or close,” Daily Mail, 2 September 1964. 212. See “The ‘fabulous fluffles’. Danced in ‘The Rake’”, Hackney Gazette, 15 January 1960. 213. Haslam, Life after Dark, 81. 214. Frith et al., History of Live Music in Britain Vol. 1, 38. 215. “Critic urged. Invitation from striptease club manager,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 28 August 1959. 216. “Gaming clubs curb to be speeded,” Daily Mail, 3 September 1966. 217. See also “Clubs Face Strict Controls,” The Times, 6 August 1966. 218. “Licensees are warned,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 14 February 1964. For illegal selling of alcohol at The Flamingo, see Jeffrey Kruger, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, 17. 219. “NO EASY MONEY in discotheques,” The Sunday Telegraph, 30 June 1968. 220. See “Dancer Shaken Up By Twist,” Daily Telegraph and Morning Post, 30 June 1963. 221. Talbot, Regulating the Night. 222. Frith et al., The History of Live Music in Britain Vol. 1, 34. 223. Foley, Governing the London Region, 147. 224. “Clubs Face Strict Controls,” The Times, 6 August 1966. 225. Gildart, Images of England, 102. 226. “Cafe gets second ‘no’,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 12 January 1962; “Club struck off: £430 fines,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 2 February 1962. 227. “Don’t reduce Chelsea to the dreary mediocrity of a provincial town ‘plea’,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 2 February 1962. 228. Ibid. 229. “‘Juke-Box’ in Milk Bar,” The Manchester Guardian, 21 March 1950. 230. “No ‘Juke-Box’ for Jo’s Cafe,” The Manchester Guardian, 14 January 1950. 231. “Processional Jive Planned: Young People’s Protest Over Juke Box Ban,” The Times, 30 March 1959. 232. See “Shady clubs. Serious problem in Westminster,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 16 January 1959.

394 

F. FUHG

233. Allen, London Gig Venues. 234. Jeffrey Kruger, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, 3. 235. Shoreditch Borough Youth Committee, Leisure Time Survey: A Preliminary Report, attached to proceedings of a meeting of the Shoreditch Youth Committee held on Monday 12 April 1965, LMA EO/HFE/2/282. 236. Tony Miles and Patrick Doncaster, “The Teenagers of Soho,” Daily Mirror, 1 April 1957. 237. Jeffrey Kruger, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, 3. 238. See Carlos and Vincent Marcello, in: Billboard, 30 March 1959 and for London the family business of the Richardsons, Billboard, 27 June 1960. For money-making and jukeboxes see “Jukeboxes: An asset or a menace?,” Challenge, Winter 1961/62. 239. William Newman, “The protection racket—and why police are powerless,” The Guardian, 17 July 1964. 240. See “Brave New Underworld,” New Statesman, 12 August 1960. 241. Deighton, London Dossier, 163. 242. See “Youth Seems to Go Mad after West End Trips,” Hackney Gazette, 5 August 1968. 243. Deighton, London Dossier, 158. 244. For the Colony Room, see Parkin, The Colony Room. 245. “All-night jiver collapses,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 23 January 1959; “Musician falls from club window,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 23 September 1960. 246. “Top Spots for Mods,” Mod’s Monthly, March 1964. 247. “What’s in the pop store for ‘65?,” Jackie, 16 January 1965. 248. “Folk Club for the People,” Hackney Gazette, 2 October 1964. For folk clubs see Rory McEwen, “Bard of the folk song boom,” New Society, 20 May 1965. 249. See “The Way In to the Way-Outs,” Rave, May 1964. 250. “Club with the 007 Touch,” Jackie, 8 October 1966. 251. Tony Miles, “Mamboland,” Daily Mirror, 27 August 1955. 252. John Leo Waters, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, 23. 253. Brian Crane, in: Anderson, Mods, 81. 254. Deighton, London Dossier, 22. 255. John Leo Waters, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, 22. 256. “You’re Way Out if you’re In,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 3 September 1965. 257. “Top Spots for Mods. Where is Your Favourite Club?,” Mod’s Monthly, March 1964. See also Glinert, West End chronicles, 270.

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395

258. “You’re never Alone with Dave Clark,” Jackie, 28 March 1964; “Fame at Last,” Fabulous, 27 June 1964. For residents and the Marquee, see “Top Spots For Mods,” Mod’s Monthly, March 1964. 259. Johns, Death of a Pirate, 126; Fraser and Morton, Mad Frank’s Underworld History, 80 f.; Vague, Getting it Straight in Notting Hill Gate. 260. Champniss, Skinheads, Fur Traders, and DJs, 28. 261. Roger Eagle, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, 13. For more rhythm and blues explosion in 1963, see Schwartz, How Britain got the Blues, 131 f. For American originals and Guy Steven, see Brian Crane, in: Anderson, Mods, 167; Thornton, Club Cultures, 44 f.; Mickey Tenner, in: Anderson, Mods, 170. 262. Roger Eagle, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, 13. 263. Geoff Green, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 62; Rylatt and Scott, “The North Shall Dance Again,” 69. 264. “Where have all the ravers gone?,” Rave, July 1968. 265. Music magazines had special articles on DJs and particularly reported about those who had radio sessions on pirate radio stations. 266. “The DJ: ‘I think the cult is all wrong’,” The Sunday Times, 22 September 1968. 267. Steuart Kingsley-Inness, “A view from the North East Part 2—In the wake of Dick Whittington!,” in: THE OTHER HALF OF THE MOD EQUATION, November 20, 2014. 268. Rylatt and Scott, “The North Shall Dance Again,” 68. 269. “The Way In To The Way-Out,” Rave, May 1964; for brief descriptions of such clubs, see Wooldridge, Rock’n’Roll London. 270. “A city of its own,” Hackney Gazette, 2 October 1964. 271. Anderson, Mods, 217. 272. “Pete’s night out at the tiles …,” Jackie, 4 June 1966. 273. John Leo Waters, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 222. 274. One example was the Ricky Tick club. See Don Hughes, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 221; Cook, “Sexual Revolution(s),” 121. 275. “Club Scene: How life has moved on and London is losing its swing,” Daily Mail, 8 October 1965. 276. Ibid. 277. “How to Open A Club and (Maybe) Make A Million,” London Life, 30 July 1966. 278. “NO EASY MONEY in discotheques”. 279. “Discotheques: the in-crowd holds the floor,” The Financial Times, 1 August 1970. 280. The concept of a new club near King’s Road in 1964 was to bring the Swinging London flair to Chelsea and therefore used flashy colours with

396 

F. FUHG

strong contrasts. See “Now it’s teenage tempo,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 14 February 1964. 281. See “This Is Carnaby Street”, London Life, 14 May 1966. 282. See “Club Scene: How life has moved on and London is losing its swing”, Daily Mail, 8 October 1965. 283. “Discotheques: the in-crowd holds the floor”. 284. Booker, Neophiliacs, 278. 285. “Plans for leisure,” The Guardian, 5 December 1964. 286. John Simons, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, 7. 287. See Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 14. For more on ballrooms in the early 1950s, see Rowntree, English Life and Leisure. 288. “Out goes the ballroom beat and BACK comes the band,” Daily Mail, 10 July 1965. 289. See “The Music Makers,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 6 August 1965. A good historical example is the music hall in Victorian Britain. Steven Gerrard writes, “For the working classes, halls provided escape from the rigours of toiling in heavy industry.” See Gerrard, “The Great British Music Hall”, 494. 290. Hamblett and Deverson, Generation X, 16. 291. Roger Ames, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 30. 292. Hamblett and Deverson, Generation X, 18. 293. Deighton, London Dossier, 26. 294. “Not much bottle at the Beat Ball,” London Life, 27 November—3 December 1966. 295. Ibid. 296. Adams, Looking Through You; Davies, The Beatles, 370 f. 297. “Not much bottle at the Beat Ball,” London Life, 27 November—3 December 1966. 298. Ibid. 299. For live music in East End pubs, see Dennis Munday, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 39. 300. “Local Club Inspired by A Beatle,” Hackney Gazette, 15 May 1964. 301. See “Oh What A Glorious Way To Die!,” Jackie, 18 July 1964. 302. “Tuesday,” Fabulous, 21 May 1966. 303. See “Steward’s nose is broken in dance night,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 31 July 1964; “Old Street. Sequel to Attack in Dancehall,” Hackney Gazette, 15 December 1967. 304. “Court told of confusion at panic at dance hall,” The Guardian, 26 June 1962. 305. For riots in dance halls and ballrooms, see, for example, “Dance ‘was transformed into riot’,” The Guardian, 25 September 1963; “Eight youths convicted after dance-hall fight,” The Guardian, 9 May 1959;

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“Fight in Ballroom,” The Manchester Guardian, 8 May 1956. For a systematic analysis of gang fights in dance halls, see Clancy Sigal, “The Punchers’ Night Out,” The Guardian, 1 March 1959. 306. “Affray need not be in a public place,” The Guardian, 28 October 1965. 307. Ibid. 308. Ibid. 309. Rogan, Ray Davies, 142; Houghton, The Who; Harison, Feedback, 64 f.; Green, All dressed up, 42. 310. Irish Jack Lyons, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 116. 311. “Ballroom Ban on Teddy Boys,” The Manchester Guardian, 24 July 1956. 312. “Sunday Music and Hooliganism,” The Manchester Guardian, 29 November 1957. 313. “Bridgeport Ban Stops the Music,” New York Times, 26 March 1955. 314. “Young People’s Drinks at Bars of Dance Halls,” The Manchester Guardian, 9 August 1955. 315. “Out goes the ballroom beat and BACK comes the band,” Daily Mail, 10 July 1965. 316. Ed Glinert, The London Compendium. 317. Oliver, Black Music in Britain, 82. 318. See Mailer, The White Negro; Van Vechten, Nigger Heaven. 319. Marks, “Young Gifted and Black,” 102. 320. Kellett, Fathers and Sons, 112 f. 321. “Erroll Dixon and the Blue Beat,” Flamingo, October 1964. 322. See also Lloyd Bradley, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 34. 323. “Birth of the Blue Beat,” Daily Mail, 4 January 1964. 324. Ibid. 325. Oliver, Black Music in Britain, 85. 326. Ian R. Hebditch, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 72 f. 327. Nigel Mann, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 90. 328. Ibid. 329. Bradley, Sounds like London, 149; Haslam, Life After Dark, 71 f. A good case study is Fordham, Jazz Man. 330. Stratton, Jews, Race and Popular Music, 179. 331. Burrows, From CBGB to the Roundhouse, 19 f. 332. See Ray Johnson in: Anderson, Mods, 12. 333. See “Nat ‘King’ Cole attacked on stage,” The Manchester Guardian, 12 April 1956; “Hoodlums Vs. Decency,” Billboard, 21 April 1956. For more information, see Iton, In Search of the Black Fantastic, 70–72. 334. For this imitation, see Kellett, The British Blues Network. 335. See Jones, Black Music, 235; Randall, Dusty!, 132. A quite similar discussion had taken place in the 1950s about rock ‘n’ roll. See Shaw, Honkers and Shouters, 73.

398 

F. FUHG

336. Matera, Black London, 12; Gildart, Images of England through Popular Music, 52, 55, 61. 337. Jones, Black Culture, White Youth, 87 f. 338. Carl Gayle, “The Reggae Underground Part 1,” Black Music 1 (1974), Issue 8. 339. See Wilmer, Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This. 340. See “This Is Carnaby Street”. 341. John Leo Waters, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 99. 342. Gildart, Images of England through Popular Music, 59. 343. Jeffrey Kruger, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, 8; Val Wilmer, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 62. 344. See Everett, You’ll never be 16 again, 54. 345. “Will Unemployment bring Racial Tensions to Liverpool?,” Flamingo, April 1963. 346. Jeffrey Kruger, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, 8. 347. John Leo Waters, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, 36. 348. Nigel Fountain, “The Telephone Mob,” New Society, 18 January 1968. 349. Caribbean Times, No. 242, 1 November 1985. 350. See Jackson, An Indiscreet Guide to Soho. 351. Val Wilmer, in: Hewitt, Soul Stylists, 28. 352. Jones, Black Culture, White Youth, 91. 353. John Walters, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 100. 354. “Sit-Down at Soho Club,” The Daily Telegraph, 4 November 1963. 355. “Ballroom’s Race Restrictions,” The Manchester Guardian, 28 August 1958. 356. Ray Johnson, in: Anderson, Mods, 13. For more information see Nott, Going to the Palais, 272–277. 357. “Too old for ‘Bonnie and Clyde’”, Hackney Gazette, 12 January 1968. 358. Burrows, From CBGB to the Roundhouse, 45. 359. Tony Delano, “13 are killed in a ‘revenge’ blaze at club,” Daily Mirror, 13 December 1965. 360. Gayle, “The Reggae Underground”. 361. Burrows, From CBGB to the Roundhouse, 28, 42–44; Stapleton, “African Connections,” 94 f. 362. For black solidarity and its rejection, see also Kerridge, “My life as a West End clubman,” New Society, 1 October 1970. 363. Gayle, “The Reggae Underground Part 2”. 364. See Gilroy, There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack, 168. 365. See Joan Littlewood’s short film Club with Mixed Couples, available on London’s Screen Archives. Link: https://www.londonsscreenarchives. org.uk/public/details.php?id=19961 (accessed on 26 March 2018). 366. Mickey Tenner, in: Anderson, Mods, 170.

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367. Rob Nicholls, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 101. 368. John Leo Waters, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 102. 369. Burrows, From CBGB to the Roundhouse, 28. 370. Carby, Race Men; Rose, Which People’s War?, 71–106. 371. Hamblett and Deverson, Generation X, 20 f. 372. Ibid. 373. Pat Farrell in Anderson, Mods, 159; Rob Nicholls, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 99; Jones, Black Culture, White Youth, 87 f. 374. Orlando Patterson, “The Dance Invasion,” New Society, 15 September 1966. 375. LCC Children’s Department, “West End Jazz and Dance Clubs,” Report for a Meeting with the Home Secretary and Minister of Health, 15 September 1964, TNA PRO HO300/08. See also Weight, Mod, 86. 376. Gildart, Images of England through Popular Music, 60. 377. John Leo Waters, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 102. 378. Rylatt and Scott, “The North Shall Dance Again,” 66. 379. Back, New Ethnicities and Urban Culture, 186 f. 380. John Leo Waters, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 102. See also Gildart, Images of England through Popular Music, 59. 381. Jim Lush, in: Anderson, Mods, 161. 382. Jim Cox, in: Hewitt, The Soul Stylists, 92. 383. Jones, Black Culture, White Youth, 88. 384. For such rivalries, see Daniel and McGuire, The Paint House. 385. Bushell, “54–46 That’s My Number—The First Skinheads”. 386. Gayle, “The Reggae Underground”. 387. Jeff Kruger, in: Lentz, The Influential Factor, 35; Paul Walsh, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 99. 388. John Leo Waters, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 102. 389. Ibid., 144. 390. Gayle, “The Reggae Underground”. 391. See “Police Raided Dalston Party: Sequel to neighbours’ complaints,” Hackney Gazette, 8 February 1963. 392. “Tempers Rise About Noisy Parties,” Hackney Gazette, 15 August 1969. 393. Research on British post-war youth cultures tends to downplay the role and meaning of youth clubs in the 1960s. See Clements, Youth Cultures in the Mixed Economy of Welfare. 394. For the tradition of voluntary work in Britain, see Bourdillon, Voluntary Social Services. 395. The National Association of Boys’ Clubs, The Contribution of Boys’ Clubs to the Life of our Time, 1. 396. Finch, “A Short History of the Youth Services in Tower Hamlets,” 11 f. 397. Hawes, Young People Today, 1.

400 

F. FUHG

398. Daily Mirror, Spotlight on Youth, 1959, 5. 399. See London County Council, The Provision of Social and Recreative Facilities in London, Report by the Education Officer, 11 February 1960, LMA ACC1888/91. 400. Board of Education, The Youth Service after the War. 401. Keeble, “Looking at London,” 142. 402. Finch, “A Short History of the Youth Services in Tower Hamlets”. 403. See David Middleton, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 31. 404. Willmott, Adolescent Boys in East London, 121. 405. Fyvel, The Insecure Offenders, 57. 406. Daniel and McGuire, The Paint House, 55. 407. Ibid, 125. See also Steven Berkoff, “The Hill was my sanctuary,” The Jewish Chronicle, 13 November 2014; Penny Reel, in: Anderson, Mods, 24; Stamford Hill Mods—The Genesis of Marc Bolan Exhibition, Hackney Museum,  07 November 2012  –  26 January 2013; Miki Simmonds, in: Beesley, Sawdust Caesars, 35. 408. Willmott, Adolescent Boys in East London, 121. 409. Michael Scarborough, “Boys’ Clubs and Grammar Schools: A Species Apart?,” Challenge, Winter 1964/65. 410. Peter Brereton, “Breaking down class barriers,” Challenge, Winter 1967/68. 411. Researcher argued that playing was given high importance by middle-­ class mothers as playing was essential for learning and creativity. See Jean Jones, “Social class and the under-fives,” New Society, 22 December 1966. 412. Fyvel, The Insecure Offenders, 207–209. 413. London Youth Committee, Report of a Study on the Youth Service in London (London, 1967), 14. 414. See Helen Nixon, “The youth service needs to be involved in housing problems,” Youth Review No. 23, Summer 1972, 24–29. 415. Ibid., 25. 416. “Different Clubs—but all have the same Aim,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 13 October 1967. 417. “Club work in the 1970s,” National Association of Youth Clubs, Annual Report, 1969/70, 14. 418. Terry Powley, The Vallance Youth Club: A Brief History (London, 1973), Tower Hamlets Local History Library LP.5386 360.1. See also “Youths with Bars Rushed Youth Club Dance, Court Told,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 17 November 1967. 419. “Hooligans’ attracted by youth club anger residents,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 5 December 1969. 420. For urban working-class neighbourhoods, locality, “deprived areas”. and youth service, see Keeble, “Looking at London,” 152; Morse, The

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401

Unattached, 74; Robin Guthrie, “The Biggest Years in a Boy’s Life,” New Society, 17 January 1963; The Blenheim Project, People Adrift, 1. 421. Dan Waldorf, “New Town Youth Club,” New Society, 2 March 1967. 422. “No Times for Tearways?,” Challenge, Autumn 1961. 423. “More attractive youth clubs needed,” The Guardian, 1 June 1964. 424. See “Pre-fabricated Buildings for the Youth Service,” Education, 24 June 1960. 425. Hawes, Young People Today, 3. See also London Youth Committee, decision taken at a meeting held on Monday 1 June 1964, LMA EO/ HFE/1/258. 426. See “Youth Service Building Grants,” Challenge, April 1963. 427. Wapping Boys’ Club, First Annual Report and Statement of Accounts for 1957–58, Tower Hamlets Local History Library 360–1. See also “Volunteers will Build Village Youth Club,” News Bulletin of the National Association of Boys Clubs No. 21, November/December 1964. 428. See “Church and youth centre,” The Architects’ Journal Information Library, 16 October 1968, 867–878. See also “No Times for Tearways?,” Challenge, Autumn 1961. 429. The Pilgrim Trust, The Pilgrim Trust and the Welfare of Young People, 24 February 1967, LMA 4450/c/05/0070. 430. David Eccles (Minister of Education), Inter-Departmental Co-Operation to Expand and Develop Spare-Time Cultural and Recreational Activities, 23 December 1959, TNA AS 10/264/01. 431. “Club Facilities,” in: National Association of Youth Clubs, Annual Report 1965/66. 16 f.; Islington Borough Youth Committee, minutes of a meeting of the Islington Borough Youth Committee, 14 May 1964. 432. London County Council, The Provision of Social and Recreative Facilities in London, Report by the Education Officer, 11 February 1960, LMA ACC1888/91, 9. 433. The Wapping Boys’ Club moved in the mid-1950s into the ground floor of a disused fire station. See Wapping Boys’ Club, First Annual Report and Statement of Accounts for 1957–58, Tower Hamlets Local History Library 360–1. 434. See Southwark Youth Committee, Southwark Youth Committee Borough Survey 1962, LMA EO/HFE/1/259. For new opportunities urban redevelopment plans provided for a youth club in Brighton, see Edward McFadyen, “The Brighton Rock,” Challenge, July 1966. 435. “Air Raid Shelter Offered as Boys’ Club,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 23 February 1962; “Why not use shelters as youth club’s new h.q.?,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 23 June 1967.

402 

F. FUHG

436. “‘59’ Club Vicar Hits Back at Hackney Critics,” Hackney Gazette, 27 June 1969; “Council Committee doesn’t want ‘Rockers’”, Hackney Gazette, 13 June 1969. 437. “Youth Service Buildings: General Mixed Clubs,” Building Bulletin 20, September 1961, 29. 438. Ibid. 439. See Bethnal Green Youth Committee, Proceedings of a Meeting of the Bethnal Green Youth Committee, 2 March 1964, LMA EO/ HFE/1/174. 440. Daily Mirror, Spotlight on Youth, 1959. 441. See Letter of the St. Martin’s Youth Project sent to Edward Ford of the Pilgrim Trust on 10 July 1973, LMA 4450/c/05/0080. 442. See Jephcott, Club for Girls, 64. 443. “Youth Service Buildings: General Mixed Clubs,” Building Bulletin 20, September 1961. 444. Hawes, Young People Today, 3. 445. Ibid., 4 f. 446. Gordon Turvey, “How to plan the Building of a Boys’ Club,” Challenge, Spring 1965. 447. Edward McFadyen, “The Brighton Rock,” Challenge, July 1966. See also London County Council, The Provision of Social and Recreative Facilities in London, Report by the Education Officer, 11 February 1960, LMA ACC1888/91, 7. 448. Details of the facilities proposed for a Centre for Young People in the South West area of Westminster, LMA EO/HFE/1/198. 449. Plans for the Askew Road Methodist Church Youth Club regarding the Opening and Installation of a Coffee Bar, October 1964, TNA ED 126/266. 450. The appendix of the Building Bulletin No. 22 included a floor plan of a youth club in France. See “Development Projects: Youth Club, Withywood, Bristol,” Ministry of Education Building Bulletin 22, August 1963. 451. For the concept of prefabricated buildings for youth clubs, see “Pre-­ fabricated Buildings for the Youth Service,” Education, 24 June 1960, 1401–1404. 452. “Youth Service Buildings: General Mixed Clubs,” Building Bulletin 20, September 1961, 3 f. 453. For Wotton’s vision, see Porter, Archispeak, 23. 454. “Youth Service Buildings: General Mixed Clubs,” 12. 455. Ibid., 14. 456. Ibid.

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403

457. See “Development Projects: Youth Club, Withywood, Bristol,” Building Bulletin 22 August 1963. 458. National Association of Mixed Clubs and Girls’ Clubs, Annual Report 1959/60, 11. 459. London Youth Committee, Survey of Social and Recreational Facilities in North-East London, 6 December 1963, 7, LMA EO/HFE/1/259. 460. For memberships in 1961, see “No Times for Tearways?,” Challenge, Autumn 1961. For Northeast London, see London Youth Committee, Survey of Social and Recreational Facilities in North-East London, 6 December 1963, LMA EO/HFE/1/259. 461. Walsh, “Present Trends in Youth Service,” 24. See also Brew, Youth and Youth Groups, 84–110. 462. “No Times for Tearways?” 463. Stepney Youth Committee, Stepney Youth Committee Annual Report 1962/63, LMA ACC1888/105. 464. See also “Mixing the old and the new,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 7 February 1969. 465. London Youth Committee, Report of a Study on the Youth Service in London, 14. 466. See J. P. Leighton, Reaching the “Unattached”, Lecture delivered at the M.A.Y.C.  Full-Time Leaders’ Conference, Willersley Castle, Ilford, 9 January 1963. 467. The Pilgrim Trust, Youth Work: Policy, Paper No. 309/67, 19 April 1967, LMA 4450/c/05/0070. 468. Daily Mirror, Daily Mirror Spotlight on Youth, 6. 469. Ibid., 7. 470. “Boys’ Clubs Criticized: Modernization Urged,” Times Supplement, 16 January 1959. 471. See “Clergy Attack Youth Services: ‘Surprised’ that so few young people drift into crime,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 17 January 1964. 472. London County Council, Interim Report on Recreational Evening Institutes and Associated Youth Clubs (London,1948/49), LMA EO/ HFE/1/201. For Christian education see The Methodist Church London (North-West) Mission Youth Council, “An overwhelming challenge to the whole church” & Fernhead Road Youth Council, Youth Week, 1953, LMA ACC1848/5. 473. “Around the Parishes: ‘Church has failed youth’—club leader,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 28 August 1959. 474. See “London Youth Service Appraised: Problems spotlighted,” Hackney Gazette, 5 December 1967. 475. London Federation of Boys’ Clubs, The best of all investments needs help (London, 1966).

404 

F. FUHG

476. London Youth Committee, Report of a Study on the Youth Service in London, 7, following the report “The Youth Service Development Council Report”, published in 1969 and the ILEA 839 circulation. 477. Hawes, Young People Today, 2. 478. See also “Club’s ‘open door’ policy a success,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 7 July 1961. 479. Hawes, Young People Today, 3. 480. See Serving the Young: Letters to the Editor of The Times and a Leading Article (London, 1952); The National Association of Boys’ Clubs, The Contribution of Boys’ Clubs to the Life of our Time (London, 1948). 481. London Youth Committee, Survey of Social and Recreational Facilities in North-East London, 6 December 1963, 4, LMA EO/HFE/1/259. 482. See, for example, Ministry of Education Report by H. M. Inspectors on St. Mark’s Youth Club, Greenwich, London, Inspected in May and June 1957. 483. See Turner, Ship without Sails, 25–28; Ministry of Education, Report of H.M.  Inspectors of A Survey of the Provision for Youth made in the Borough of Kensington, London, Spring 1960, 5, LMA EO/ HFE/1/366; Hackney Borough Youth Committee, Report of Survey Sub-Committee, June 1962, 2, LMA EO/HFE/1/259; minutes of a meeting of the Islington Borough Youth Committee, 12 March 1964. 484. National Association of Mixed Clubs and Girls’ Clubs, Annual Report 1959/60, 12. 485. For an adventure centre, see “Adventure Centre in the Cairngorms,” National Association of Youth Clubs, Annual Report 1965/66, 13; for an adventure farm, see “Down on the farm,” in: National Association of Youth Clubs, Annual Report 1965/66, 11. For holiday booklets, see Mayer, Organising a Club Holiday. 486. See Turner, Ship without Sails, 30. 487. “A Youth Service for the Sixties,” Challenge, Spring 1962. 488. See Islington Borough Youth Committee, minutes of a meeting of the Islington Borough Youth Committee, 14 May 1964. 489. Local Youth Report Fernhead Road Methodist Church Youth Club, November 1967, LMA ACC1848/7/1. 490. For the idea that modern youth work should be member and not activity oriented, see S.  J. Blunt, “The Bloodless Revolution,” Challenge, April 1967. 491. For the use of new media and material which could be loaned from the NAYC, see, for example, The Use of Films in Clubs, Prospect No 43, 1969; Prospect No. 45, 1969; Prospect No. 56, April 1971. 492. See Batten‚ The Human Factor in Youth Work. 493. Brennan, Thinking About Young People.

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405

494. Bernard Davies, “Reshaping the youth service,” New Society, 9 October 1969. 495. Jan Foster, “What shall we give them to do next?,” Challenge, April 1965; “This Image Business,” Challenge, Autumn 1965. For an opposite strategy, see “An invitation at the bus stop,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 21 February 1964 496. “Take a Look at Life Again Soon!,” Challenge, Summer 1965. 497. “New slant on the arts,” Challenge, Spring 1968. 498. W F. S. Woodford, “The Image Makers,” Challenge, Winter/Spring 1971. 499. See S. J. Blunt, “The Bloodless Revolution,” Challenge, April 1967. 500. “Different Clubs—but all have the same Aim,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 13 October 1967. 501. “A Good Citizens Club,” in: Hackney Gazette, 15 July 1966. See “Clergy Attack Youth Services: ‘Surprised’ that so few young people drift into crime,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 17 January 1964. 502. London County Council, The Provision of Social and Recreative Facilities in London, Report by the Education Officer, 11 February 1960, LMA ACC1888/91, 2. 503. Drage, Discipline in the Club. For efforts against authoritarian and activity-­centred youth work, see Bernard Davies, “Reshaping the youth service,” New Society, 9 October 1969. 504. “Different Clubs—but all have the same Aim,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 13 October 1967. 505. George W.  Goetschius, M.  Joan Tash, The Report of the London Y.W.C.A. Coffee Stall Project, TNA EDI 124/31, 113. 506. Ibid., 116. 507. “Too old at 16?,” Challenge, Summer 1968. 508. Stepney Youth Committee, Annual Report of the Stepney Youth Committee 1963/64, LMA ACC1888/105. 509. See “young adults … at weekends,” in: National Association of Youth Clubs, Annual Report 1966/67, 13. 510. For the concept of making good citizens, see also Blooman, The Problem Member, 1. 511. Bernard Davies, “Reshaping the youth service,” New Society, 9 October 1969. 512. Ted Higgins, “Social Values of the Small Boys’ Club—II,” Challenge, January 1970. For teaching democratic values, see “Who gets in?,” Uphill No. 323, 4 April 1963, Hackney Archives Y301. 513. Ted Higgins, “Social Values of the Small Boys’ Club,” Challenge, October 1969. 514. See “The boys’ club leader: is enthusiasm enough?,” Challenge, Spring 1968.

406 

F. FUHG

515. Joan E.  Matthews, The National College for the Training of Youth Leaders, “Supervision in Youth Work”, Leicester March 1963, LMA ACC1888/222/40. 516. Eric Bourne, “The Unprofessional Youth Service,” New Society, 7 December 1967. 517. See Robert H.  Bohlke, “Middle Class Delinquency in the US,” New Society, 3 January 1963; R.  R. Schwitzgebel, “Delinquents with Tape Recorders,” New Society, 31 January 1963. 518. For exchange with Germany, see, for example, the Reports of the Berlin Youth Workers’ Course, Berlin Committee, Report of the Berlin Youth Workers’ Course, 4–18 February 1957, LMA ACC1888/92. For information on youth work in other countries, see “Russian Teenagers,” Challenge, Winter 1962; “Looking at American Boys’ Clubs,” Challenge, Winter 1964/65; “The Youth Service in Scandinavia,” Challenge, Spring 1965. 519. Joan E. Matthews, “Supervision in Youth Work”. 520. Morse, The Unattached, 222; Report of the Second United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime, 1960. 521. Fyvel, The Insecure Offenders, 337. 522. National Association of Mixed Clubs and Girls’ Clubs, Annual Report 1959/60. See the involvement of Commonwealth citizens in youth leadership programmes, described in: National Association of Youth Clubs, Annual Report 1961/62; “International project 1966,” in: National Association of Youth Clubs, Annual Report 1966/67, 8. For international visits see National Association of Youth Clubs, Annual Report 1963/64, 14 f. 523. National Association of Youth Clubs, Annual Report 1962/63, 18. 524. For a report on a youth leader visiting another country, see “You too Like Your Tea,” New Bradian, August 1959, Tower Hamlets Local History Library L.C. 360.1. For trips of members see “Yvonne writes from Israel,” Uphill No. 325, 23 May 1963, Hackney Archives Y301 or the Traveller’ Tales section in New Bradian, Tower Hamlets Local History Library L.C. 360.1. 525. See “Teen-Agers in Other Countries,” Challenge, January 1960. 526. National Association of Mixed Clubs and Girls’ Clubs, Annual Report 1959/60, 12. 527. See Shoreditch Borough Youth Committee, Leisure Time Survey: A Preliminary Report, attached to Proceedings of a meeting of the Shoreditch Youth Committee held on Monday 12 April 1965, LMA EO/HFE/2/282. 528. See, for example, R. J. Craske, “The interests and behaviour of members: A Survey report,” Youth Review, November 1966, 31–34.

9  LEISURE VENUES: LONDON BY DAY AND BY NIGHT 

407

529. See The National Association of Youth Clubs Research Committee, Hours Away from Work; Under 14’s Committee, Report on the LeisureTime Activities of Children between 11 and 14 (London, 1943); Research Committee of the National Association of Girls’ Clubs and Mixed Clubs, Club Girls and their Interests (London, 1947); Jephcott, Girls Growing Up. 530. Jephcott, Time of One’s Own, 12. 531. Ibid., 12–14. 532. Ibid., 104. 533. This statement was a reaction to the research done by Younghusband and published as Employment and Training of Social Workers. See Barnes, Youth Service in an English County. 534. Morse, The Unattached, 18. For numbers of unattached youth in London, see London Youth Committee, Report of a Study on the Youth Service in London, 16. Already in 1948, youth workers believed that ­commercial forms of entertainment were responsible for keeping “a large section of youth out of the evening institutes”. See London County Council, Interim Report on Recreational Evening Institutes and Associated Youth Clubs (London, 1948/49), LMA EO/HFE/1/201, 9. 535. Morse, The Unattached, 74. 536. See Heather Lloyd, “The Missing Teenage Girls: A research study,” Youth Review 1 October 1964, 9–14. 537. Summing up of the Consultation on the Unattached, Annecy, 3–7 April 1967, LMA ACC1888/182. 538. Development and Public Relations Sub-Committee, The Unattached: Report by the Secretary, 15 October 1963, 2 f., LMA EO/HFE/1/259. 539. See Ince, Contact. The majority were located in urban areas and run over a couple of years. See also Goetschius and Tash, Working with Unattached Youth, 1. 540. For the proposal of the Stepney Project, see Stepney Youth Committee, minutes of a meeting of the Stepney Youth Committee, 25 March 1965, LMA EO/HFE/1/284. For copying of leisure see Jephcott, Time of One’s Own, 68. For more projects, see Youth Service Information Centre, The Blenheim Project 1964–1969; The Blenheim Project, People Adrift; “So we went out to reach them in the coffee bars,” Youth Review, Autumn 1972, 8–13; Holden, Hoxton Coffee Bar Project. 541. See “So we went out to reach them in the coffee bars”. 542. Turner, Ship without Sails, 32 f. 543. “The Detached Worker: How he operates,” Challenge, October 1969. 544. Turner, Ship without Sails, 34. 545. London County Council, The Provision of Social and Recreative Facilities in London, Report by the Education Officer, 11 February 1960, 3, LMA ACC1888/91.

408 

F. FUHG

546. See “Youth Service,” The Times, 30 December 1958. 547. National Association of Youth Clubs, Politics and Young People Broadsheet: Young People’s Jobs in the 1970s, Cadbury Research Library MS227/5/15/1/6. 548. The Pilgrim Trust, Youth Work: Policy, Paper No. 371/69, 9 July 1969, 1, LMA 4450/c/05/0070; Drage, Self-Governing Groups in Youth Clubs, 10. 549. See Youth Service Development Council, Youth and Community Work in the 70s. For a similar position see National Association of Youth Clubs, Annual Report, 1968/69, 18. 550. Willmott, Adolescent Boys in East London, 129 f. 551. National Association of Youth Clubs, Annual Report 1966/67, 18. 552. John Parker, “Talking points for seniors,” Challenge, April 1970. 553. See, for example, “Club Drinking! Debate Spreads,” Challenge, Spring 1962. 554. Willmott, Adolescent Boys in East London, 128 f. 555. See Brew, Youth and Youth Groups, 118 f. 556. “Different Clubs—but all have the same Aim,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 13 October 1967. 557. The Pilgrim Trust, The Pilgrim Trust and the Welfare of Young People, 24 February 1967, LMA 4450/c/05/0070. 558. See “The New Roof over Your Head,” New Bradian, October 1958, Tower Hamlets Local History Library L.C. 360.1. 559. “Boys and girls ‘mixed’”, Hackney Gazette, 18 February 1960. 560. “The Lion’s appeal: this is what makes a boys’ club good,” Hackney Gazette, 15 January 1963. 561. See Hanmer, Girls at Leisure. 562. National Association of Youth Clubs, Girls in Two Cities, 5–7. 563. The National Association of Mixed Clubs and Girls’ Clubs, Planning a Mixed Club (London, c. late 1940s). 564. Jephcott, Club for Girls. 565. National Association of Youth Clubs, Girls in Two Cities, 24. 566. “What to do about the girls,” Challenge, Winter 1963/64. 567. Alix Coleman, “Girls won’t be boys,” The Sunday Times, 25 October 1965. 568. “Youth Club Members will be warned about Dangers of Promiscuity,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 5 June 1964, 569. See Milson, Living and Loving, 7. 570. Claire Rayner, “Sex Education in Youth Clubs,” New Society, 6 October 1966. 571. See “Should They Let The Girls In?”, Challenge, April 1966. 572. Lord Willis, Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life …, The Basil Henriques Memorial Lecture 1965, 12.

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409

573. The Stamford Hill Associated Clubs, Annual Report 1962; “Do-It-­ Yourself Club: an east end shoe-string miracle,” Challenge, Autumn 1965. 574. See Rose, Democracy in the Club, 1. 575. Ibid. 576. See Tony Miles, “The Youth Scandal,” Daily Mirror, 4 February 1960. 577. See “Activities for Local ‘Mods’”, Hackney Gazette, 13 September 1963. 578. Ibid. 579. See “Exhibition is challenge to Teddy Boys,” News Chronicle, 9 March 1956. 580. See “They’re a hit with the hit-makers,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 6 March 1964. 581. See, for example, “The Big Swindle,” Uphill No. 332, 28 November 1963, Hackney Archives Y301; “Why Israel doesn’t need the Beatles,” Uphill No. 342, 7 May 1964, Hackney Archives Y301. 582. See “Fashion gone ssmld?,” Uphill, Hackney Archives Y301; “Simon Palmer on Fashion: Mods and Bods,” New Bradian, Summer 1963, Tower Hamlets Local History Library L.C. 360.1. 583. “The Club Night that was Different,” Challenge, July 1963. 584. See “They’re a hit with the hit-makers,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 6 March 1964. 585. “Dangerous but successful: ‘Fed’ Radio Project,” Hackney Gazette, 18 September 1964. 586. “Record Managers PYE,” Uphill No. 323, 4 April 1963, Hackney Archives Y301. 587. “‘King John’ talks to his old youth club,” Hackney Gazette, 28 April 1967. 588. See short film on the Easterhouse Gangs, British Pathé (1968); Colin Smith, “Glasgow gangs ‘act like defeated army’,” The Guardian, 21 July 1968. 589. “Tommy Steele’s ‘Youth Venture’,” The Guardian, 7 February 1960. 590. “Evangelism-yeah-yeah-yeah,” Hackney Gazette, 13 January 1967; See “C’m on everybody! Let’s go: ‘Down Town’ to church—for a sermon with a beat,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 4 December 1964. 591. Brew, Youth and Youth Groups, 75. 592. Jan Foster, “What shall we give them to do next?,” Challenge, April 1965. 593. London Youth Committee, Report of a Study on the Youth Service in London, 16. 594. See J. P. Leighton, Reaching the “Unattached,” 7. 595. “A Youth Service for the Sixties,” Challenge, Spring 1962. 596. Ibid. 597. “Four Years Hard!,” Challenge, Spring 1964. 598. See “What to do about the girls,” Challenge, Winter 1963/64.

410 

F. FUHG

599. London County Council, Interim Report on Recreational Evening Institutes and Associated Youth Clubs, London 1948/49, LMA  EO/ HFE/1/201, 9. 600. John Barr, “Free Time Britain,” New Society, 15 April 1965. 601. See the Crypt Club in Chelsea, “Where everything is swinging,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 29 April 1966. For youth club information on traditional and modern jazz, see “Sound Track Jazz,” Club 1:2 (1963), 4. 602. See Standing Conference of Music Committees, Youth Makes Music. 603. R. Sadleir, “Making your own music,” Challenge, Autumn 1965. 604. See letter of the Liverpool Youth Music Committee sent to the Music Director of the Arts Council, 18 November 1966, LMA 4450/C/01/0372. 605. See Standing Conference of Music Committees, Youth Makes Music, 41. 606. “Jukebox—Jukebox,” New Bradian, October 1962, Tower Hamlets Local History Library L.C. 360.1. 607. “Jukeboxes: An asset or a menace?,” Challenge, Winter 1961/62. 608. See “Jukeboxes: An asset or a menace?” 609. Ibid. 610. The Central Council for Physical Recreation, Ballroom Dancing in Youth Clubs. 611. Ibid. 612. Ibid., 8. 613. Ibid. 614. Ibid. 615. For the view that modern dance culture was working against the dominant system of rules in dancing, see “The Anti-Dance,” Uphill 325, 23 May 1963, Hackney Archives Y301. 616. See “Arts for more than art’s sake,” Youth Review, Spring 1972, 33. 617. See “Making Films,” Club 1:1, November–December 1962. For an example of film-making see Inner London Education Authority, Time Out—“Enjoying the Arts” Course, Beatrice Webb House, 8–10 July 1966, LMA ACC1888/105. 618. “James Bond comes to Sussex,” Challenge, Summer 1965. 619. The rally was such a success that the Grange Youth Centre organised another one two months later. See Queens Hall Methodist Church Youth Club Annual Report 1964–1965, LMA ACC1882/51. 620. “No Times for Tearways?,” Challenge, Autumn 1961. 621. “More positive youth service for immigrants urged,” The Guardian, 21 July 1967. 622. “Trust will help 5000 teenagers,” The Guardian, 28 August 1963.

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411

623. Colin Smith, “Teenage racialism grows in Brixton,” The Guardian, 12 January 1969. 624. Ministry of Education, Report of H.M.  Inspectors of A Survey of the Provision for Youth made in the Borough of Kensington, London, Spring 1960, 6, LMA/HFE/1/366. 625. Notes by Youth Officer on Ministry of Education Survey of Youth Provision in Kensington, 5 May 1961, LMA EO/HFE/1/366. 626. “About migrants,” in: National Association of Youth Clubs, Annual Report, 1968/69, 18. 627. Hackney Borough Youth Committee, minutes of a meeting of the Hackney Borough Youth Committee on 23 September 1963, LMA EO/1/181. 628. Ibid. 629. Ibid. 630. Ibid. 631. Lambeth Youth Committee, minutes of a meeting of the Lambeth Youth Committee, 11 October 1963, 632. The London Council of Social Service, Immigrants in London, 42. 633. Ibid. 634. Ibid., 43. 635. Deptford Youth Committee, Minutes of the Deptford Youth Committee Meeting, 19 November 1963, LMA EO/HFE/1/177. 636. The London Council of Social Service, Immigrants in London, 43. 637. The Color Problem and Youth Work. Appendix G of the Minutes of Meeting of the London Youth Committee, 1 July 1963, LMA ACC1888/91. 638. P.  M. Dines, Draft “An Association for Good”, 19 November 1965, LMA ACC1888/210. 639. “Immigration and the Youth Service,” SCNVYO Bulletin, August 1966, 1, LMA 4016/PA/C/04/014(2); Inner London Education Authority, Annual Report of the London Youth Committee for 1967/68, GPI/ Bem4/6/2/1 1–6. 640. “Immigration and the Youth Service.” 641. “‘Boys’ Brigade told—The coloured man on your bus is your brother,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 22 May 1959. 642. “Immigration and the Youth Service”. 643. “Recruit more coloured boys, Scouts urged,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 4 December 1959. 644. Department of Education and Science, Immigrants and the Youth Service, 32.

412 

F. FUHG

645. The Color Problem and Youth Work. Appendix G of the Minutes of Meeting of the London Youth Committee, 1 July 1963, LMA ACC1888/91. 646. P.  M. Dines, Draft “An Association for Good”, 19 November 1965, LMA ACC1888/210. 647. The Color Problem and Youth Work. Appendix G of the Minutes of Meeting of the London Youth Committee, 1 July 1963, LMA ACC1888/91. 648. “South West Concern,” Challenge, April 1969. 649. Peter Brereton, “The Evil of Racialism,” Challenge, April 1969. 650. “Immigrants and the Youth Service”. A Seminar organised by the British Youth Council (W.A.Y.), 29 October 1967, LMA ACC1888/210. 651. The London Council of Social Service, Immigrants in London, 41 f. 652. The Color Problem and Youth Work. Appendix G of the Minutes of Meeting of the London Youth Committee, 1 July 1963, LMA ACC1888/91. 653. Department of Education and Science, Immigrants and the Youth Service. 654. Walsh “Present Trends in Youth Service”. 655. National Association of Youth Clubs, Annual Report, 1968/69, 18. 656. M. Walsh, “Present Trends in Youth Service”. 657. The London Council of Social Service, Immigrants in London, 32. 658. Deptford Youth Committee, Minutes of Deptford Youth Committee Meeting, 19 November 1963, LMA EO/HFE/1/177. See also “Former Laundry Wanted as Youth Centre,” Hackney Gazette, 9 August 1968. 659. Stoke Newington Borough Youth Committee, proceedings of a meeting of the Stoke Newington Borough Youth Committee held on 10 December 1963 at 6.30 p.m. in the Stoke Newington Town Hall, Church Street, LMA EO/HFE/1/196. 660. Stoke Newington Borough Youth Committee, proceedings of a meeting of the Stoke Newington Borough Youth Committee held on 10 December 1963 at 6.30 p.m. in the Stoke Newington Town Hall, Church Street, LMA EO/HFE/1/196. 661. Kenneth and Gloria Berry, Police/Immigrant Relations in Islington: Memorandum by Friends Youth Club, 31 January 1972, LMA ACC1888/191. 662. The Color Problem and Youth Work. Appendix G of the Minutes of Meeting of the London Youth Committee, 1 July 1963, LMA ACC1888/91. 663. See Oxford, Implications of Youth Work in Asian Community, 3. The Association of Indian Youth was formed in Southall in 1967 and renamed National Association of Indian Youth in 1971.

9  LEISURE VENUES: LONDON BY DAY AND BY NIGHT 

413

664. Hackney Borough Youth Committee, Report of Survey Sub-Committee, June 1962, LMA EO/HFE/1/259. 665. “Building Projects,” in: Association for Jewish Youth, Annual Report 1962, 4. 666. See Sidney Bunt, “The AJY—70 years on,” Challenge, October 1969. 667. “Immigration and the Youth Service,” SCNVYO Bulletin, August 1966, LMA 4016/PA/C/04/014 (2). 668. Some even asked whether PHAB clubs (youth clubs for physically handicapped children) should be used as a role model for club schemes with a focus on youngsters living and growing up in sub-communities, suggesting that black and Asian teenagers should be treated similarly to disabled people. See National Association of Youth Clubs, Annual Report 1968/69, 18. 669. “Immigration and the Youth Service,” SCNVYO Bulletin, August 1966, LMA 4016/PA/C/04/014 (2). 670. Ibid. 671. “South West Concern”. 672. Inner London Education Authority, A Chance to choose, 54. 673. The London Council of Social Service, Immigrants in London, 42. 674. In-Service Training Course. Account of Work with the Geneva and Somerleyton Community Association, LMA An1888/198, 3. 675. Malik, “Asian Girls—A Special Need”. 676. Background Paper No. 4, “Young Asians and the Youth Service”, in: Conference Report “Multi-Racial Britain: Is the Youth Service Meeting the Challenge?”, conference organised jointly by Community Relations Commission and National Association of Youth Service Officers (Home Counties), 17 February 1969, LMA ACC1888/210. 677. The London Council of Social Service, Immigrants in London, 42. See also Colin Smith, “Teenage racialism grows in Brixton,” The Guardian, 12 January 1969. 678. National Association of Youth Clubs, Annual Report 1968/69, 16; Batten, The Human Factor in Youth Work. 679. It was recommended to watch sports together. See “Immigration and the Youth Service,” SCNVYO Bulletin, August 1966, LMA 4016/ PA/C/04/014(2). 680. “Integrating the young,” New Society, 27 January 1966. 681. See Department of Education and Science, Immigrants and the Youth Service; “American Scene,” Challenge, January 1969. 682. Paul Bark, “Rockers and Roast-Beef Values,” The Guardian, 2 December 1964. 683. Background Paper No. 1, “The Statutory Youth Service: The Situation in the London Borough of Ealing,” in: Conference Report “Multi-Racial

414 

F. FUHG

Britain: Is the Youth Service Meeting the Challenge?”, conference organised jointly by Community Relations Commission and National Association of Youth Service Officers (Home Counties), 17 February 1969, LMA ACC1888/210. 684. “Serious … and popular,” Westminster & Pimlico News, 30 April 1965. 685. “Teenagers Want More Tolerance: Local conference,” Hackney Gazette, 1 February 1963. Voluntary youth workers agreed that prejudices were often passed from parents to their children. See “Integrating the young,” New Society, 27 January 1966. 686. Stott, Development Together, 12. 687. Ibid., 14. 688. Background Paper No. 3, “Young Colored People in Coventry”, in: Conference Report “Multi-Racial Britain: Is the Youth Service Meeting the Challenge?”, conference organised jointly by Community Relations Commission and National Association of Youth Service Office (Home Counties), 17 February 1969, LMA ACC1888/210. 689. Nigel Bishop, “Working in a Multi-Racial Youth Club,” Challenge, July 1969. 690. Smith, “Teenage racialism grows in Brixton”. 691. Bishop, “Working in a Multi-Racial Youth Club”. 692. Ibid. 693. For the last aspect, see Department of Education and Science, Immigrants and the Youth Service, 34. 694. “Immigrants and the Youth Service”. A seminar organised by the British Youth Council (W.A.Y.), 29 October 1967, LMA ACC1888/210. 695. Ibid. 696. Philip Mason, “What do we mean by integration,” New Society, 16 June 1966. 697. Ibid. 698. “Integrating the young,” New Society, 27 January 1966. 699. Department of Education and Science, Immigrants and the Youth Service. 700. P.  M. Dines, Draft “An Association for Good”, 19 November 1965, LMA ACC1888/210. 701. Coming McGlashan, “Growing Up With Pinky,” The Guardian, 10 September 1967. 702. P.  M. Dines, “Immigrants and the Youth Service”, Talk given at “Immigrants and the Youth Service”. A Seminar organised by the British Youth Council (W.A.Y.), Baden Powell House, 29 October 1967, p. 4, LMA ACC1888/210. 703. Department of Education and Science, Immigrants and the Youth Service, 34. 704. Ibid., 38.

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705. McGlashan, “Growing Up With Pinky”. 706. Letter of the West Indian League Youth Service sent to Prime Minister H. Wilson, 12 March 1969, TNA CK 2/181. 707. Correspondence regarding the Letter of the West Indian League Youth Service sent to Prime Minister H.  Wilson, 12 March 1969, TNA CK 2/181. 708. Ibid.

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CHAPTER 10

Conclusion

In the 1960s, Britain was on its way to reinvent itself and was able to do so with the help of overlapping discourses on urban modernity and a refreshing nationwide working-class youth culture which, according to contemporaries, had its roots in the metropolitan culture of London. Whereas the notion of Victorian Britain was deeply connected to the imperial power of the British Empire, its decline gave space to ask how modern Britishness should look like as well as enabled people—the country’s youth in particular—to renegotiate pattern of British identity on a daily level. Situating the history of working-class youth and their culture within the urban history of post-war London makes visible to what extent the ongoing renewal of British identity had been the result of interlinkages between daily practices of working-class youth, urban transformations (physically as well as narratively) and popular culture. They, each for themselves as well as in a dialectical exchange transcended, revitalised but also manifested traditional notions of Britishness. They were able to do so, because they were backed by fact that they had become part of transnational developments and shifts which called traditional assumptions of national identity into question in nearly every part of the world. The global circulation of popular culture and consumer goods but also coming together let young people asking what defines national identity and how it changed through cross-cultural exchange.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Fuhg, London’s Working-Class Youth and the Making of Post-­Victorian Britain, 1958–1971, Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68968-1_10

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In post-war times and in the 1960s in particular, young people’s ideas of sexuality, their behaviour, and their cultural preferences gave older generations the feeling of living in the world that was turning upside down. The cultural and social effects (e.g. cultural fragmentation) of key changes in society such as a new materialism caused by rise of the welfare state and new affluence had been explained with the help of an emerging teenage culture. For many Brits, a new materialism had shaped the arrival of modern teenage culture in Britain and for consuming fashion, music, and other lifestyle products, in post-war times now produced for the average working-­ class kid, a well-functioning job market was important. The notion of affluence, in society attached to booming teenage culture in the 1960s, was widely associated with good job opportunities. A close look, however, reveals that such attributions were to a large extent part of an imagination of teenage lifestyle rather than matching the reality. While indeed unemployment was low in the early 1960s and the shift into a high- and post-industrial society, accompanied by the opening of higher education for working-class offspring, allowed upper-working-class kids to partially transcend their class background, the majority was still chained to the class of their family. This becomes in particular obvious when looking at indicators within the world of work apart from employment statistics. The case of Tottenham has shown in this book that working-class offspring often ended up in working-class jobs. Additionally, the reconstruction of daily work practices done in this book, in combination with a reading of studies and reports on job satisfaction, formed an interesting counter-narrative to the assumption of the 1960s as a decade shaped by a new classlessness. Generally speaking: the renegotiation of British identity, driven by the country’s youth, had been located by contemporaries within a fast-­ changing metropolitan culture. The world, and urban life in particular, was turned upside down and as the cultural preferences and the modes of cultural production associated with working-class youth was similarly soon discursively connected to the notion of modern British life, both types of renewal had been brought into dialogue. The book was able to surprisingly show to what extent this happened. Youth worker as well as contemporary witnesses linked the formation of working-class teenage culture to the fast-changing urban physical environment, particularly to the arrival of

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large housing estates, whereas on the other side some architects seriously reflected the new and old needs of working-class youth. Such interferences had been so fruitful and refreshing that they formed a narrative of social and cultural renewal, which gave British society the opportunity to disassociate itself from old-fashioned traditions of its Victorian past. The cultural awakening of the capital, driven and pushed by working-class youth, reinvented Britain as a country that no longer ruled the world in politics but the world of fashion, music, and lifestyle and lured young people from all over the globe to London to see with their own eyes how a modern and youthful Britain look like. Here, visitors experienced how young Londoners negotiated social and cultural change on a local level. First signs of gentrification, social polarisation, but also the multiculturalisation of neighbourhood life penetrated the process of young people’s up-growing. Their reactions to such changes were shaped by ambiguities and contradictions although at the same time the slow, but ongoing local process of finding a common cultural language meant that British society was more than ever before able to see itself as a multicultural and ethnically diverse nation. Such changes—and their urban manifestations—had been also widely debated within pop-cultural artefacts. Popular music and fashion not just addressed working-class youth more than ever before—and in this sense provided working-class offspring with new opportunities of social participation—but lyrically as well as in terms of spatial concentration raised the question to what extent locality mattered within the process of up-­growing. Surprisingly, the book was able to show that the consumption as well as the production of popular culture was shaped by place and space at a time scholars describe as a period characterised by the dawn of the media society. If we think this further, the rapid increase of globalisation did not cause deterritorialisation but led people to ask how social, cultural, and economic effects of globalisation re-configured urban experiences. Rivalries between cities, for example, left a footprint on pop music and fashion culture and comparisons and competition gave rise to evaluating quality of life in a new way. The psycho-geography and identity of urban places in London, for a very long time shaped by Victorian motifs such as political strength and the imperial project, had been soon reframed by youth- and pop-cultural artefacts and mythologies. At the same time, pop-cultural commodities such as fashion allowed to materialise social and cultural change in the public sphere. Unisex clothes, for example, worn by kids on the streets of London, gave evidence about as well as aestheticised changing notions of gender in

428 

F. FUHG

a city which, thanks to the success of its designers and musicians, presented itself as a leading metropolis for popular culture. Against the idea of Britain as a country in post-war times determined by the arrival of the media society and a new degree of privacy caused by mass housing, working-class teenage culture was still performed and formulated within public and semi-public spaces. Driven by the new freedom and power, young Londoners were supplied with because of their demographic and economic impact within the city, the coffee bar, the night club, the street as well as spaces managed by local authorities such as parks discovered ordinary kids as their target group. While some of them saw the chance for making a good business with the needs of working-class kids, statutory or voluntary institutions such as youth clubs still felt that care-taking programmes as well as a somehow hidden educational mission was the only chance to guarantee social peace. This notion of living in a country threatened by the culture of its youth was both: the survival of an old and influential concern towards a broken Britain had, on the one hand, its historical roots in Victorian times whereas on the other hand, the discourse on teenage culture in Britain had been framed by the transnational debate on generational renewal and social and cultural change. For the late nineteenth century, for example, Peter K.  Andersson identifies a “prosperous subculture among young girls of the Victorian era which encouraged initiative, forthrightness, and agency, visible in retrospect mainly in the mid-nineteenth-century critique of the ‘girl of the period’”,1 which, of course, provoked moral panics. Many ingredients of the modern youth discourse in post-war times were not new at all. Jon Savage has shown in his stimulating book Teenage that the reciprocal relationship between mass media and the public notion of juvenile delinquency got a new quality in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. While it is true that in the lives and living conditions of young Londoners much has changed, certain dynamics of socialisation did not. The parameters, for example, popular among the media, politicians, and educationalists when looking in the early 1960s at the changing lifestyle of young Londoners give evidence to what extent values and moral standards, historically associated with Victorian Britain still dictated how Britons saw their own society. The powerful relationship between renewal and tradition at a time of political and cultural reinvention becomes obvious when looking at the meaning of space and place. The book, for example, has shown how space and place still mattered in a period, described by leading historians as the

10 CONCLUSION 

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begin of the era of modern globalisation. Post-war working-class youth culture illustrates that the process of identity-building, employment, and cultural sense-making of developments which were even connected to transnational flows of ideas and commodities were by no means disassociated from locality. Moreover, London’s youth still identified themselves with their neighbourhoods in the 1960s and the majority. At the same time, however, urban spaces and the everyday practices that shaped them had been more than ever before connected to other parts of the world. Apart from the circulation of consumer goods, produced and narrativised in faraway countries, migration to London linked the everyday spaces to societies on nearly every continent. Thereby, further research should take Doreen Massey’s observation seriously that a place “can only be constructed by linking that place to places beyond.”2 For her, a progressive sense of place would recognise that, “without being threatened by it” and consequently “a global sense of the local [is needed], a global sense of place”. While the book has shown at various stages, how the making of a post-­ Victorian identity of Britain—driven, pushed, and discursively attached to the country’s working-class youth—clashed with powerful and passed down notions of the Victorian past and social order, the book did not ask if, how, and to what extent the recalibration of self-narratives discussed in the various chapters survived the following decades. How sustainable were shifts within British identity initiated or associated with 1960s working-­ class youth culture? For the majority, the 1960s “were epitomized by the power of the people to push back against government, against prejudice, and against military” and “invokes the fantasy of a rupture after which the world became somehow irresistibly more youthful, more inclusive, more just”.3 But what did Britons themselves think at the end of the decade? As “decades are artificial measures clamped onto continuous stretches of time,”4 New Society asked in 1969 1071 Britons from the age of sixteen onwards to name developments and events which were striking for them. Answers not only differed between age groups but were also influenced by political orientations and class backgrounds. The interviewees named the increase of pensions as the most important political decision, followed by higher living standards. For the majority, however, new affluence did not neutralise inequality and class differences. Not everyone enjoyed the liberalisation of Britain and many disagreed with the decriminalisation of homosexuality and new divorce and abortion laws. The advent of space

430 

F. FUHG

travel, the murder of Kennedy, and the death of Churchill dominated collective memory. Fifty-seven per cent no longer saw Britain as one of the world’s great powers, and surprisingly—maybe thanks to the global success of Swinging London—it did not matter at all. National traditions had become irrelevant and even the leading role in the Commonwealth was of secondary importance.5 However, instead of a critical reflection of Britain’s imperial history, a cloak of silence obscured Britain’s transformation into a post-­ Victorian and thereby also post-imperial future. Imperial worldviews and the notion of superiority never fully disappeared. The majority of the people interviewed in the survey were still patriotic and could not imagine living anywhere else. Many, in particular younger citizens, explained their love for Britain now with the freedom of the individual. Older generations were expected to accept the new materialism young people had claimed for themselves in recent years.6 While in history books those developments are used to describe the 1960s as being a revolutionary decade shaped by a fast-changing society, people did not have to search too much to notice that Britain had not changed at all. Not everyone had new expectations for life and a great deal of people felt that the 1960s paved the way for “a better chance to lead a not-too-poor, not-to-insecure life”.7 There was still the contradiction between the cosiness and the illiberalism on the one hand, and the sensibility for freedom on the other hand, which shaped Britain and Britishness before and during the 1960s. Barker’s survey to some extent demystified the self-narrative of the decade, and whereas the answers of people had been affected by the economic weaknesses which spread across Britain when the interviewees answered the questions, it is worth examining whether the passage of time changed popular perspectives about the decade. Forthcoming research on Britain in the 1960s should accept such contradictions rather than trying to paint a homogeneous of the decade.

Notes 1. Andersson, How Civilized Were the Victorians?, 449. 2. Quoted after Listerborn, “Understanding the Geography of Women’s Fear”, 41. 3. Chaplin and Mooney, The Global 1960s, 1 f. 4. Paul Barker and John Hanvey, “Facing Two Ways: Between the 60s and 70s,” New Society, 27 November 1969.

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5. See also Louis, Ends of British Imperialism, 585. 6. Barker and Hanvey, “Facing Two Ways”. 7. Ibid.

Bibliography Andersson, Peter K. 2015. How Civilized Were the Victorians? Journal of Victorian Culture 20 (4): 439–452. Chaplin, Tamara, and Jadwiga E. Mooney. 2017. The Global 1960s: Convention, Contest, and Counterculture. London: Taylor & Francis. Listerborn, Carina. 2002. Understanding the Geography Women’s Fear: Toward a Reconceptualization of Fear and Space. In Subjectivities, Knowledges, and Feminist Geographies: The Subjects and Ethics of Social Research, ed. Liz Bondi, Hannah Avis, and Ruth Bankey, 34–44. Lanham et al.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Louis, William Roger. 2006. Ends of British Imperialism: The Scramble for Empire, Suez, and Decolonization. London/New York: I.B. Tauris.

Index1

A Abrams, Mark, 65, 66 Advertising, 40, 64, 65, 67, 252 Affluence, 9, 25, 30, 33, 38, 64, 68, 83, 84, 109, 130, 151, 153, 169, 172, 173, 246, 259, 270, 298, 333, 353, 426, 429 Albemarle Committee, 65 Albemarle Report, 117, 179, 363, 364, 367, 368, 370, 376 Alcohol, 37, 306, 336, 337, 344, 349, 356, 371 Alienation, 30, 84 Anti-apartheid movement, 29 Anti-racism, 184n48 Anti-urban lifestyle, 36 Antonioni, Michelangelo, 41 Apprenticeship, 75, 77, 79, 119 Asians, 31, 156, 157, 167, 265, 377, 380–383

Austerity, 27, 64, 75, 112, 298 Automation, 13, 69, 70, 75, 84–86, 89 B Ballroom, 66, 343–361, 375 Beat, 39, 127, 181, 213, 219, 220, 224, 226, 228, 257, 311, 354, 356, 359, 373 Beatles, The, 3, 4, 9, 26, 115, 118, 127, 207–209, 211, 212, 214–217, 219, 220, 222–225, 227–229, 254, 257, 262, 347, 357, 373 Beat movement/Beatniks, 39, 123, 301, 303, 340, 347 Becker, Howard S., 35 Berkoff, Steven, 172, 173, 341 Berry, Chuck, 210

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. Fuhg, London’s Working-Class Youth and the Making of Post-­Victorian Britain, 1958–1971, Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68968-1

433

434 

INDEX

Bethnal Green, 76, 121, 362 Betting and Gaming Act, 249, 295 Biba, 249, 252, 253, 255, 262 Billy Liar, 42 Black children, 81, 82, 154, 161–163 Black culture, 31, 156, 157, 214, 263, 342, 356–358, 360, 379 Black teenager, 16, 31, 80–83, 158, 163, 164, 167, 168, 264, 358, 376–378, 380 Blake, Peter, 43 Blue-collar, 71, 75, 76, 87, 89, 90 Bomb site, 108, 109, 294, 297, 298 Boroughs, 14, 76, 116, 158, 174, 223, 299, 304, 305, 307, 320n133, 335, 364, 381 Bourdieu, Pierre, 27 Bow Group, The, 26, 162 Britishness, 9, 14, 15, 31, 40, 43, 44, 63, 109, 110, 112, 113, 116, 117, 129, 131, 151–155, 157, 163, 166, 214–230, 245, 246, 258, 259, 297, 314, 425, 430 Brixton, 72, 122, 125, 155, 156, 158, 263, 357, 360, 381, 382 Broken Britain, 25, 88, 166, 428 Brooke, Henry, 37, 116 “Bulge, The,” 74, 77, 78 C Campaign Against Racial Discrimination, 81, 264 Campus life, 30 Career guidance, 77, 79, 80 Carnaby Street, 3, 111, 126, 127, 132, 133, 247, 249–251, 257, 258, 266, 271, 272, 353, 373 Carr Committee, The, 74 Cavern Club, 26 Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS), 4, 6, 10–12, 43, 68, 124, 154, 169, 300

Chain stores, 65, 255, 256, 260 Chelsea, 3, 116, 118, 128–132, 134, 177, 223, 247–249, 252, 263, 265, 267, 297, 343, 350 Childcare, 32, 36, 380 Christianity, 257 The Church, 3, 26, 33, 130, 161, 178, 180, 181, 223, 347–349, 351, 361, 367, 372, 379 Cinema, 2, 43, 66, 87, 227, 261, 299, 333, 334, 366–368 Clark, Dave, 6, 26, 222, 225, 226 Class, 3–16, 26–32, 34–36, 38–40, 42–44, 63–76, 78, 80, 82, 83, 86, 87, 89, 90, 107–144, 151–196, 212, 214, 219, 220, 222, 224, 227, 230, 245–247, 249, 252, 255, 257–261, 263, 265–267, 269–272, 291–294, 296, 297, 299–301, 308, 310, 312–314, 333–335, 337, 338, 340–342, 344, 351–354, 356–358, 360–364, 367, 370, 372, 373, 375, 376, 381, 382, 384, 425–429 Class differences, 29, 34, 65, 70, 71, 86, 429 Class discrimination, 38 Classless, 68, 70, 89, 169, 260, 426 Class society, 65, 90, 230 Clothes, 30, 31, 33, 34, 66, 90, 125, 133, 210, 246–248, 250, 252, 254–267, 269–272, 312, 427 CND, 29 Cockney, 40, 43, 129, 222, 226, 227, 300 Coffee bar, 5, 15, 16, 41, 66, 124, 128, 172, 173, 179–181, 219, 223, 247, 248, 254, 299, 334–343, 348–351, 353, 365, 370, 384, 428

 INDEX 

Cold War, 28, 39, 211 Colour bar, 16, 31, 81, 358, 359, 377 Commonwealth, The, 72, 74, 151, 152, 157, 162, 163, 209, 369, 430 Conran, Terence, 221, 247, 338 Consumer goods, 10, 64, 65, 68, 90, 117, 124, 125, 425, 429 Consumerism, 27, 28, 41, 63, 64, 68, 69, 109, 338 Consumer society, 4, 9, 27, 44, 63, 64, 68, 90, 107, 109, 124, 249, 256, 268, 340, 343 Contours, The, 63 Cosmetics, 67 Council estate, 14, 108, 112, 173, 175–180, 182, 360 Courtship, 372 Crime, 6, 15, 36, 37, 51n140, 121, 130, 131, 174, 176, 227, 297, 299–301, 306, 311, 334, 339, 344, 349, 350, 366 Criminal activity, 67, 173, 267, 350 Cultural commodities, 38, 68, 297, 427 D Dance hall, 16, 36, 66, 118, 333, 343–361, 370, 375 Davies, Ray, 126, 298 Decadence, 25, 27 Dekker, Desmond, 77 Demography, 76, 377 Discotheque, 16, 353 Discrimination, 38, 80–82, 90, 91, 156, 157, 160, 167, 357–359, 384, 436 Docks, 74 Domestic work, 32, 380 Downing Street, 1, 126

435

Drugs, 16, 30, 35, 36, 39, 42, 130, 160, 228, 297, 301, 311, 344, 346–348, 351, 353, 366 Duke of Edinburgh, the, 25, 78, 373 E East End, 8, 31, 40, 86, 111, 125, 167, 173, 174, 227, 259, 262, 267, 296, 305, 341, 367 East Village, 43 Economic change, 13, 26, 77, 88, 108, 169, 361 Education, 26, 27, 29, 32, 34, 68, 74, 75, 77–82, 85, 86, 127, 156, 161–163, 209, 347, 361, 363, 366, 371, 372, 375, 376, 378–380, 384, 426 Egalitarianism, 35, 70 Embourgeoisement, 68, 169 Empire, 1–3, 13, 15, 72, 112, 117, 126, 152–154, 207, 268, 272 Employment, 13, 30, 36, 65, 67, 69–90, 127, 170, 262, 270, 351, 371, 426, 429 Entertainment districts, 174, 248, 249, 297 Epstein, Brian, 208, 212, 223 Europe, continental, 16, 26, 34, 39, 40, 52n178, 112, 120, 153, 210, 212, 213, 256, 258, 265, 292, 308, 309, 336, 348, 369 F Fabians, The, 26 Factory work, 71, 88, 116 Faith, Adam, 123, 208, 210, 336 Femininity, 33, 269, 272, 372 Foreign youth, 120, 369 See also Young foreigners

436 

INDEX

Fragmentation, 16, 33, 35, 43, 44, 68, 171, 173, 174, 176, 207, 246, 266, 340, 343, 363, 368, 375, 383, 426 France, 39, 75, 210, 262, 309, 345 Future, 2–4, 7–10, 13, 25, 26, 28, 41, 63, 74, 75, 78, 84, 86, 107, 109, 110, 115, 130, 152, 157, 212, 230, 268, 269, 298, 312, 367, 384, 430 G Gagarin, Yuri, 27 Gang culture, 36, 87, 130, 181, 226 Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, 32 Gee, Cecil, 259, 260 Gender, 16, 31–33, 44, 76, 79, 109, 121, 269, 270, 272, 346, 370–372, 427 Generation, 2, 6, 7, 10, 12, 13, 25–44, 66, 74, 83, 84, 109, 117, 123, 130, 154, 159, 171, 176, 223, 246, 252, 266, 298, 312, 340, 344, 356, 369, 384, 426, 430 Generation X, 12, 27, 345, 346 Gilbert, Eugen, 67 Global city, 7, 72, 73, 112, 154, 170 Goldthorpe, John, 70 Grammar-school, 75, 162, 362 H Haight-Ashbury, 43, 131, 265 Higher education, 27, 77, 78, 86, 426 Hippies, 35, 43, 87, 121, 265, 300–302, 307 Hoggart, Richard, 71, 113, 169–171 Holiday, 80, 120, 210, 245, 308–313 Home Secretary, 36–37, 157, 382 Hooliganism, 6, 31, 177, 300, 301, 306

Housing market, 120, 158, 171, 296 Hunt Committee, 379, 382–384 Huxley, Julian, 33 Hydrogen bomb, 27 I Immigrants, 81, 151, 152, 154, 156–158, 162, 164, 169, 215, 217, 262, 264, 296, 337, 341, 342, 356, 360, 361, 377–380, 382, 383 Industrial production, 74, 257 Industrial Training Boards, 77, 78, 119 Industries, 6, 13, 15, 40, 69, 70, 72, 74–79, 87, 90, 110, 112, 118, 126, 133, 134, 207, 211, 215, 219–221, 223, 224, 227, 245–272, 299, 300, 308–311, 350, 354, 371 Inner city, 68, 114, 116, 170–174, 294, 337 Inner London Education Authority (ILEA), 74, 380 International division of labour, 72 Internationalisation, 209, 218 Islington, 262, 295, 377, 379 J Jagger, Mick, 28, 301 Japan, 39, 75, 209, 211 Jazz, 160, 208, 213, 214, 218, 254, 259, 260, 306, 336, 339, 350, 356–358 Jewish Youth, 159, 167, 379 Job-changing, 86, 88, 89 Jobs, 13, 30, 63, 70–72, 74–90, 97n195, 118, 119, 224, 291, 369, 370, 426 Job satisfaction, 81, 83, 88, 426 Jones, Brian, 217

 INDEX 

Jukebox, 124, 336–338, 342, 350 Juvenile courts, 37, 118, 267, 350 Juvenile delinquency, 6, 15, 27, 29, 34, 36–38, 76, 80, 118, 167, 299, 369, 428 K Kennedy, John F., 26, 430 King’s Road, 3, 130, 133, 134, 247–250, 252, 256, 265, 269, 272, 340, 395n280 Kinks, The, 151, 226, 298 L Labour market, 44, 67, 69, 70, 72, 74–80, 82, 85, 88, 90, 117, 161 Labour Party, 28, 29, 156, 308 Laurie, Peter, 27, 312 Leisure culture, 68, 71, 87, 88, 108, 166, 336, 342, 366, 370 Leisure facilities, 34, 84, 120, 172, 174, 177, 303, 312, 333, 348, 350, 367 Leningrad, 39 Licensing Act, 128, 349 Lifestyle, 4, 29, 36, 39, 41, 42, 63, 64, 70, 72, 87, 90, 117, 125, 126, 129–132, 157, 171–174, 217, 218, 227, 228, 246, 248, 269, 292, 297, 304, 309, 311, 334, 336, 338, 341, 355, 426, 428 Liverpool, 1, 3, 26, 38, 211, 213, 218–223, 226, 227, 250, 336, 358 Local authorities, 10, 12, 31, 34, 69, 82, 84, 120, 122, 134, 170, 177, 178, 180, 293, 304, 305, 314, 334, 335, 347, 349, 361, 363, 367, 428

437

Lower East Side, 43, 131 Lyceum, 72, 123, 134, 345, 349, 356 M Macmillan, Harold, 1, 4, 64, 70, 127, 152, 175 Maleness, 31 Manchester, 38, 119, 250, 302, 352, 358 Mannheim, Karl, 27 Manufacturing, 27, 72, 74, 75, 78 Manufacturing industries, 27, 74, 75, 78 Marks and Spencer, 81 Marriage, 32, 156, 161, 218, 254, 372 Mass culture, 34, 113, 169, 374 Mass production, 4, 15, 64, 117, 246, 247, 270, 272 Material culture, 10, 36, 44, 154, 213 Mays, John Barron, 6, 27, 39, 339 McGowan, Cathy, 224, 250, 262 Milk bar, 338, 339, 386n52 Modernism, 8, 43, 108–117 Moscow, 39, 40, 129, 257, 346 Motown, 63, 356 Multi-racial London, 152 Music business, 67, 213, 222, 226 Music club, 15, 16, 42, 127, 254, 343, 344, 357 N National Association of Boys’ Clubs(NABC), 38, 368, 369 National Service, 37, 63, 66, 74, 78, 311 New towns, 116, 158, 344, 360, 363 New York, 43, 112, 126, 127, 131, 158, 208, 252, 257, 345, 369

438 

INDEX

Nightlife, 3, 16, 43, 249, 343, 345, 346, 348, 350, 354, 356, 359 North, The, 41, 74, 222, 223, 227, 250, 312 Northerness, 220, 221 Northern teenagers, 250 North London, 123, 163, 167, 168, 354, 359 Notion of class, 68, 170 Notting Hill riots, 165–167, 376 O Office blocks, 72, 113, 114, 170 Offices, 13, 67, 71, 72, 80, 83, 85, 87, 90, 112–114, 119, 170, 362, 384 Organisation of production, 69 Organised crime, 131, 227, 300, 350 Oxford Street, 72, 81, 223 P Paki-bashing, 167 Pakistanis, 31, 167, 264 Paris, 39, 127, 210, 232n45, 257, 261, 262, 264, 270, 345 Parks, 6, 108, 113, 120, 174, 178, 252, 292, 296, 301, 303–308, 360, 428 Playground, 177, 216, 248, 294, 297, 300, 339 Playgroups, 163, 164 Pocket money, 63, 67 Post-industrial society, 13, 426 Powell, Enoch, 156, 378 Prince Buster, 217, 356 Protest, 3, 29, 38, 39, 114, 122, 134, 151, 163, 211, 212, 264, 267, 268, 293, 301, 347, 350, 355, 358, 364 Public transport, 67, 122, 123, 313, 344

Q Quant, Mary, 41, 133, 247–249, 252, 255, 256, 258, 267, 268, 340 Queen, the, 26, 208, 212, 256 R Race relations, 31, 81, 152, 155–158, 160–164, 167, 184n60, 213, 343, 356–358, 377, 382 Race Relations Act, 81, 82, 157 Race riots, 13, 31, 153, 164, 377 Rachman, Peter, 158 Racism, 13, 31, 80–82, 152, 156, 158, 160–164, 167, 168, 263, 342, 356–360, 378, 381, 383 See also Discrimination; Racist attitudes Racist attitudes, 81, 162, 167 Rationalisation, 70, 84 Rationing, 41, 172, 245, 333 Rat race, 34, 35, 39, 71, 86 Ready Steady Go!, 210, 344, 345, 356 Rebels without Reason, 65 Records, 9, 10, 16, 66, 75, 77, 80, 83, 86, 90, 124, 181, 207, 211, 212, 215–218, 222, 225, 228, 262, 267, 291, 293, 296, 336, 343–345, 351, 353, 375 Reggae, 160, 163, 357 Regions, 41, 42, 67, 72, 76, 132, 218, 221–223, 256 Religion, 33, 44 Representation of the People Act 1969, 26 Richard, Cliff, 208–210, 213, 233n79, 260, 310 Rock Around the Clock, 38, 333 Rockers, 31, 33, 34, 36, 122, 124, 125, 246, 303, 311, 312 Role/function of work, 63, 71 Rolling Stones, The, 32, 217, 221, 223, 297

 INDEX 

Routines, 70, 72, 299 Royal Family, 257 Running costs, 124, 353 Rural life, 43, 221 Russia, 40, 211, 346, 369 S Sassoon, Vidal, 270 School-leaver, 74–78, 80–90, 161 Scotland Yard, 31 Seaside town riots, 31, 36, 122, 127, 313, 368 Seaside towns, 42, 310–313 Secondary-modern, 75 Second World War, 1, 32, 81, 110, 248, 255, 303, 361 Secularisation, 38 Self-determination, 32, 267, 307 Service sector, 27, 69, 74, 76 7-inch single, 67 Sexuality, 3, 6, 32, 166, 271, 300, 349, 360, 372, 375, 426 Shapiro, Helen, 224–226, 356 Shoplifting, 120, 133, 267 Shopping district, 132 Ska, 217, 227, 358, 359 Skiffle, 212, 223, 248, 339, 350, 387n73 Skilled work, 71 Skinheads, 6–8, 31, 35, 36, 40, 43, 65, 68, 80, 86, 123, 154, 156, 167, 169, 176, 250, 300, 303, 307, 311, 360–362 Small Faces, The, 209, 221, 228, 297, 298 Smashing Time, 42 Smoking, 28, 181 Social equality, 75, 129 Social inequality, 64, 175 Social mobility, 36, 70, 78, 298–300

439

Soho, 3, 28, 118, 122, 125, 128, 130, 131, 134, 222, 248, 250, 262, 297, 300, 301, 336, 340, 342, 344, 350–353, 356 Soul, 128, 216, 300, 358, 359 South London, 40, 73, 113, 116, 159, 378 Soviet Union, 39, 257, 346 Spiv, 39, 294 Stamford Hill, 160, 167 Stoke Newington, 77, 167, 225, 361 Street, The, 1, 4, 6, 15, 107, 108, 115, 121, 132, 133, 156, 161, 164, 166–168, 245, 248, 251, 252, 255, 265, 293, 294, 296–299, 303, 307, 314, 344, 358, 368, 427, 428 Subcultural identities, 31, 33, 35, 39, 42, 86, 87, 228 Suburban, 5, 16, 41, 64, 114, 116, 118, 121, 122, 132, 172, 176, 226, 354, 355 Suez Crisis, 2, 9, 27, 207 Summer of Love, 30 Swinging London, 3, 4, 14, 40, 41, 72, 74, 110, 114, 116, 120, 125–134, 151, 257–259, 298, 301, 307, 334, 346, 353, 430 T Teddy Boys, 9, 13, 29, 31, 35, 39, 40, 42, 123, 154, 164, 245, 247, 291, 299, 309, 311, 334, 340, 362, 373 Teenage market, 9, 28, 34, 38, 67, 253, 255, 368 Teenage riots, 38, 121, 307, 310 Thompson, E. P., 34 Tiles (club), 72, 352

440 

INDEX

Tottenham, 76, 123, 222, 226, 348, 426 Trade unions, 13, 75, 89, 156 Twiggy, 70, 224, 258 U Unemployment, 74–76, 86, 127, 371, 426 UNESCO, 29 United States of America, 67, 69, 72, 208, 210–212, 355 Universities, 11, 34, 37, 83, 90, 153, 308, 369 Unskilled work, 78, 89, 90 Urban culture, 38, 109, 300, 339 US Army, 38, 213 V Vandalism, 28, 36–38, 177, 305–307, 335 Vietnam War, 29, 210 Villages, 41, 43, 134, 219, 226, 252, 309 Voting age, 26 W Wages, 64, 67, 70, 79, 85, 87 Welfare state, 4, 84, 107, 129, 151, 152, 366, 426 West Coast, 43, 214, 265, 353 West End, 130, 208, 255, 262, 266, 267, 301, 340, 344, 345, 348–350, 354–356, 358, 360 West Indians, 31, 81, 82, 151, 154, 158, 160, 161, 163, 215, 217, 227, 263, 356, 358, 361, 377, 378, 380, 382–384

See also Black children; Black teenager Westminster, 29, 72, 116, 172, 177, 178, 180, 255, 310 What’s Wrong With Britain movement, 75 White-collar, 71, 76, 81, 89, 270 Wilson, Harold, 3, 26, 64, 70, 75, 245, 383 Wimpy bar, 168, 341, 342 Wolfenden, John, 28 Work, 7, 10, 12, 13, 30–32, 35–37, 63–99, 108, 112, 119, 123, 131, 154, 162, 172, 173, 175, 176, 178–182, 209, 218, 219, 252, 270, 291–293, 299, 312, 342, 349–351, 354, 357, 361–363, 365–371, 373–375, 377, 379, 380, 382, 426 Workforce, 26, 72, 74, 77–79, 86, 87, 117, 300 Working-class attitudes, 66 Working-class identity, 66, 74, 151, 171, 212, 227 Working-class jobs, 76, 426 Working-class neighbourhoods, 5, 7, 9, 14, 40, 42, 76, 134, 151, 169–182, 225, 258, 272, 294, 297, 313, 382 Working-class taste, 34, 66 Working hours, 13, 69 Work-leisure, 13, 69 Work practices, 69, 71, 89, 426 Y You Are What You Eat, 43 Young foreigners, 40

 INDEX 

Youth clubs, 117, 160, 166, 179–181, 224, 310, 339, 340, 362–367, 370, 371, 373–375, 377–381 Youth Employment Service (YES), 69–82, 119 Youth scene, 11, 12, 15, 39, 42, 111, 172, 263, 348, 370

441

Youth service, 16, 33, 34, 117, 119, 160, 166, 180, 181, 224, 309, 323n196, 339, 343, 361–367, 369–371, 374–381 Youth violence, 31 Z Zombies, The, 209 Zweig, Ferdinand, 70